going to fall!"
Ty whirled around as he stood on the edge of the truck. It was not a position he could maintain for long. He fell, grabbing the ledge as he tumbled.
Dean ran over, gripping Ty's wrists just as the Gamma Accident lost his grip on the metal edge.
Ty screamed. "Are you going to kill me?" he asked, hysterically, suspended above flowing traffic.
Dean's eyebrows knotted. "What would you do if I said yes?" he replied, curiously.
Ty looked like he was honestly thinking about it. Then his screams returned... with increased volume.
"Okay. You'd scream louder."
Ty fought like a caged tiger to release himself from Dean's grip on his wrists.
"Dude, I'm not trying to kill you! I'm trying to save you. Do you think those geese attacked Lizzie for the fun of it?"
"That was you?" Ty stared at the teenager, his eyes wide.
Dean rolled his eyes and, in one swift movement, pulled Ty back onto the truck. "Yes, that was me."
"What, next you're going to tell me you can talk to animals or something?" Ty said, doubtfully, holding back a laugh.
Dean looked at him like he was a total idiot. "Um... that is my power."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously. Now, we lost the hologram kid and your bouncy friend a while back-"
"They're my brothers," Ty corrected, falling to his hands and knees. He hadn't realized earlier, but it wasn't easy to walk steadily across the top of the moving truck. To avoid tumbling off, he decided to crawl.
Now it was Dean's turn to be shocked. "Your brothers?" he said, disbelievingly. "Oh, you must be adopted. That explains everything."
"Hey, we've only been speaking to each other for a minute or two and now you insult me?"
"You thought I was going to kill you after I saved your life with geese," Dean countered, crossing his arms. Off topic, Ty wondered how he managed to remain standing upright on the speeding truck. "If anyone should be insulted, it should be me."
"No, I'm not adopted. We're triplets, actually."
"You don't look it," Dean pointed out as he joined Ty, crawling alongside him as they made their way to the driver's compartment, the wind snapping at their shirts and snatching at their breath.
Dean was right: the Black triplets didn't look like they were related, let alone brothers. Ethan, the eldest triplet, was tall with pale-tan coloured skin, hazel eyes, dark blonde hair and overall European looks. Ty was shorter, lean and Asiatic with his almond-shaped brown eyes, black hair and paler skin. And Caleb, with his shorter, stockier stature, dark brown hair, thick eyebrows, dark eyes and darker skin-tone, looked Mexican. They were brothers, there was no doubt about that if you took a DNA test. But, just looking at outward appearances and characteristics, you'd never say they were related.
"You should see our family reunions," Ty said. "They look like cultural street fairs."
"Anyway, as I was trying to say," Dean continued, "were they our only back-up?"
"No, but I have no clue where Jack and Bella are," Ty admitted. "Knowing them, they probably stopped to make sure Ethan and Caleb were okay."
"So... it's just you and me?" Dean asked as he and Ty stood above the driver's compartment, directly above Lance Barton.
"You and me," Ty confirmed. "What's the plan?"
"You mean you and your friends planned everything back there?"
"Nah, we've been winging it since we got to Hero High. It's worked so far, I mean, look where we are!"
"On a stolen, speeding truck driven by a young villain," Dean retorted, flatly.
"Yeah, well, I've never been good at this whole 'optimism' thing."
Ty decided to drop the subject. Having no way of knowing where Lance was going, no idea who else might join them and no clue when reinforcements might arrive, he thought it was time to make a plan of his own.
Coming up with a plan and implementing it for the first time in years, Ty related his plan to Dean.
He would shrink, crawl into Lance's ear, completely freak him out and make him lose control. While Lance shrieked like a little girl, Dean would take the wheel.
"And you really think that's a good idea?" Dean asked, unconvinced it would work.
"We've got no more time to argue," Ty said. "Now we just need to get Lance out of the driver's seat and get him talking."
24
Everything after that happened so rapidly, Ty and Dean didn't have room for error or time to think.
Ty shrank again. He had lost count of how many times he had miniaturized that day so far.
In one swift movement, he fell, off the roof of the truck and in through the open passenger window. He couldn't believe Lance had left the window wide open.
Once inside the driver's compartment, Ty set to work.
