Diary of a Teenage Superhero

  Chapter Forty

  Chad!

  I never thought I would actually be pleased to see him. The others suddenly appear from behind a pile of smoldering equipment.

  “We leave you alone for five minutes…” Brodie starts.

  “We need to move this fight out of here,” I interrupt.

  I look past them and spy the break in the roof for the aircraft to depart. Dan is one step ahead of me. Within seconds he has reefed it apart and light is steaming into The Cavern. I build a flying ramp to take us through the gap. No sooner are we through than a bolt of ice flies past.

  “He’s been doing that all day,” I tell them.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Chad asks.

  I give them the abridged version. “So he’s got all our powers. And then some. I’m not sure how we can put him out of commission.”

  “Don’t forget we have something he doesn’t have,” Brodie points out.

  “What’s that?”

  “Experience,” she says. “Thanks to the last few weeks we know how to control our powers. He doesn’t. He almost blew himself up with that last blast of fire.”

  Something comes flying out through the gap in the ground. We watch it soar over our heads and hit the earth about twenty feet behind us.

  It’s some sort of tank.

  “How much of that juice did he drink?” Dan asks.

  Twelve flies through the opening and lands awkwardly on the grass before us.

  “You children are finished!” he snarls.

  “Hey Twelve!” Ebony calls out. “Get some new lines. You sound like you’re out of some bad comic book.”

  We look at Ebony with new respect. I’m just about to make a really snappy follow up when Twelve levitates a metal bench from the cavern. He swings it around like a child swinging a toy. Just as it’s about to collide with Brodie, she leaps out of the way. Dan is not so lucky. It catches him a glancing blow and knocks him flying.

  Chad drags him out of the way.

  “I think my foot is broken,” he groans.

  We need to co-ordinate our efforts. It’s too late to have a meeting to formulate a plan, so we need something simple. Something with which we’re already familiar. An idea comes to me in a flash.

  “The island!” I yell. “The same as the island.”

  Chad and Dan move away from us. Dan raises a piece of metallic debris and uses it as a shield while Chad fires alternating bursts of fire and ice at Twelve. I gather up Brodie and Ebony and we take up position behind the alien. So far the plan’s working. The boys have created a diversion. Now we just need to trap Twelve – permanently.

  “I can get his attention,” Brodie says.

  “Will I make a hole?” Ebony asks.

  “Yes,” I tell her. “We just need to make him lie in it.”

  Brodie grabs up a piece of debris, a thin shaft of metal that has flown off one of the pieces of equipment. She hefts it experimentally in her right arm.

  “I’m ready when you are,” she says.

  “Hey Twelve!” I yell.

  The boys momentarily stop their bombardment. Twelve swings around as Brodie flings the makeshift javelin with all her might. It strikes the alien across the eyes. He flinches. At the same moment Ebony drops to her knees.

  A hole, thirty feet across and twenty feet deep, forms under the alien. He falls into the pit. Using all my power, I somehow drag the tank – or whatever it is – into the air. It hovers over the hole.

  “Chad!” I scream.

  He understands instantly.

  As I drop the device, Chad directs a molten blast at the metal. Whatever it is turns to molten liquid and slaps into the base of the pit. There is a single, brief scream from below us that dies into a horrible silence. We hesitantly make our way to the edge and look in.

  The metal is still cooling, but at the center of the molten liquid there is the figure of a man. He looks like some sort of heroic figure. Almost like something out of Greek mythology.

  “He said there would be a statue,” I muse. “I don’t think that’s what he meant.”