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1: A Day Like Any Other . . . “Crap.” Thomas Chen (Sherman) KILLS: Benshin Ben groaned and leaned back from his laptop, waiting for his character to come back to life. He looked to his left at Tom, the one who had just killed him, but decided not to say anything. There was little point, as Tom had already killed him multiple times that evening. Besides, Tom appeared to be too deeply into the game to notice if Ben said anything to him anyway. The two of them were lying on the floor of the corner triple, battling for control of Midway Island back in 1942. Based on Ben’s performance, his team seemed unlikely to contradict history and give the island to the Japanese. Ben sighed and watched the countdown clock. David, the only person currently in the room who actually lived there (his two roommates had wisely decided to flee before the gaming had begun) heard Ben sigh. Ever the positive one, he tried to console his friend. “Cheer up, Ben,” he said. “You’ll get better at this. This is only your second try at Battlefield.” “It’s not just Battlefield,” said Ben for about the tenth time since he had started the game. “It’s shooting games in general. I’m not good at them. Never have been, never will be.” “You just need more practice,” replied David. “Sure . . .” said Ben, rolling his eyes before turning them back to his computer. Time to Respawn . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . Ben dropped down onto the island, holding an automatic weapon in front of him. He turned back and forth, scanning the surrounding area for enemies. Then he started running toward the nearest American flag on the map. BANG Damien (Grenade) KILLS: Benshin “Whoops,” said David. “Sorry about that.” “Don’t apologize,” said Ben. “You’re on the other team. You’re supposed to try and kill me.” Ben actually didn’t mind the fact that he seemed to spend more time awaiting his revival than actually playing, since he wasn’t very good and did not particularly enjoy being blown up/sniped/machine gunned/bombed/however many other ways there were to die in the game. The way he played, Ben was pretty sure that he could die by being stepped on. However, he was a distinct minority opinion. Almost all of his friends in the corner had adopted Battlefield 1942 over their previous game of choice- Defense of the Ancients, almost always shortened to just “DotA.” Ben liked DotA, and he was at least decent at it, as opposed to the first-person shooter. But no one else wanted to play DotA anymore, except for Jon, who was often mocked for having an obsession with the game, in between insults about being in the Business School. Ben had initially thought that it would be better to play the game that more of his friends wanted to do, but now he wasn’t so sure. His reverie was interrupted by a beeping from his computer indicating that his timer had gone down without him selecting a respawn point. “Come on, Ben,” said Jason, sitting on David’s right, sharing his desk. Jason was on Ben’s team, so at least he wasn’t trying to kill him. However, Ben had still not yet learned that it was not usually good to be in front when your allies were in tanks, and had managed to get himself killed by Jason once or twice already. Jason and David had been the original propagators of the game, though their enthusiasm had quickly spread to other nearby residents, including Tom, Adam, and Justin. While he appreciated the fact that both of them were trying their hardest to include him with the rest, Ben was slightly annoyed at the fact that they did not seem to understand how he could not like the game. “Don’t you want to play?” continued Jason, somehow directing his voice toward Ben despite the fact that his face was still pointed at the screen (a common gamer technique.) “Yeah, sure,” said Ben unenthusiastically, clicking a random point on the map. His hapless Japanese soldier dropped onto the field once more. Ben marveled at the fact that the man did not immediately kill himself from the shame of being controlled by him. The poor soldier pulled out a sniper rifle and lay down on the ground, taking aim at an American trooped that was approaching. It was a computer-controlled enemy, since Ben had no confidence in being able to take down one of the human players like David or Tom. If only he would stop moving . . . Adam (Knife) KILLS: Benshin “Heh heh,” said Adam, who was perched behind Ben on one of David’s roommates’ beds, and had apparently been similarly perched above him in the game right before knifing him. The sudden end of the game interrupted Ben as he was about to swear loudly. The other four in the room immediately fell into conversation about the game they had just played, a detailed post-game recap for those of them who had forgotten what had transpired less than an hour before. The same phenomenon had occurred with DotA, but it hadn’t bothered Ben nearly as much when he actually had something positive to recap. “So, you guys are up for another, right?” asked David A chorus of yeses was his response from Jason, Justin, Adam, and Tom. Ben looked at his watch. 