Thirty
Dark Static and I can’t attack Phil without the vortex coming down.
Supers can only use one power at a time, D.S.
warned. That limitation hinders us significantly in the battle against Capital City’s other Supers, who crash against the vortex with all their power.
Supers throw ferocious winds and toxic vermillion flames, and it takes all my concentration to keep the vortex from slipping.
Phil steps forward. “I’ll admit I didn’t expect a team-up. A hydro-electric shield. Clever.”
“Then you are stupider than you look,” D.S. spits back.
CRACK. A long oak branch bounces on the grass, a casualty of the storm, which Phil calmly sidesteps. “It’s good to see you, Fox. You’re everything I hoped you would be.”
A whirl of yellow strength hurls at Phil as Golden Ace flies out of the mansion. The impact of it should have knocked the mayor off his feet, but he snaps his fingers and Golden Ace smacks against the air, falling back.
Uh oh.
This must be Phil’s secret, secret power, beyond his charm-likeability-thing.
D.S. lurches toward the mayor, attempting to knock him off his balance, leaving me to hold off the other Supers by myself. The full weight of the vortex almost knocks me out.
Phil stops Dark Static with a second, easy snap, and D.S. stumbles backward. It looks like Phil can make his own force-fields out air.
I gasp.
If he can create force-fields… maybe he can break into them. Capital City is in more danger than we guessed.
“Hold it a little longer,” Golden Ace shouts to me. Even with the rain to fortify me, I can barely keep my arms above my head.
Dark Static reaches for the pocket hidden in his super suit, where he stored his mirror. Golden Ace does the same. Synchronized, the heroes aim their small squares of glass at Phil.
Phil grimaces, but doesn’t seem surprised. How? We know about his secret weakness.
Unease splinters through me as I realize: If Phil isn’t surprised, he’s ready.
D.S. must have reached the same understanding, because he lunges at Phil, wasting no more time. As he knocks into Phil, they both crash to the ground and my legs finally give out.
I fall forward, scraping the grass, and the sky changes from electric blue to midnight black as the vortex splits apart.
In the second we have before the other Supers arrive in full force, Phil clicks his tongue. “Madeline Roberts. Not so Super after all.”
Dark Static moves quickly. While Golden Ace keeps his mirror aimed at Phil, D.S. shouts at me, “Switch your gel!” He holds his gloved hands apart, summoning a white ball of electricity that he hurls at Phil in a flash. It should be enough to stun—but not kill.
In the split second before the electricity hits Phil, a swirl of purple knocks into Golden Ace, sending the mirror flying. It plummets to the ground, shattering into tiny pieces—too small for an obvious reflection.
An invisible field shields Phil just in time to avoid Dark Static’s electricity, while the rest of Capital City’s Supers land on the grass around us. A few who don’t have flight powers run in from the yard. There are about twelve total.
Bursts of wind, piles of dirt, and the fastest Supers all zoom toward D.S, who jumps in the air, flying and shooting red lasers near—not at—the other Supers.
I take an extra gel packet from my jacket and throw the old one out of my gloves. As I press the fresh packet inside my hands, relief, hydration, and adrenaline charge through me.
Golden Ace jumps into the sky. “It’s not Static you should be after. It’s Bridges. He’s a Super. He’s trying to take over the city!”
“Nice try,” one Super shouts back.
Oh no. Phil’s force-fields are invisible. The other Supers can’t see that Phil has powers.
“You’re one to talk,” a tall Super replies, whose hands are carefully folded behind his feathered purple suit.
Materio.
“Maybe you’re shooting for the same thing,” says Materio.
“Is that what it looks like I’m doing?” Golden Ace yells. He touches on the ground diplomatically. Materio closes in, like a jaguar on the prowl, playing with his food.
It makes sense that the Supers would be jealous of Golden Ace, but to turn on him this quickly? They would believe Phil’s word over his? Is Phil’s likeability power that strong?
In the sky, D.S. fights several Supers at once.
I recognize some of them, like Owl, a nocturnal Super with talons and super-senses; Coco, who can shoot chocolate sauce from her fingertips; and Vent, who can create wind; but I don’t remember the others.
I think they retired before Golden Ace came.
Three chase him in the air, and the others try to attack him from the ground by blasting holes in the grass and creating general chaos. One throws rocks.
I can’t believe this. Rocks? Really? Then a rock bursts in a gust of wind, and D.S. dodges its debris with milliseconds to spare.
Ah. Super rocks.
Blasts of rock-wind, combined with Vent’s powers, hinder D.S.’s flight, and he touches down on the dirt beneath a tree. Stepping back into the tree’s shadow, D.S. disappears.
I can’t tell if he used the shadow to camouflage or portal.
“Attack!” cries Coco, shooting gooey chocolate toward the tree. It hits the branches and oozes down the trunk like slime, creating a sticky puddle. D.S. won’t be able to hide there again without getting stuck.
The chocolate power isn’t terrible.
SZZZZT. A ball of electricity bursts from a different tree and the other Supers scatter. The ball hits one of Arielle’s hedges, setting it on fire. In the chaos, Dark Static jumps back into the sky, ready to attack.
A red and yellow Super flies behind Dark Static. “Let’s see how your fire mixes with mine,” she yells. She drops a few feet as blue smoke shoots from her fists. Her spandex suit twists around her torso, fading into her yellow hair like a flame from a candle.
Flare.
“Flare, don’t do this.” D.S. electrifies his flight path, leaving sparks in his trail. “If you get rid of me, he’ll go after each of you next.”
