Chapter 41

Ray

I stood in the air, high above the city, watching for any movement. New Girl had given me the slip. She probably wanted to get Stoner out of the way since he was powerless now. I could’ve killed him. The thought made me tremble. I can’t believe it; I almost killed him.

I had joked about killing people just to get my way as a god, but it wasn’t funny anymore. This was very serious. I almost murdered a guy, and that left me unsettled. I tried to shake off the feeling.

Movement in the distance caught my attention. “There you are,” I said. New Girl flew fast over the city and it looked like she was heading toward the abandoned horse racing track. Why was she going there? Hadn’t she just escaped from there? Probably to get Stoner’s Star Stone. Scorpio had given it to Mark. She had to be stopped.

I exploded into motion, flying hard to cut her off before getting to Mark’s hideout. Just as our paths crossed, I chucked a basketball-sized fireball at her. She noticed it just in time and brought up her wings to block it. The fireball was meant to just stop her, and it worked. I hovered in the air between her and the hideout, my arms folded, letting her know that she would have to get through me first.

She wasn’t in the mood to chat. Without hesitating, she flew at me at an upward angle, trying to go over my head. I quickly summoned a fireball and flung it at her. She blocked it, of course, with her annoying wings, and this time she didn’t let it slow her down.

I flew after her, cutting her off again, and this time I took the time to form a much larger fireball and toss it at her. When she blocked it, the blow was powerful enough to knock her backwards, away from the hideout.

As soon as New Girl stopped her backward motion, she immediately rocketed to the side, trying to go around me. She was certainly persistent in going to the hideout, but I wouldn’t let her.

I threw a slew of fireballs at her as fast as I could. Each one crashed into her force field, knocking her back a ways, but she would keep on pushing forward, never toward me, but around. I was definitely slowing her down, but the truth was she was making gradual progress toward the hideout. I needed to come up with another idea to stop her.

We were probably a little over a mile or two away from the hideout. The city’s lights burned brightly below us, but I noticed some other lights nearby above us. Helicopters. A few helicopters aimed their spotlights at New Girl and me, and the pilots seemed to be keeping their distance. Probably because of all the explosions from my fireballs hitting her wings.

No time to think about them. I need to stop New Girl somehow. Suddenly, I understood how all of my linemen felt while trying to defend their quarter back. I felt bad for all the times I gave them a hard time or blamed them for getting me sacked. It’s a tough job.

Whoosh!

“Need some help?”

I looked to my left and saw nobody. “Invisguy!” I said.

“Seriously?” he said. “You finally call me Scorpio like ten minutes ago, but not now?”

“You took too long. Did you stop to get an invisible manicure or something?”

I imagined him rolling his eyes. I summoned another fireball and chucked it at New Girl. She dodged it, so I had to move closer to the hideout and to cut her off and throw another fireball. This one hit her wings and knocked her back.

“I was talking with Mark,” Invisiguy said, obviously flying with me as I fought New Girl. “He has Orion’s Star Stone and told me that we need to kill him now.”

I paused. “Kill Stoner?”

“Yep.” Invisiguy’s tone creeped me out. “I didn’t want to at first, but Mark said it’s the only way to ensure that Michael will never abuse his powers again. And he won’t teach us the Third Degree if we don’t.”

“Seriously?” Something felt off about this. And not just the whole killing-Stoner thing. Something about Mark.

“Yep. But first things first. We’ve got to stop Angela.”

Michael

A black car screeched to a stop beside the sidewalk. The driver door opened, and Dad leaned out of the car. “Michael, get in!”

I didn’t hesitate. I ran around to the passenger side and jumped in, just as the car lurched back into motion.

“Thanks, Dad!” I said, feeling grateful to be moving somewhat fast again.

“Don’t mention it. Okay, you said on the phone that you would fill me in as soon as I picked you up, so, I’m ready. Fill me in. You said you were in trouble…”

Dad drove swiftly; his eyes looked intense behind his glasses. He still wore his pin stripe suit and bowtie.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ve got to tell you something crazy, Dad.”

“I already know you’re a superhuman, son.” My mouth hung open. “The news has been going crazy about you. You’ve been missing for five days! Five days! And the first time you come home, the house catches on fire?”