10:30. He had already wasted two hours playing this game, and didn’t feel like giving up the rest of his night to it. “I think I’m out,” said Ben. “I’ve got homework to do.” What he didn’t add was that it wasn’t due the next day, and that he was unlikely to do it tonight. It was just an excuse to get away. He picked up his laptop and started to leave the room. “Screw homework!” said Dave. “I just finished a Chem exam. I’m going to be playing this all night!” “Darn straight,” echoed Justin. “Hell yeah!” said Jason “Me too,” added Adam. “Well, except for the Chem part.” Ben grinned. “Well, you guys have fun with that,” he said, exiting the room. He shut the door behind him to spare the other residents the sound of incessant gunfire. After Ben had left, the remaining gamers huddled around David, temporarily ignoring their game. “It’s no good,” said Tom. “He sucks.” “Yeah he definitely blows at this game,” added Adam. “We need to try something else.” “Guys, be patient,” countered Jason. “Maybe he just needs more practice.” “No,” countered Adam, “He just sucks. And powers are supposed to be natural, not learned, right?” “That’s not completely true,” said Tom. “Sure powers are innate, but they also involve training to be fully developed.” “Tom, keep your voice down,” whispered Adam. “You don’t know who might be listening.” He turned back to David and continued, “But what haven’t we tried yet?” David shook his head. “I don’t know.” “Justin, why don’t you try him with karate or nunchaku or something?” suggested Jason helpfully. “It would be pointless,” said Justin. “I can see he has no talent for the martial arts.” “Dude, that’s a pretty fast judgment, just by looking,” responded Adam warily. “Are you sure?” “I’m positive.” “Well we’re running out of time,” said Tom, still the only one not whispering. “We’ve gotta find out what it is hella fast.” “Let’s just stick with Battlefield for now,” said David, “And the rest of you just try and think of anywhere else his talent may lie. Damn it, Ben,” he added to himself. “Can you do anything?” As predicted, Ben found himself unable to concentrate on his homework. He worked on his Japanese (the only class he actually liked) for about half an hour and then decided to roam the halls. He could still hear bullets ricocheting from behind the door to David’s room. Both David and Jason had been known for staying up until dawn playing DotA; he assumed they were capable of similar feats with Battlefield. He toyed with the idea of going in and watching for a while, but decided that he had had enough of that game for one night. Taking a right, he continued down the hall. “Hey Ben,” called out a voice. “Is my roommate still in there?” Ben turned into the doorway at his left. “Yeah, Austin. Do you need him?” Austin (whose roommate was Adam) was sitting on his bed looking at a notebook filled with diagrams that looked so complicated to Ben’s eyes that they must have had something to do with computers. Austin jumped down from the bed. “Dang it. Of course I need him. We have a CS lab to do tonight.” Ben laughed. “Oh come on, those only take like eight hours, right?” “Ten,” replied Austin, looking gloomy. “If we’re lucky.” Glancing at his watch, Ben saw that it was now 11:00. “Well, good luck with that,” he said, laughing. He and Austin exited the room, heading in opposite directions; Austin went to David’s room to fetch Adam, while Ben continued down the hallway toward the J Room. In the J Room, both Jon and Jordan were at their desks in front of their computers (the room’s other resident, Justin, was still campaigning in the Pacific). Jon was clutching a pillow and leaning over an economics textbook. He noticed Ben before he had a chance to say anything. “HeyBenyouwannaplayDotA?” he asked, the word(s) spilling from his mouth so fast they were almost incomprehensible. “Uh, no thanks Jon,” Ben answered. “I’ve got class tomorrow and I don’t think I should start a game this late.” “Pleeease?” Jon pleaded. “The new version is out and I really want to see it.” “No Jon, you’ll just have to play on your own.” “Oh, I’m not going to play,” said Jon