The Superhero's Strike

by Lucas Flint

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

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  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  PREVIEW: The Superhero's Clone Chapter One

  Other books by Lucas Flint

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  About the Author

  THE SUPERHERO'S STRIKE

  Lightning Bolt Book #4

  Lucas Flint

  Published by Secret Identity Books. An imprint of Annulus Publishing.

  Copyright © Lucas Flint 2018. All rights reserved.

  Contact: luke@lucasflint.com

  Cover design by Damonza

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, send an email to the above contact.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  I flew as fast as I could through the air, pushing my body to its absolute limit to keep up with the roaring airplane beside me. Between the howling wind all around me and the loud airplane engines, I could barely hear myself think, but I could still see the smoke rising out of one of the engines quite clearly as the plane struggled to remain in the air. The pilot must have been really good, because so far he had managed to keep it in the air against all odds, but sooner or later the engine would burn out and the entire thing would go crashing down.

  Unless, that is, I could stop it. Which was looking increasingly unlikely with every passing second.

  I looked ahead. Through an opening in the clouds, I saw the Showdown City Airport stretched out before us. Showdown itself stood a little farther off, but not too far away. Assuming the plane made it to the landing stripe, I could easily see it crash into the airport’s main terminal, which would not only kill most of the passengers, but a good chunk of the airport workers and people waiting for their flights. That just made it all the more imperative I stop the plane.

  I tried to get under one of the wings to keep it in the air, but with nothing to grab, I just slid off, forcing me to use a combination of my super speed and flight powers to catch up. I caught glimpses of terrified passengers through the windows on the Alpha Airlines plane, but at the moment there was nothing I could do to assure them that everything was going to be okay.

  “Bolt!” said Valerie in my ear, her volume turned up unusually high so I could hear her above the roaring of the plane’s engines and the whipping wind all around me. “What is the status of Alpha Airlines Flight Two Seven Four?”

  “Not good,” I said. “Smoke from the engine is getting worse and the pilot is barely keeping the thing airborne. Looks like it’s going to fall out of the sky any second. Tell Brains and Vanish to evacuate the airport. It’s gonna be ugly.”

  “Affirmative,” said Valerie.

  My earcoms clicked off, but hearing Valerie’s voice reminded me of I got into this situation in the first place.

  Less than an hour ago, the pilot of Alpha Airlines Flight 274—inbound from Chicago—had reported that one of the plane’s engines had failed for reasons unknown when they were about an hour out from the Showdown City Airport. He estimated that the plane would be unable to land safely and that they needed help to make sure it didn’t crash.

  That was where I came in. When we got a message from the police informing us of this, Brains sent me to intercept the plane and do what I could to help it. My superpowers were well-suited for this sort of thing and I even had experience intercepting giant objects falling from the sky. It had seemed easy, so, of course, I didn’t hesitate to head out from the Braindome to catch up with the plane, which I found easily enough with Valerie’s help.

  The problem was that I had underestimated just how big, fast, and loud airplanes could be. This wasn’t a tiny two-person plane that a hobbyist might fly for fun. This was a full-sized commercial airline plane run by Alpha Airlines, one of the biggest airplane companies in the world. This particular model was the biggest they had, capable of holding over 850 passengers at once. According to the pilot, they didn’t have quite that many passengers on board, but it was pretty darn full and that meant it was even heavier than it normally was.

  And worse, it got faster and faster the closer it got to the airport. If I didn’t do something quick—

  Suddenly, the smoking engine exploded. Shrapnel and smoke flew back toward me, which I barely managed to avoid, forcing myself to fly up through the clouds to avoid getting hit.

  That was when I noticed the plane was falling now, the nose dipping toward the ground. At that angle, it wouldn’t even reach the airport. It would just crash straight to the ground and kill every single passenger on board.

  No time to think. Just act.

  I activated my super speed and rushed toward the plane, going underneath it. Activating my super strength, I grabbed the underside of the airplane Atlas-style and pushed up.

  It was heavy. I had lifted plenty of heavy things throughout my superhero career and, thanks to my super strength, most of it was easy. But I’d never tried to lift an entire airplane full of nearly a thousand people, plus their luggage and anything else on board. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest as I pushed the airplane up, but I ignored that and focused entirely on keeping this thing airborne.

  To my relief, I could feel the plane righting itself already, rising inch by inch as I pushed against it with every muscle in my body. In my mind’s eye, I could imagine the pilot and passengers alike being confused at this turn of events, wondering why they weren’t falling to their deaths like a stone thrown off a cliff. It would have brought a smile to my face if I wasn’t already using my face muscles and every other muscle in my body to keep this thing up.

