Diary of a Teenage Superhero

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I’ll say one thing for Chad.

  He doesn’t know the meaning of the word subtle. When I told him we needed a diversion I envisioned a fire in the jungle or a block of ice falling out of the sky. Instead, we’re confronted with a full-scale bombardment.

  I’m not even sure we’ll survive it.

  Fire balls reign down from the sky like meteorites and slam into the ground. They seem to be landing all over the island. Some are even landing in the compound. Explosions are occurring throughout the jungle. Obviously traps are springing all over the place, detonating explosives meant to kill us. At the same time rocks are falling from the sky.

  I can’t work this out. Chad creates fire and ice. Dan can manipulate metals. So where are the rocks coming from?

  Brodie has the answer. “There must be a high metal content in those rocks.”

  Of course.

  Our ears are ringing from the multitude of explosions. So much so that I don’t notice the change in the fence until Ebony grabs my arms.

  “The electricity’s off,” she says.

  “Are you sure?”

  She reaches out and grabs the fence. She doesn’t turn into a barbecued chicken. Turning to me, she smiles. “Pretty sure.”

  I realize it’s one of the few times I’ve seen her smile. She has such a pretty face. I wonder if –

  Brodie digs me in the ribs. “Will we keep moving?”

  I nod. Ebony touches each of the strands of barbed wire. Each evaporates to a dry chemical within her grasp and is carried away by the wind. When there’s a large enough gap, we climb through and hurry across a short distance to take refuge behind a building. From here we can easily see the obelisk. In the back of my mind I’ve got a vague idea to get Ebony to turn it into helium or something, but we’ve got to get to it first.

  Two soldiers appear from around a corner.

  The surprising news is they’re not human. They’re some sort of battle droid. Man height. Covered in a battle suit composed of rubber and Kevlar. Armed with rifles. Before they can raise them, Brodie covers the short distance and smashes one of them in the neck. The other she flings over her left shoulder and rips its arm off.

  They lay sparking and crackling in the midday sun.

  Unfortunately they must have some sort of back to base alarm because a door suddenly bursts open and more of them start to pour through. I throw a boulder at them and it takes out a bunch, but this seems to cause some sort of avalanche; more start appearing from buildings all over the compound.

  They start shooting and I throw up a shield. Bullets fly in all directions as we make our way through the group. Every opportunity Brodie gets, she grabs a robot and breaks him apart. Ebony turns several to gas. Finally she turns to me.

  “We’re almost there,” she yells above the sound of gunfire.

  There’s something more than a little strange in the way she’s communicated this information to me. She sounds like a chipmunk.

  “Sorry,” she says. “Helium.”

  I nod.

  We’re only a few feet from the obelisk when the ground shakes beneath us. At first I think it’s just more of the continuing barrage from Chad and Dan. Then I realize we’re sinking.

  “Watch out!” I yell. “We’re –”

  The ground swallows us up in an enormous hole. We fall about twenty feet into an underground cavern. Fortunately I’m able to cushion our landing while deflecting the bullets from the battle droids above.

  Brodie yells. “Over here!”

  The cave is roughly circular in dimensions, but there is a slight overhang on one side. The gunfire is relentless as we take refuge. It’s only when we are out of sight that the droids stop firing. A metal ceiling slides into place. Faint lighting comes to life.

  I dust off dirt from my face. I’m annoyed with myself. I should have realized there would be one final obstacle before we reached the obelisk.

  “Any ideas?” Brodie asks.

  “I can fly us out of here, but not until –”

  “Wait a minute,” Ebony interrupts. “We’ll have to deal with them first.”

  A door has slid open on the other side of the cavern. Three battle droids have appeared. They’re a slightly different design to the others. Taller and more slender. I throw a row of invisible stars at them.

  Nothing happens.

  Damn. They must be using the same dampening field – the zeno ray – that was used against us at Ravana’s building. That’s not fair! Why does –

  I stop. Of course, it’s not fair. This is a life or death battle designed to prepare us for…life or death.

