And his power? His abilities? Who knows? He seems almost indestructible.
Quinn, his daughter, is a chameleon: she has the ability to look like anyone. Me. You. Anyone. Can she and her father be trusted? I think so, but the other members of our team aren’t so sure. Many people seem to be one thing but are really something else. And I don’t just mean people with superpowers. I mean people in life.
Can I trust Ferdy, Dan, Chad, Ebony, and Brodie? Yes.
And people outside our group? Who knows? There’s a bounty on our heads. Plenty of people want us in jail. Or worse.
Trust is a big issue. It can save your life or get you killed. And there are worse things than death.
Really? I hear you say. Like what?
Well, read on and find out.
Chapter One
‘Did you hear that?’ Brodie asked.
I was with the others—Brodie, Chad, Dan, Ebony, and Quinn—in a deserted alley on the wrong side of town. Abandoned factories with padlocked doors led off both sides. Across the tops of the factories were louvre windows, dusty and broken. The roof of a building further down the alley was blackened and sooty; it had been damaged by fire. The sky above was clear and azure blue, and there was a stillness to the day. There was no sound of traffic. No birdsong. No voices.
‘I didn’t hear anything,’ I said.
‘Me neither,’ Quinn said.
I saw Chad shoot her a glance. He didn’t trust Quinn. We had met her when she had been forced to work with a terrorist organization known as E-Group. Holding her father hostage, they had coerced her into gaining my trust and pretending to be my girlfriend from my old life. After discovering her true motives, I had convinced her to work with me to save him and the rest of the team.
‘You don’t have supersonic hearing?’ Chad asked.
She glared at him. ‘You know I don’t,’ she said. ‘I’m a chameleon, not Super Ear!’
‘We don’t know what your powers are.’
‘Chad,’ Ebony said, frowning.
‘Everyone shut up!’ Brodie snapped. ‘Stay focused on the mission.’
Chad looked like he wanted to argue, but then a small girl, no older than five, stepped into the street. She was shoeless, her face grimy, wearing a torn pink dress. Rubbing her face, she looked like she’d just awoken.
‘Hey, honey,’ Brodie called in a friendly voice. ‘Are you here alone?’
As we approached, the girl nodded. ‘I’ve lost my daddy,’ she said. ‘He fell over when the tiger came.’
Tiger?
‘Where’s the tiger now?’ I asked as Dan lifted her up.
‘I don’t know,’ the girl said.
‘What’s your name?’ Dan asked.
‘Steffie.’
‘We’re going to find your daddy, Steffie,’ Dan said. ‘I promise.’
Dan was the youngest of our group. I wanted to tell him we shouldn’t promise things we weren’t sure we could deliver, but he could be a little touchy sometimes. His animosity was easy to understand. Chad often riled him because of his size and age.
The rest of us treated Dan with mucho respect. He had come a long way. Not only had Dan mastered the piloting of our ship, Liber8tor, but he even had a working knowledge of the engines that ran it. That was pretty impressive for a fourteen-year-old kid.
A sound came from a nearby building.
‘Did you hear that?’ I asked.
‘It sounded like a groan,’ Ebony said.
She went over to the door and touched it, turning it to oxygen. The interior was gloomy, with piles of broken concrete scattered across the floor. Lying between two piles of rubble was the body of a man.
We hurried inside.
‘Careful,’ I said. ‘If there’s a tiger—’
A lot of things happened at once.
A muffled sound came from behind me. I turned to see Dan still on the street. He was wrestling with the little girl in his arms—except she had changed into some kind of gray octopus. It had its arms and legs wrapped around him. Dan’s face filled with panic as he struggled to breathe.
Crash!
The floor behind the man exploded, sending shards of concrete flying everywhere. I threw up an air barrier as Chad created a wall of ice, deflecting most of it. Brodie cartwheeled towards the motionless man. I yelled a warning but was too late. She grabbed the man’s arm, but he transformed into another gray octopus.
