On Friday afternoon, as planned, the Heroes League landed on Central High’s lawn.
The Rocket looked exactly right. The Feds had the original design for the World War 2 era Rocket, so it probably hadn’t been hard to come up with something similar looking to the current version.
Continue reading Dupes: Part 1
In my mind, I tried to get Daniel’s attention, and succeeded.
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Me: Don’t tell him about the Impregnator. Pass it on.
Daniel: Got it.
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He did, and everyone looked at me.
Continue reading Decisions: Part 11
Marcus started to show Cassie the clips, but once he started Jaclyn showed up, and then as he backed up to find the start for her, Daniel stepped out of the elevator.
We decided at that point that we were better off waiting for everybody.
Continue reading Decisions: Part 10
“Here’s a thought,” Daniel said. “Does anybody want to nominate anybody else?”
“Looking for a nomination?” Vaughn asked.
Daniel shook his head. “No. I’m willing to do communications, but keeping track of what people are doing, using prescience to sense future attacks, blocking them with telekinesis, attacking people, passing messages, and coming up with plans all at the same time sounds overwhelming. For me, just being in a crowd can be bad.”
“I think Nick could do a good job,” Haley said.
Continue reading Decisions: Part 4
Daniel and I spent the rest of the night playing video games on the big screen. Even if the novelty had long since worn off, it beat the TV my family had at home by a long shot.
It felt good.
After a week that included being chased, attacked in my own bed, and ending a second prom night in violence, Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk seemed like a simple, relaxing way to finish off the week. It was made more relaxing by sending Isaac Lim an email about the original Power’s death instead of calling him.
It couldn’t last.
Continue reading Decisions: Part 3
“You’re going to fucking kill him,” Chris said.
“I was going to be careful. I wasn’t going to hit him against the ground as hard.”
“That’s insane.”
Sean descended from the black sky, landing in front of us. He turned his head to look at Jack floating above the street.
“Do you know how many people that guy killed? I was going to make sure he couldn’t do anything.”
Continue reading Rivalry: Part 16
“But seriously,” he continued, “if you’re the new Heroes League, I’ve been looking for you.”
Travis looked Jack Maniac over, and said, “Why?”
“You’ve got something I want. I’m looking for a vehicle we used to own. It looks like a ball. You probably saw in the news a couple nights ago. I want it back. I heard that you’ve got it.”
Keeping my voice calm, I said, “From who?”
“Man-machine’s grandson. Nice kid. He was visiting his grandmother when we came over.”
“He’s okay, right?”
“Sure. He’s fine for now.”
Continue reading Rivalry: Part 13
Jack Maniac seemed to get a big kick out of the name. He laughed hard enough that he wobbled in the air. “The Power? Don’t you think that’s a little fucking pretentious? What happened to the first Power?”
“I don’t know. It was available two days ago.”
“Two days? Oh that’s rich. Do your worst, kid.”
Continue reading Rivalry: Part 12
“You bet. We’ll pass on whatever shows up,” Vaughn said. “Right, guys?” He looked over the rest of us.
I thought about replying. It seemed like a good idea, but maybe not immediately. I had time. Then I thought about it a little more.
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Me: We might be a little too calm.
Daniel: Crap. I was concentrating too hard on resisting him. You’re right.
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Continue reading Rivalry: Part 9
When we got back to the jet, I pulled the alert’s GPS data up, and headed toward downtown Grand Lake.
We flew westward through the sky, toward the sun as it moved lower, beginning to dip into Lake Michigan.
I gave them the short version of what Cannon had said as we flew home, but we didn’t get to really discuss it. Including the time it took to start the jet, it took ten minutes to get there.
We were too late, but in the best possible way.
Continue reading Rivalry: Part 8