  But maybe they weren’t going to survive after all, because we were now on course for a direct crash into the landing stripe. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t force the airplane to stay up. Nor could I make it change direction. All I could do was watch as the black asphalt of the landing stripe grew closer and closer. At this rate, even I wouldn’t survive a direct crash like this. At
least the passengers had the plane itself to take most of the impact. I, on the other hand, was going to take the brunt of the crash. At least I would probably instantly die upon impact, but that wasn’t a very comforting thought.

  Just as the plane broke through the last of the cloud cover, it came to an abrupt stop in midair. The stop was so abrupt that I was thrown off the underside of the plane and crashed into the landing stripe, landing flat on my back. Though the fall was far from lethal, it did jar me and make my head spin for a moment before I shook my head and looked up.

  I found myself staring directly up the nose of the massive Alpha Airlines plane hanging in the air above me. I could dimly make out the terrified and confused faces of the pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit, but I was more focused on the fact that the airplane itself had simply stopped in midair like someone had grabbed it with their hand. A part of me feared that the airplane would simply crash down on top of me, which would definitely kill me no matter how strong I was.

  “Hey, Bolt,” said a familiar voice behind me. “Long time, no see.”

  Startled by the voice, I looked up and saw a superhero standing behind me, holding out one hand toward the airplane, the other on his hip. He wore a costume similar to mine in design, except blue and yellow, and he had a cool cape as well. He looked to be about my age and had a lean, athletic body, with dark brown hair and deep black eyes which were looking at me with a degree of amusement.

  Although it had been a while since I saw him, I had no trouble recognizing the hero who stood above me now. “Strike? What are you doing here?”

  Strike’s friendly smile disappeared, replaced by a troubled frown. “Dizzy is missing, Bolt. And I need your help to find her.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Before I could ask Strike what he meant, he slowly waved his outstretched hand. The airplane started moving again, but instead of crashing into the landing stripe, it slowly but surely floated by overhead. It floated for quite a few feet until Strike set it down further down the landing stripe, near the terminal. As soon as he set it down, the entrance popped open and a large inflatable slide popped out, which scared passengers immediately began sliding down. Police and emergency workers alike swarmed the plane, helping the terrified and confused-looking passengers get into the terminal, although I saw more than a few passengers—mostly elderly ones—being directed to the emergency vehicles sitting not too far away from the plane itself.

  I imagined that most of those passengers were going to suffer severe trauma after this, but at least they were alive. That situation could have ended so much worse than it did.

  Strike held out a hand toward me suddenly. “Need a hand?”

  Feeling slightly embarrassed by my position, I took Strike’s hand and he helped me up. “Thanks, man. If you hadn’t caught the plane like that with your telekinesis, everyone would have died.”

  “Magnetism,” Strike corrected. “I simply used my magnetism to catch the plane and move it.”

  “Right, magnetism,” I said, nodding. I rubbed my back, which ached from the pressure I had put on it. “You sure made it look easy.”

  “Trust me, it wasn’t,” said Strike, shaking his head. “I’ve moved big things before, but catching a plane of that size and putting it down? You don’t know how hard that is.”

  I had the feeling Strike was trying not to brag, which was just like him. Strike was the team leader of the New Heroes, a team of young superheroes for the Independent Neoheroes for Justice, just like the Young Neos were for the Neohero Alliance. The two of us didn’t always get along, but we had come to respect each other as leaders and superheroes in our own right ever since we first met each other. It had been a long time, though, since we last spoke to each other, although Strike looked about the same as always, though his suit looked different.

  “Regardless, you saved those people when I couldn’t,” I said. “I tried my best, but those airplanes are way heavier than they look.”

  “No doubt,” said Strike in agreement. “Anyway, with that out of the way—”

  “Strike!” said a female voice all of a sudden. “Mr. Strike!”

  Startled, the two of us looked over and saw what looked like a whole mob of journalists and reporters—complete with cameramen—rushing toward us across the tarmac. Soon we were surrounded on all sides by dozens of journalists, each one shoving phones in our faces as they attempted to interview us.

  “Mr. Strike!” said one of the journalists, a young woman with curly brown hair and a tag that identified her as ‘SHERRIE BROWN, USNN.’ “My name is Sherrie Brown and I am from the United States News Network. Can you tell us your initial thoughts on saving nearly a thousand people in one go?”

  A middle-aged man with gray hair suddenly shoved Sherrie out of the way and thrust his own phone in Strike’s startled face. “Mr. Strike, my name is James Costa from Neo Ranks News. Where do you put this on your impressive list of accomplishments? Is this near the top or closer to the bottom? Would you put this on par with your defeat of the supervillain Tsunami or—?”