  To my surprise, Ebony is the first to move. She crosses the cavern in seconds and takes on one of the droids, hitting it with a flurry of punches. Brodie and I are close behind. I’m in immediate difficulty. My droid hits me across the face and knocks me flying. Brodie fairs better. Even without her extra strength and speed, she still has her fighting knowledge. If her robot could cry uncle, I’m sure it would.

  I kick the legs out from under my adversary and start hammering its head into the ground. It sweeps my legs out from under me and I land face first in the dirt. We roll around on the ground for a while. Then it straddles my body and starts punching into my face.

  Despite my attempts to deflect the blows, most of them are still connecting. How long can I –

  The droid’s head flies off to one side and it loses power. I struggle to sit up and shake it off me. I look around. Brodie is just finishing off her droid. It’s finding it hard to fight back with no arms and legs. It’s Ebony who is standing before me wielding one of her arms of her droid. She is the one who has just finished her adversary and mine as well.

  “How did you…what did…” I begin.

  “Did you sleep through basic training?” Ebony asks. “What was Brown teaching you?”

  “How to fly. How to break the sound barrier,” I say airily. “That sort of stuff.”

  Brodie strides over just in time to see Ebony help me up. She doesn’t look too happy. Not that I can blame her. Who wants to engage droids in a life and death battle of hand to hand combat?

  And all before lunch?

  “Where to from here?” she asks.

  First we had to find the zeno emitters. It only takes a moment. They are speaker like contraptions set into the surrounding walls. We tear them out. Then we look up at the metal ceiling. I suppose we have to get through it first. Or there’s always the door the droids came through. Maybe they –

  It’s like Ebony can read my mind. “Forget that. There’s an easier way to get out of here.”

  “How’s that?” Brodie asks.

  Ebony touches the wall with both hands. Closing her eyes, a tunnel appears in the rock angling up toward the surface. She stops it just before it reaches ground level. Stooping over, we climb up it until we reach the end.

  “The minerals industry would love you,” Brodie says to Ebony.

  The girl nods. “I’ll be a miner if the superhero gig doesn’t work out.”

  The ground is still shaking. Obviously Chad and Dan are still continuing their bombardment of the island. Ebony turns to me.

  “What do you think is the best way to handle this?”

  I shrug. “Let’s make an impact.”

  Throwing a shield around us, we burst through the ground into the air. We’re only a few feet from the obelisk. The droids are all standing around in silence until we make an appearance. Obviously we were out of sight and also out of mind. They start firing almost immediately. Ebony slaps a hand on the obelisk and turns it to dust.

  We hover above the ground for a few seconds waiting for the droid’s attack to subside.

  It doesn’t.

  “I thought they were supposed to quit once we took out the obelisk!” Brodie yells in my ear.

  I shake my head. “I assumed the same thing too. Obviously we’ve still got to get off the island. I angle us across the jungle a
way from the compound and within minutes the droid’s fire has vanished to nothing. We pick up Chad and Dan from the same place we left them. They both seem flushed with excitement.

  “You should have seen it!” Dan yells as we soar across the water. “First we were blowing up everything across the island. Then these robots appeared and we started turning them into junk.”

  “Molten junk in some cases,” Chad pipes up.

  Reaching the mainland I decide that we’ve done pretty well for ourselves. That thought is quickly put to the test, though, when I see who is waiting for us.

  Twelve.

  As we step onto the beach he solemnly shakes hands with each of us. Considering he probably wanted to jail us for life less than twenty-four hours ago, I’d say we’ve come a long way in a short time.

  “It seems your mission was a complete success,” he says.

  “So now we get some time off,” Chad says, nodding.

  Twelve shakes his head. “Unfortunately not.”

  “But, Mr. Brown said –” I begin.

  “I’m sorry,” Twelve interrupts. “It looks like Typhoid is preparing to move sooner than we expected. You fly out first thing tomorrow morning.” He studies each of our faces in turn.

  “School’s out.”