“That wasn’t me that was—”

“Ray Simmons, I know. Sarah told me. And the news has been showing glimpses of your fight tonight. Those helicopters have been filming you.” Dad clutched tightly onto the steering wheel, looking uneasy. “And then you ask for a ride? You obviously must’ve lost your powers somehow…”

“Uh… yeah.” This was going too fast for me. First off, it was crazy that my dad actually believed I could have superpowers; he was the polar opposite of superstitious. Second, he already knew or deduced my whole story! Third, this wasn’t anything like how I imagined the conversation with my dad going where I reveal my secret to him. He’d already figured it out!

“Turn left here!” I said while pointing. “I need you to take me back to Trotter’s Park!”

“That old, abandoned horse racing track?”

“Yeah, my stone is there. I need to get within a mile of it to regain my powers. Turn here. Left here! Le—Dad, you missed the turn!”

“I’m taking you home, son!”

I gaped at him. “What? Dad, Angela needs my help! I’ve got to get back there!”

He shook his head, glanced at me, and then focused on the road. “No, you don’t. Look at you! Your lip is swollen, you’ve got another black eye, your clothes have been burnt black! Your mother and I have been worried sick about you! You could get killed doing this, Michael! You’re coming home!”

“What home?” I said. “It got hit by a fireball, remember? I need my powers to stop Ray from hurting me and anyone I care about!

“Let someone else take care of him. Give your stone to someone else!”

“It doesn’t work like that, Dad. The stone only gives me powers. In fact, right now someone else does have my stone, and I need to get it back, so I can keep fighting!”

Dad scoffed, running a sweaty hand through his hair. “You’re not a fighter! You’re not a hero, Michael! You’re just a 16-year-old boy who happened upon superpowers and—”

“Didn’t you want me to be a hero? Wasn’t it you who said this world needs more heroes who are willing to stand up for what’s right before the wrong thing happens?”

Dad rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but I wasn’t talking about—”

“Right now, Dad, this city needs a hero. A super hero. Ray and Zack need to be stopped—I need to stop them. And I can’t do it without my powers. So please, take me back!”

He took a deep breath. “I understand that you want to help people, son, but you’ve got to think about this. Now is your chance to get back the life you had. You don’t have to be on the run anymore or weigh yourself down with self-imposed responsibility. You don’t have to risk your life trying to save others anymore. Do you really want to go back to that?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation.

Dad huffed, shifting his gaze between me and the road. I watched him, anxiously waiting for him to agree with me, but he took his time.

“Dad…” I said. “When I first got my powers, I was afraid of them. Afraid of how my life would change and how people would treat me. I wished I’d never touched that stone. But now… now with Zack and Ray threatening to kill Angela, and with other Starlings out there that need to be helped or stopped, I’ve found a purpose for my powers. It’s to be that hero you wanted me to be. I know it’s dangerous and the risks are high, and I know it scares you and mom, but this… this is what I want. It took me a long time to want it, but now I do. Let me be a hero.”

We stopped at a red light. Dad looked at me for a long time without saying anything, expressionless. And then, finally, he flipped on the blinker to turn left.

Ray

“Keep throwing fireballs at her,” Invisiguy said. “I’ll try and find an opening.”

I heard him fly toward New Girl as I summoned a fireball in each hand. Sweat streaked down my neck. I could feel the exhaustion sweeping over me. My broken nose throbbed but had finally stopped bleeding. Without the time to tend to it, I got blood all over my face, hands, and bare chest. Right now, I couldn’t focus on that though, I had to keep New Girl from getting to our hideout. She could get Stoner’s stone back and return it to him, making this fight much more difficult. Where was he anyways?

I flung both fireballs, one after the other, at New Girl. She dodged the first one and blocked the second with her wings. As soon as she recovered from the impact, she kept flying around me, getting ever closer to the abandoned horse racing track.

She didn’t keep her wings up all the time because they slowed her down. After blocking my fireballs, she would dismiss her wings and soar around me, but this time Invisiguy was there to stop her.

Her head whipped backwards from an invisible punch, and then she got kicked in the midsection, sending her plummeting toward the city below. I redirected my burning powers above me and flew down toward her.

Before smashing into a movie theater, she stopped her descent and surrounded herself completely with her wings. I could tell Invisiguy was trying to get through her defenses because New Girl was getting knocked backwards. He wasn’t able to harm her with those wings in the way, but at least he kept her from getting any closer to our hideout.

I threw fireball after fireball down at her, causing her to plant her feet on the roof of the movie theater for extra support. There didn’t seem to be any way around her force field, so the idea was to just overwhelm her with punches and fireballs. Just keep on hitting her without letting her have the chance to breathe. Eventually her wings have to crack!