  Strike held up his hands as if fending off a wild animal. “Hey, I didn’t do this by myself. Bolt here helped as well.”

  I tried to smile and look friendly, but I’ll admit to being a little jealous of all the attention Strike was getting. I knew Strike was really popular and had a tendency to command attention from people wherever he went, but it was still annoying that they all acted like Strike was the only guy who saved those people and completely ignored me. At least I knew Strike didn’t intentionally seek out fame, which made me feel a little better.

  Some of the reporters glanced at me, but the rest were all focused on getting the scoop directly from Strike. I could tell that Strike was feeling increasingly uncomfortable with all of the attention he was getting, but with reporters mobbing us on every side, it wasn’t like Strike could just walk away. Nor could I, for that matter, not without shoving aside reporters. But we also couldn’t talk to each other with these people mobbing us, so I needed a distraction.

  Suddenly, I pointed in a random direction and said, “Hey, is that President Plutarch dancing naked on top of the airport?”

  That did the trick. All of the reporters and cameramen turned their attention to the airport itself. Before they found out I was lying, I grabbed Strike’s arm and twisted my Teleportation Buckle.

  An instant later, Strike and I were standing on top of the Braindome in downtown Showdown, well away from the city airport. I let go of Strike, who didn’t seem very bothered by the teleportation.

  He did, however, look at me with a raised eyebrow. “Plutarch dancing naked on the airport? That’s an … interesting mental image.”

  I shrugged. “Media bait. The media is really obsessed with Plutarch for some reason, so I figured if I made up some outrageous lie about him, it would distract them long enough for us to escape.”

  Strike chuckled. “Frankly, I’m just jealous I didn’t think of it first. Last time I got mobbed by a bunch of reporters, I had to make up a lie about being late for a date with that singer, Carly Kendall. That also made all the gossip sites run articles on people speculating that I’m dating her. Some of them even said Carly and I got secretly married and eloped to Uzbekistan, of all places.”

  “I never get that kind of coverage from the media,” I commented. “Then again, I’m not sure I want it.”

  “It’s not as fun as it looks,” said Strike with a shrug. “Used to really bother me, but after a while, it becomes a game where you try to figure out the most ridiculous lies you can make and see how much the media will believe it. You’d be surprised at some of the fake rumors I planted out there which a lot of mainstream journalists still insist are totally true, despite not having any evidence for them.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at that. I hadn’t known this side of Strike before, but it was nice to see he had a sense of humor, at least. “That’s hilarious. Anyway, I think we should have some privacy here. The Braindome has a pretty strict ‘n
o journalists’ policy so you won’t have to worry about being mobbed by reporters here.”

  “Wonderful,” said Strike. He looked around at the buildings surrounding us. “Showdown is a lot bigger than I thought it was. Looked small on all the maps I consulted.”

  “Yeah, it’s size is deceptive,” I said. “And it’s definitely not boring. Lots of supervillains and criminals around here. Keeps us busy.”

  “Right,” said Strike. “Anyway, now that we’re alone, I should explain why I’m here.”

  “You said Dizzy was missing,” I said. “Right?”

  Strike nodded. “Yeah, she is.”

  I knew who Dizzy was. She was Strike’s girlfriend and another member of the New Heroes. I didn’t know her all that well, but I did know that she could induce dizziness and confusion in other people, hence her name. “What happened to her? Was she kidnapped?”

  Strike folded his arms over his chest. “I think so, but …”

  “But what?” I said, tilting my head to the side. “If she’s been kidnapped, then we have to find her.”

  “Yes, but it’s slightly more complicated than that,” said Strike. “Strike that, it’s way more complicated than that.”

  I frowned. “How much more complicated can a kidnapping be?”

  Strike sighed. “Because she wasn’t just kidnapped. She is still here … sort of.”

  “Okay, you’re not making any sense now,” I said. “Maybe you should start from the beginning. How did it begin?”

  Strike looked away suddenly as if trying to think of how to describe his situation. “Even starting from the beginning is too complicated. I might as well just put it as bluntly as I can: The NHA kidnapped her. And I want her back.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “No way,” I said, shaking my head. “The NHA didn’t kidnap Dizzy.”

  Strike looked at me, this time with harsher eyes. “I would like to think the same thing, Bolt, but the evidence I’ve found points in that direction. Someone in your organization kidnapped Dizzy. And I suspect that that person is somewhere here in Showdown, along with Dizzy, though what they’re doing with her, I don’t know. It can’t be good, though.”