matter-of-factly, turning back to the textbook. “I’ve got too much studying to do. Maybe I should go to the library . . .” “Wait, you just wanted me to play so you could watch?” Ben asked “Yeah, basically.” “You’re hopeless, Jon,” he replied, shaking his head. “Utterly, utterly hopeless.” “Yeah Jon,” added Jordan, turning around in his seat to face them. “Stop trying to drag Ben into your little DotA schemes.” “ROFL!” Jon responded, laughing. ROFL was an internet shorthand term which originally stood for “Rolling On the Floor Laughing,” but like most such terms it had degenerated to just generally meaning that something was funny. In Jon’s speech, ROFL was used so frequently that it really didn’t mean anything. “Don’t laugh, you scheming B-schooler,” continued Jordan. “I’m going to beat you up!” “No you’re not,” said Ben. “You’re just going to sit there and watch whichever Arnold Schwarzenegger movie you have on.” “Damn it, Ben! It was a hypothetical beating. And it’s Conan the Barbarian.” “Well, I’ll leave you two to studying and Barbarianing,” said Ben, leaving the room. He left assuming that Jon’s insatiable desire for DotA (especially the new version, 6.0) would have him playing before too long. On his way back down the hall, he saw that Austin had successfully extracted Adam from the war zone, and the two of them were deep in their Computer Science work. Behind the door in David’s room, things were still exploding as the war raged on. Back in his room, Ben could think of no good way to kill time. He still didn’t feel like doing homework, and right then none of his games or books seemed very interesting. His roommate was out and probably would be for at least a couple more hours. As embarrassing as it was to go to bed before midnight, that was what he elected to do. He put on his pajamas, brushed his teeth, shut the door, turned off the light, turned on the fan (it wasn’t hot; the noise helped him sleep), and got into bed. Outside Beaumont Hall, two men dressed all in black were blending in with the shadows. They peered up at the windows on the third floor. One of them whispered to the other, “Should we go now? The light is out.” “No, fool,” hissed the other. “We have to wait a few hours for everyone else to go to sleep. This mission is coming all the way from the top, so we can’t screw it up. Gotta do everything right.” “Gotcha,” replied the first one. “Hey, why do you think they would care that much about getting one kid?” “Who knows . . .”
Chapter
2: The Flight from the Floor Asleep in his bed, Ben dreamed that he was still on the Battlefield. He was running around with a stick in his hand, facing up against a seemingly endless wall of tanks. Against all logic, Ben’s dream self charged toward his enemies. No, no, thought Ben, Don’t charge at them! You’re going to be killed! But his dream self continued to run straight at the tanks. Oh well, Ben thought, not at all surprised by his inability to control his body, Maybe as my limbs get blown off me they’ll get stuck in one of the tank’s guns, causing it to backfire. Then at least I’ll have done something useful. Suddenly his dream self froze in place, surrounded by a giant block of ice. Behind him, Jon had appeared, except his lower body was that of a centaur holding a huge axe (one of his favorite DotA characters). Come with me, Ben, said the dream Jon. They don’t have anything to offer you. Money is the only true power. The centaur Jon ran forward and stomped the ground, sending tanks flying in all directions. Behind them was the business school building, except it had the Japanese kanji character for “evil” written on it with what looked like blood. The remaining tanks closed in around the ice block in which Ben was encased, which now started to melt quickly. Somehow, Ben knew that as soon as the ice had melted, they would open fire. He waited anxiously for the computer-animated explosion he had seen so many times before . . . BOOM Ben woke up suddenly and looked around. He felt cold, and thought he could almost smell gunpowder, but his dorm room showed no signs of tanks or enormous ice blocks. Rolling to his right, he saw his roommate sound asleep, unwoken by the thunderous explosion. Tilting his head back, he found the clock. It read 4:00, meaning he had class in five hours. He groaned. Sitting up, Ben thought about the dream he had just had. It had been strangely weird. He realized that dreams were often, even supposed to be, weird, but his were normally extremely normal, for dreams. Despite the fact that it was utterly fantastic, it had somehow felt more real than any of his previous dreams. Yawning, Ben