More rubble was pushed aside, and something that looked like a jellyfish emerged. Beneath its translucent skin was a single glaring eye, filled with hatred. Obviously, this creature was some distant cousin of the other monsters. It started slithering towards Brodie. I took a step towards her, but Chad grabbed my arm.
‘Help Dan!’ he snapped.
This was no time to argue. I ran for the door, but a metal plate slid across, blocking my exit. I fired an air cannonball at it, denting the metal, but not breaking through. Leaping into the air, I rode a raft of air straight up, fired more blasts at the windows and flew out. By the time I reached the ground outside, Dan had turned bright red. He was rolling in the dirt, trying to fight off the creature.
‘Hold on,’ I yelled.
Concentrating on the air between Dan and the creature, I dragged two of its arms away. For a second, Dan was able to take a desperate breath, but then more arms sprung from its body. It had more than eight arms. I imagined it could produce a hundred if required.
‘Now,’ I said, ‘that’s just unfair.’
The single eye glaring at me, the creature opened a thin mouth, emitting a venomous hiss. It gave me an idea.
This won’t be pretty.
Concentrating on the air in the creature’s lungs, I made it expand, blowing up the creature like a balloon. The hatred in its eyes grew ever more terrible but turned to panic when it realized what I was doing.
‘Sorry,’ I said, although I wasn’t.
Seconds later, the thing exploded, sending gray flesh and goo in all directions. Dan, gasping for air, slowly stood.
‘Thanks,’ he muttered.
‘All in a day’s work. Let’s see to the others.’
The metal door was easy for Dan. He focused on it, ripped it off the doorframe, and hurled it aside. By now, Chad had snap-frozen the creature on Brodie and was snapping it off her like breaking limbs from a tree.
Ebony was doing her best to deal with the mother of the creatures, but it wasn’t easy. She was using her powers to create metal spears in the air and firing them at the monster. It now had a dozen sticking out of it like a giant whale, but it was still moving forward. I shot air cannonballs at it as Chad aimed a fiery blast at its head.
In all this, Quinn had stood helplessly to one side. Now she ran at the monster.
‘No!’ I yelled.
She ignored me. Within seconds she had scrambled up it like a child might climb a small hill. She pulled out one of the spears. Reaching its head, Quinn lifted the spear high and plunged it into its eye. There was an instant when it froze, then it went wild, rearing backward and tossing Quinn into the air.
I flew towards her, catching her before she hit the ground
As we landed, the creature gave a final shudder before expiring. Quinn’s attack had killed it but at the risk of her own life. The others hurried over.
‘Nice work,’ Ebony said.
‘But dangerous,’ Brodie said, frowning. ‘We need to work together as a team.’
Chad rolled his eyes. ‘Team.’
I sighed. Chad was a friend, but he was still the single-most painful person I’d ever known. He was judgemental, impatient, and a know-it-all. This constant attack on Quinn wasn’t going to get us anywhere.
‘At least we weren’t in any real danger,’ Dan said.
‘Not true.’
The voice came from all around us. The simulation shimmered and faded, showing us the VR—Virtual Reality—training room at the heart of Asgard base. The room was a hundred feet in diameter, but the computer at its heart could make it lo
ok like any size and populate it with anything.
Robert Okada, Quinn’s father, appeared in a doorway. ‘You can still be harmed in the VR training room,’ he said. ‘The programming will not allow you to be killed, but you will suffer scratches and bruising.’
‘I was disappointed there was no tiger,’ I said.
‘There was a tiger,’ Mister Okada said. ‘It was ready to pounce as you left the warehouse.’
‘A tiger’s not so hard to handle,’ Chad said.
‘It was twenty feet tall.’
‘Oh.’
We made our way back to the elevator, and it ascended. Once a nuclear missile installation, Mister Okada had bought Asgard from the US government and turned it into a home. It now contained a gym, training rooms, sleeping quarters, a fully stocked kitchen, and a dozen other places we hadn’t looked yet.