“Gotta admit, Static,” Flare says. “You’re not in such a stellar position to be dishing out threats.” But she waits for another of D.S.’s attackers to catch up before flying any closer.
While D.S. argues with Flare, Materio moves his hands from behind his back and presses toward Golden Ace. Materio holds a shiny, metallic ball the size of an apple. It’s the exact color of gold.
Phil watches everything unfold, his creepy smile growing. “Madeline, care to join the fun? It’s getting good.”
Golden Ace backs away. “Don’t,” he warns. “Mat, listen.”
Coughing, I inhale Flare’s smoke, as well as the smoke from the fire D.S. set. Materio can transfigure any object—except animals or people—into anything else. Why hasn’t he transfigured the flaming hedge and put out the fire? Instead, he’s tormenting Golden Ace.
I lift my hands and focus on the flaming hedge. I shoot a long jet of water, hitting the hedge like a bullseye. Smoke hisses off the plant as my water dissipates, but we’re all safer now.
We’ve seen Golden Ace take hits in battle before, that’s why the city obsesses over him: if he can lose, he’s easier to root for.
But he’s never been seriously injured, and while Materio may get a few punches in, Golden Ace will be fine—even against pure gold.
Right? Unless pure gold is the allergy that D.S.
had warned about—Golden Ace’s true weakness. The one that will put out his power.
“I have more,” Materio says. He throws the ball at Golden Ace.
Within a split second, I force myself to turn the translucent watery color I was when I’d knocked out Dark Static. Against the night sky and thanks to my new costume, I’m invisible enough.
I sprint toward Phil. Flare cries out in the sky, shooting long, orange tendrils at Dark Static, who portals inside another tree’s shadow. He returns from behind her with a lengthy bolt of white.
A second golden ball materializes in Materio’s palm, from one of his signature feathers.
“What does this do, anyway?” He launches the metal straight at Capital City’s greatest hero.
Golden Ace tries to dodge the metal, but Phil thwarts him by injecting a force-field wherever Golden Ace turns. As the gold ball flies closer to Golden Ace, his attempts to escape its trajectory grow weaker and weaker, his powers diminishing.
How has Materio not figured out what Phil is doing?
Hello? The man has superpowers.
I can’t explode the gold ball because there isn’t any water near it—raindrops aren’t contained enough to supercharge.
Instead, I sprint toward Phil, kick his knees with a triumphant blow, and knock Golden Ace to the side.
The gold brushes his shoulder, instead of slamming into his chest. I shoot a frigid blast of water at Materio to buy Golden Ace another minute to get his bearings, though it means sacrificing my invisibility.
Materio shifts toward me, shaking excess water out of his feathers. “You’re new.”
He takes a feather from his costume and tosses it in the air, making a show of whatever he’ll transfigure it into. I concentrate on it, and right before it starts to fall, hit it with a hydro-blast. The exertion makes me stumble backwards. Materio frowns.
I trip over something shiny: one of the mirror pieces, which isn’t large enough to catch Phil’s full reflection, but might get part of it. Would that diminish his powers some? I grab it and aim it at Phil, who smiles.
“What’ve you got there, Madeline?” he asks.
Materio double-takes at Phil’s sneer. As far as anyone besides me, Fox, Arielle, Jamie, Brynn, and Damian knows… Phil is a glorified nice guy. Golden Ace coughs, bringing Materio back in the game.
“Yes,” says the purple Super. “What is that?” He points a feathered finger at me and instantly, the mirror turns into a golden ball the size of an apple. Golden Ace coughs again, and I throw the ball as hard as I can away from us.
I shoot another blast of water at Materio to keep him back.
A wave of dizziness hits me, and shooting the water is almost more than I can handle.
I need to switch gel packets again, but it’s not safe here.
Above, Dark Static continues to fend off Flare and the others.
He looks down at me, then notes Golden Ace’s sprawling body.
He flies toward me, taking my hand, and a second later everything is black.
Then we’re on the other side of the mansion. The back porch.
“Run,” says Dark Static. The next second, he’s gone.
I don’t protest. The porch cracks under me as I run onto it, but I’m inside the mansion before Materio or Phil are back on their feet. I’ve assumed the mayor won’t attack his heirloom house, though he could. I need the cover to switch gel packets and check what’s outside without being a target.
Something large crawls on my leg. A hand grasps my ankle. “Madeline,” Arielle hisses. She’s hard to see from underneath a missing floorboard.
“What do you need me to do?” I ask. If Arielle is hiding under the floor of her own house, she must have a plan.
“I’ll get Dad out,” she says. “You find Phil’s files. Here.” A paper crinkles as she passes it to me through the hole. “These are the passcodes for Phil’s secret study. He keeps things locked in a trunk. The list is in order of what you’ll encounter, but they change in ten minutes. Hurry.”
At what point had I swapped lives with James Bond? ?
“Where the heck did you get these?” I ask. Why are we only finding them now?
“ Secret study. None of us have X-Ray vision, and Phil hid it from me well, but Dad overheard someone giving a clue to where it was, and we pieced it together. Once we located it, Gold gave us his best guess to hack the security codes. That’s on your paper.
We need more proof against Phil,” says Arielle.
“Quick, quick. Gold and Static can’t hold the Supers off forever. ”
“What if they need me?” My neck cranes into the yard. Golden Ace catches a major punch from Phil, but luckily stays on his feet.
“We all need you to help,” she says.
“If anything happens to them,” I say. “Fox or Damian or Dad…”
“I know. Quick, quick, Madeline.”
I tear myself from the door and keep myself from looking back. Arielle needs to be right.