New Girl’s feet dug in deep in the concrete roof as she withstood our barrage of attacks. I didn’t want the theater to cave in and kill hundreds of people, so I flew beside her and kicked her force field like I would punt a football. And just like a ball, she rolled off the roof. Her wings spun in the air, but she remained upright, though she looked strained to stay that way.

Invisiguy spiked her toward the street below. She formed a tiny crater in the asphalt and several cars swerved around her. One car clipped the edge of her wings, causing it to spin out of control and crash into a light post.

I groaned. Why do we have to do this fight in the middle of the city?

Invisiguy kept pounding away at New Girl’s wings from above, pushing her farther into the earth. I could see her face through her wings. She looked terrified. I threw one fireball at her, but held back my second, feeling sick.

I glanced to my right, at the car that hit the light post. The driver—a middle-aged man—limped out; hurt, but alive, trying to get away from our fight. I frowned as I watched him, and other people scramble away from us.

New Girl fell to her knees under the pressure of Invisiguy’s blows. I landed on the street and just watched with a fireball in my hand, unsure what to do with it. Her wings flickered and then disappeared entirely, leaving her defenseless, on her knees, her eyes glowing a dimmer white than before. She must’ve dropped out of Second Degree, no longer able to concentrate on whatever emotion she needed to stay in it. Now, I could only discern one emotion on her face: fear.

Invisiguy attacked her right away, hitting her hard in the face. She flew nearly a hundred yards backwards and crashed into the street, breaking the asphalt as she rolled and smashed into a few cars, their metal frames bending from the impact like aluminum foil.

My heart dropped as I watched the destruction. Yes, I wanted New Girl to learn a lesson, but this seemed to go too far. Other people were getting hurt or worse in the process. Something felt wrong about this.

I heard Invisiguy fly after her, and I flew close behind. New Girl managed to climb to her feet just as Invisiguy hit her again.

Michael

“Dad, watch out!” I yelled.

Dad slammed on the breaks before turning onto Speedway Boulevard, which would get us back to Trotting Park. I was grateful we stopped because a blur of destruction came down the street from our left, crashed into a car in the middle of the intersection, kept going down the street to our right, and eventually came to a stop not too far away. Cars were tossed aside like toys and Speedway was ripped up like an airplane had crash-landed on it. The crunching, grinding sound was awful.

I blinked, regaining my composure. I thought I saw someone in that blur.

Dad looked shocked. “What in the… Michael, what’re you doing?”

I had opened the passenger door and got out. “That was Angela!”

“But you don’t have your powers!”

“I don’t care!” I slammed the door and ran toward Angela as fast as my non-superhuman legs could carry me. Please be okay, I thought. Please be okay. As I approached, my stomach turned into knots. Angela lay on her back, a foot deep into the broken asphalt, motionless, her eyes closed. No!

I skid to a stop next to her and fell to my knees, checking for signs of life. “Angela!” I said as I shook her shoulder. “Angela! Can you…”

I let out a deep breath as her eyes fluttered open and gradually focused on me. “Michael,” she said weakly. “I…”

She was cut off by the sound of two blow torches approaching. I turned around and saw Ray hovering a couple feet above the road in the middle of the intersection; his hands, on fire; his face, unreadable. I let go of Angela and stood between him and her. “Leave her alone, Ray!”

I yelped as something suddenly appeared out of thin air directly in front of my face. A short, teenage boy with freckles, red, curly hair, and glowing eyes. It was Zack.

He laughed at my reaction. “Or you’ll what?”

I glared at my cousin. Without thinking about it, I turned on my powers, my eyes glowing. Zack flinched, backing away from me. I felt the life-sucking pain in my gut and I quickly shut them off. It was brief enough that it didn’t wear me down too much, but painful enough to remind me my stone was missing.

“Oh, you want to fight me without your stone?” Zack said with a laugh. “Bring it on, Cuz! I dare you to try! Let’s see how long you last!”

I thought about it. If I did turn on my powers, I’d probably have only less than a minute before fainting. Would that be enough time to defeat him? And Ray? Probably not. But I was really tempted to try anyways.

“No?” Zack said. “Too scared? Well that’s too bad. Looks like I’ll just have to kill you without any fun. One punch to the head ought to do it. You sure you don’t want to fight back? C’mon, I know you do.”