That we were living here was a lesson in irony. We were on the most wanted list by the US government, and, in particular, The Agency. A small incursion into Russian airspace and the kidnapping of the Russian President had not left us on good terms.
Quinn turned to her father. ‘Dad,’ she said. ‘I’m sure there was a reason you interrupted our training session.’
‘You know me too well, my daughter.’
‘What’s wrong?’
He ignored her question. ‘I suggest you all change and join me in the living room in fifteen minutes,’ he said. ‘There is something we must discuss.’
The elevator slowed at our living quarters. We all piled out except for Mister Okada. Chad turned back to him.
‘If it’s about dessert,’ Chad said. ‘I prefer cheesecake. It’s way better than the strudel.’
Mister Okada didn’t reply as the elevator doors slid shut. Judging by the look on his face, though, I was willing to bet the meeting had nothing to do with food.
Chapter Two
‘War is at our doorstep,’ Mister Okada said.
‘Really?’ Chad replied. ‘And here I was thinking the only things out there were chipmunks and eagles.’
Ebony rolled her eyes.
‘Our intergalactic doorstep,’ Mister Okada continued.
We were in the Asgard living room. It was a comfortable and roomy chamber, decked out with a widescreen television and gaming consoles. It was hard to believe we were in the middle of the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia.
Mister Okada began to pace. ‘You may recall me mentioning to you that the Tagaar have been involved in an invasion to take control of the known galaxy,’ he said. ‘Dozens of worlds have fallen to them. Those that have not surrendered have been systematically wiped out.’
I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. ‘But the Tagaar haven’t always operated like this,’ I said.
‘Quite true. The Tagaar have always relished war, but their method was to destabilize societies from within. They would trick countries into going to war against each other, resulting in global conflicts where planets bombed themselves back to the stone age.’ He paused. ‘Then the Tagaar would reveal themselves as saviors to help rebuild. Of course, this assistance would come at a cost. The planet’s natural resources would be stripped and taken to the Tagaar homeworld. And the newly ‘annexed’ world would become an outpost for the Tagaar empire, forever stripped of independent rule.’
‘So why the change?’
‘Their failed takeover of Earth was one factor, but a recent discovery on one of the Tagaar worlds has brought about a fundamental shift in their society.’
‘What was it?’ Brodie asked.
‘An ancient tablet was found on the Tagaar world of Kampere.’ He flicked a switch on the wall, and the television screen came to life. On it was a picture of a stone tablet covered in dozens of sharp-edged characters. ‘Personally inscribed by Rastron the Great, the ninth emperor of the Tagaar people, the tablet said that upon its discovery, the Tagaar must wage war without end. Until every planet, continent and valley was conquered, the Tagaar could not rest.’
‘And the Tagaar believe something carved into some old rock?’ Dan said.
‘It may seem foolish to us,’ Mister Okada agreed, ‘but the legends of the Tagaar date back tens of thousands of years. Their beliefs, especially those ascribed to the founders of Tagaar civilization, carry great weight.’
Chad sighed. ‘This is boring me,’ he said. ‘What’s on television?’
He reached for the remote control, but I used my powers to snatch it out of his grasp and into my hand.
‘Play nice,’ I said.
‘How does this affect us?’ Ebony asked. The quietest of our group, she rarely spoke unless she had something to say. ‘I’m assuming something has changed.’
Mister Okada nodded. ‘The Tagaar are only a few light-years from Earth,’ he said. ‘They are currently enslaving a race of beings known as the Pinglos. Once their subjugation is complete, they will turn to Earth.’
‘You’ve said before that Earth wouldn’t stand a chance against the Tagaar,’ Brodie said.
‘Earth would fall within hours.’
It looked like he’d finally gotten Chad’s attention. ‘Let me make a guess,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a plan to defeat them.’
‘To defeat them? No—but I may have a way to end their warlike ways forever.’ He pointed to the bottom of the tablet. ‘Rastron also said that the Tagaar would finally lay down their weapons when three things happened. The first was that the body of Shogarth would rise to the great beyond, the second was that the temple at Branada would burn, and the third was that Magarath would fade from the sky.’