Weaving around gigantic, empty, crushed soda cans; leaping over a pencil; clawing at Lance's clothing to climb up, Ty eventually hiked his way to Lance's shoulder.
"Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way," Ty said directly in Lance's ear. "I'm honestly giving you the option, so please, choose wisely."
"Who's talking?" Lance demanded, his eyes that should have been on the road searching for the source of the little voice in his head.
"Okay, hard way it is," Ty declared, jumping into Lance's ear and proceeding to tickle him.
Ty was scared of most things, yes. He didn't believe most things would work out, sure. But he had fun. And right now, dancing around in the bad guy's ear, Ty was sincerely enjoying himself.
Dean, on the other hand, was not having a party.
He struggled to climb in through the window. Navigating his broad, muscular build through a narrow truck window was not easy.
To make matters worse, the truck started swerving, wildly. Dean fought the sudden jerks and battled to continue his mission.
He made it through the window, to see Lance swatting at his ear, madly trying to get tiny Ty out.
Dean knew there were thousands of rumours about him floating around school. No one knew what his power was because he didn't demonstrate it often. So, kids thought his power had something to do with strength, considering his build.
It was true that Dean was strong, but he was not super-human.
As Lance hysterically fought to shake Ty out of his ear, Dean simply grabbed the senior student, dragged him across the seat and into the passenger's side.
The truck was barrelling down the freeway, uncontrolled and moving at an illegally high speed. Drivers sharing the late afternoon road with the stolen truck were in grave danger.
Dean swiftly shuffled over, quickly taking stock of the situation. The truck had manual gears, which was no problem for Dean. He applied the brake to kill the intense speed Lance had built up.
In the crazy scuffle, the truck had managed to drift onto the wrong side of the freeway. The headlights of oncoming traffic alerted Dean, who immediately drifted back into the correct lane.
"Get out! Get out! Get out!" Lance shrieked, frantically batting at his ear. Dean ignored him and concentrated on finding a place to pull over, safely.
"Ty, you just keep him occupied, I'm parking now," Dean said to his miniature, newly found accomplice.
As soon as they were off the freeway and out of the way of cars, other trucks, motorcycles and innocent civilians, Dean killed the engine, opened his door, hopped out the truck and onto dry, desert ground. He walked around the front of the truck, feeling the heat coming off the overworked engine as he passed, and wrenched open the passenger door, yanking Lance out in one fast movement.
Ty fell out his victim's ear, grew back to regular size and stood, cross-armed, besides Dean. "Okay, Barton, time to talk," Ty began, trying to sound tough with a newfound courage. "Who trained you? Which teacher is training villains? Who are you working for?"
Dean elbowed Ty in the ribs and glared at him.
"What? Do you want to play bad cop?" Ty asked, rubbing his now sore side.
Lance, recovering from the horrific sensat
ion of having someone tiny dance in your ear, began laughing, evilly. "You Accidents are totally clueless," he said. "You've got no idea what's coming your way, do you?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ty questioned, raising a suspicious eyebrow.
Lance held up his hands in a surrendering gesture, sensing what the Accident was thinking. "Hey, I'm not going to do anything to you now," Lance said. "But I won't tell you anything, either. Everything will be revealed, this Saturday, tomorrow, at the welcoming ceremony." He shook his head slowly as he chuckled, again, as if it truly were hilarious. "You pathetic Gamma Accidents don't stand a chance. You never did."
"What do you mean?" Ty asked, curiously.
"You don't know how many of us there really are," Lance said, lowering his tone and standing, menacingly, up in Ty's face. With his dead-set expression highlighted with the fading evening light, he looked like a true villain. "Every corner you turn, every classroom you enter, we're there. Hero High is a misnomer. There are no heroes there, just us."
Before Ty or Dean could say, do or think anything else, Lance created a portal beneath his feet, fell through and disappeared in an instant.
Ty and Dean were left, dumbstruck, standing by a stolen food delivery truck (which they had full intention of returning straight away), trying to process what was just said.
"Wow, that was totally useless," Dean said, needlessly, as he stared at the spot Lance had been standing barely moments before.
"No, Lance has just told us something vital," Ty corrected as he hurriedly opened the truck's driver's door and hopped in. "He's just told us that something's happening on Saturday. Tomorrow."
Dean climbed in after him, shoving him over to