I clenched my teeth. Would he actually kill me? Could I actually beat him without my stone?

Suddenly, in an explosion, Zack lunged toward me, but not to attack me, no, he was hit from behind. He fell to the ground beside me, his back covered in flames.

Confused, I raised my eyes up at Ray. His right arm was extended in front of him. He’d thrown a fireball at Zack!

Ray

Invisguy got up quickly, rage scrawled all over his face. A smirk made its way to my lips. This was the first time I’d seen Invisiguy, and boy, it was rewarding to finally see how he reacted. He was angrier than I would’ve imagined, and that made it even funnier. I didn’t recognize him. He was probably a student at Sahuaro High School with me, but I don’t think I’d ever noticed him. He was just as invisible to me then as he could be now.

“What the heck, Ray!” Invisiguy said.

“Leave them alone!” I said. “You’re a sick kid, Invisiguy.”

“IT’S SCORPIO!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Look, Invisiguy, this is wrong. Killing people is wrong. Mark is wrong! I’m not going to be his pawn anymore, and I’m not going to let you help him either!”

“I’m not doing this for Mark! This is the right thing to do! They are the bad guys, we are the good guys! And we’ve got to stop them for—whoa! Hey!”

I threw a fireball at him, and unfortunately, he barely dodged it. “Shut your twisted yap, Invisiguy!” I said as I summoned two more fireballs in the palms of my hands. “Either leave or fight me!”

Invisiguy glared at me for a long time, debating what he should do. Stoner looked up at me from his knees with a zoned-out expression, probably unsure if he was dreaming or not.

Invisiguy disappeared instantly and rushed toward me. How do I know he rushed toward me? Smoke. Some of his clothes on his back were still on fire. The fire was invisible, of course, but the smoke seeped out of his invisibility bubble, allowing me to know his location. The smoke became visible just about two inches above his head. This was how I’d planned to beat him all along. I’d told myself that if he ever appeared, I would throw a fireball at him no matter what.

Before he reached me, I launched directly into the air, flying high above the buildings and just below the three helicopters that circled our fight. Invisiguy flew after me, I could see the trail of smoke following him. I was about to throw a fireball at him, but he punched me in the face just before I did.

I recovered quickly and realized my mistake. He was moving too fast for the smoke to show exactly where he was. I needed to read where he would be, just like I would read where to throw the football ahead of a receiver.

I flew back and found his smoke trail again. He was flying at me from the left this time. I barely had enough time to extend my leg and catch him in the stomach. He groaned, and my foot and ankle disappeared behind his invisibility bubble.

I wouldn’t let him get away now. I swung a fiery right hook and got him right in the face. He staggered backwards, and I lunged to grab him, but he barely dodged out of the way. He flew away from me and started to circle me.

I summoned fireballs and started throwing them at him. The third one hit him, but I couldn’t tell how much damage it did because it turned invisible as soon as it did. There was a little more smoke following him now. He continued to circle me, but at a greater distance. That must be the way that he fights with invisibility, I thought. He circles you, finds an opening, and then attacks.

I kept throwing fireballs at him as I chased behind him. He managed to dodge them because he kept his distance from me.

“You can see me!” Invisiguy said aloud.

I didn’t respond, just kept throwing fireballs, hoping to hit him and then grab him.

He changed his tactics. He sped up and flew in zigzags through the air. I stayed on his tail, watching the smoke trail carefully and listening to him fly. I didn’t manage to land any other fireballs, he stayed as far from me as he could now that he knew I could see him.

Uh oh… I thought. He’d figured it out. He was trying to fly fast enough to kill out the smoke. A few seconds later, his smoke trail had died out completely. I cursed.

My head whipped to the side as Invisiguy punched me in the cheek. I didn’t see it coming at all. He hit me again in the stomach, causing me to keel over. And then he hammered my back, sending me careening downward.

I slowed my descent but still hit the road hard, not far from where Stoner and New Girl were. My whole body was aching; I’d been fighting straight for a couple hours now. I slowly made my way to my feet and looked up at the sky, imagining Invisiguy smirking down at me.

Turns out, my imagination was totally off. Someone grabbed my right arm and extended it out beside me. Invisiguy was right next to me! Before I even had the thought to react, he smashed in my elbow.

Excruciating pain shot through my body like lightning. I screamed uncontrollably. I dropped out of the Second Degree and fell to my knees, holding my arm with my right hand. My elbow isn’t supposed to bend that way!