‘That’s as clear as mud,’ Brodie said.
‘Shogarth was the fourth emperor of the Tagaar empire. His mummified remains are entombed on the planet Tagaar. A hundred light-years from Tagaar lies Branada, one of the empire’s first settlements. An ancient temple is located within an immense jungle that covers half the world.’
‘And Magarath?’ Quinn asked.
‘A star encircled by several uninhabited worlds.’
‘What does this have to do with saving the Earth?’ I asked. ‘It’s not like we can make some old prophecy...’
I stared at Mister Okada.
‘You’re suggesting we make these prophecies come real,’ Brodie said. ‘So that the Tagaar change their ways.’
‘Indeed. And it must be done without the Tagaar knowing.’
‘A trip into outer space,’ Dan mused. His eyes were wide and shining like two black plates. ‘Let’s go.’
Chad barked a laugh. ‘Hold on, squirt,’ he said. ‘We’re not going anywhere. Life is good here, and we’re not about to charge off into a crazy mission to get ourselves killed.’ He glanced around. ‘Are we?’
We looked at each other.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ Mister Okada said. ‘But Earth will be doomed if you do not.’
‘There must be another possibility,’ Brodie said. ‘We could tell The Agency or the United Nations. The earth could get ready for the attack. And there are hundreds of superheroes all over the planet. The Tagaar wouldn’t know what hit them.’
‘That is true, but even with every country and superhero working together, they still would not be able to save the Earth. This mission requires deception rather than a full-frontal assault.’
‘What about the Union of Planets?’ Dan asked. ‘Aren’t they like the United Nations?’
‘They are no more. The planet of Wandarth—the location of the League’s headquarters—was recently attacked and destroyed by The Tagaar.’
‘What about your people?’ Ebony asked. ‘The Bakari?’
Mister Okada sighed. He’d been pacing, but now he stopped and gripped the edge of a lounge. The alien stared into the distance, his expression bleak. ‘It is my people who are the greatest disappointment of all,’ he said. ‘They could have stopped this, but their policy of non-interference has allowed the Tagaar to prosper.’
Chad sat up and formed a ball of ice in the air. Without warning, he threw it at the
television.
Crash!
The screen shattered.
‘Hey—’ I began.
‘You people are crazy!’ Chad snapped. ‘Haven’t we done enough already? Lost enough? Sacrificed enough? What chance do we stand against the entire Tagaar empire?’
‘We have something other civilizations don’t have,’ Mister Okada said, softly. ‘We have Liber8tor.’
‘What?’ I said.
‘Tagaar ships normally self-destruct once they fall into enemy hands. Because of the damage done to Liber8tor, and Ferdy inhabiting its computer matrix, Liber8tor is the only intact ship to ever fall into enemy hands.’
I mulled this over in my mind. ‘And you think we can sneak through enemy lines to fulfill these prophecies?’
‘I do.’ His eyes swept over us. ‘I would not even suggest this plan if I didn’t think it stood a chance of success. I will be putting all our lives at risk—including that of my daughter.’
‘Who knows what you really have in mind?’ Chad snapped. ‘I don’t trust you, I don’t trust your daughter, and I’m not tramping all over the galaxy on some crazy mission on your say-so!’ Storming to the door, he turned back to us. ‘We don’t know these people. All of this could be a plot by Okada and Quinn to hand us over to The Tagaar. If you count them in, you can count me out!’
Chapter Three
Chad marched down the trail. He was so angry he tripped over a root and fell. Dusting himself off, he was almost running by the time he reached a clearing at the end.
What are Axel and the others thinking? Flying off to some corner of the galaxy on the say-so of a stranger? They’re crazy!
Climbing a rocky outcrop, he sat down and moodily stared at the view. The Monongahela National Forest was one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen. Trails ran through this entire area, but they were rough and overgrown. Hikers didn’t make it this far up on this side of the valley.
Teen Superheroes Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 80