jumped out of bed and headed toward the bathroom. As he reached the door, he heard voices and heavy footsteps outside. While it was not unheard of for someone to be up and about this late on a weeknight, the voices were not ones that Ben recognized. And it sounded like they were carrying something heavy. Worst of all, they were moving toward his door. The need to pee completely forgotten, Ben dashed back to his bed and hid under the covers, pretending to be asleep. Ben’s heart beat quickly as he pulled his comforter tight over his head, like a seven-year-old hiding from the bogeyman. It beat even faster as the footsteps stopped just outside his door. He was now able to recognize what the voices were saying, and he listened in terror as two men spoke. “Oh shit,” said one. “I forgot my lock-pick.” “It doesn’t matter,” replied the second. “With the field in place, no one else has a chance of waking up. We’ll just break down the door.” “Ah good,” said the first. “I never much cared for the subtle approach anyway.” “On three,” said the second. “One . . .” Ben dashed to the window and contemplated jumping. “Two . . .” Ben remembered that he was on the top floor, and dove back into bed. “Thr . . . what in the world?” A flurry of new sounds filled the darkness, drowning out any further speech. He heard a blade hum through the air, or rather, he heard what he thought was a swiftly flying blade, based on movies he had seen. Following this were several heavy, dull thuds, which Ben guessed were metal crashing into someone’s body. Finally, there was a huge crash of wood. Ben sat up, and saw that his door was now no more than splinters. Standing in the remains of the doorway was Justin, wearing a headband and crouching in a martial arts stance. His left hand was clutching his nunchaku, and his right palm was fully outstretched as if he had just struck something. Ben turned his head the other way. A large man dressed in black was plastered against the wall. An assault rifle and grenades were strapped to his back. Ben turned back, and saw Justin still standing there, face completely neutral. Between the two sights, Ben’s roommate was sleeping, despite the huge racket that Ben was pretty sure Justin had just made, which was something he would not previously have believed him capable of. Tom darted in front of Justin in the doorway. He was clutching his fencing foil, a flimsy weapon designed to bend easily and not do any real damage. Ben was surprised, therefore, to see a red substance on it that he would have sworn was blood. “Uhh, guys . . .?” started Ben, but Tom cut him off quickly. “Hurry up!” he said. “There’s no time! We’ve gotta get out of here!” Tom ran quickly back out into the hall. Justin relaxed from his combat crouch and slowly rose to a normal standing position. “Come Ben,” he said. “You may not be prepared, but our enemies have forced our hand. Ready or not, the time is now.” He walked slowly back toward his room. Ben was very confused. He thought he had just woken up from a dream, but the world into which he had awoken was almost as strange as the one he had left. Dazed, he wandered out into the hallway. It was the same as it always was this early in the morning, lit only by the eerie red lights of the emergency exit signs. Perhaps everything was normal, after all. Tom ran back toward the room, shattering his delusion of normalcy. “Hurry!” he said. As he did, two more men dressed in black appeared from around the corner. They drew their rifles and pointed them directly at Ben and Tom. “Freeze!” they shouted. Tom grinned. “That old line? You grunts are so uncreative.” He shoved Ben backwards and sprung forward off the tips of his feet. Sword outstretched, he flew down the narrow hallway toward his opponents. The mercenaries were unable to respond in time. The one on the left was impaled by the deceptively flimsy foil in the chest. The blade continued into the door behind him with a loud THUNK and stuck there. Tom hung from the handle, bouncing slightly several inches off the ground. The mercenary on the right pointed his gun straight at the hanging Tom’s face. “I’d say don’t move,” he started, “But I don’t think you will with your sword caught like that.” Tom said nothing. Instead, he twisted, beginning with his feet then spiraling up his legs and his torso to the arms. The rapid rotation wrenched the blade from the door, leaving a six-inch wide hole, and brought it directly across his enemy’s chest. The man was knocked back by the force of the blow. “Holy shit!” said Ben. Killing two armed men in seconds was not something one normally expected of one’s dorm mates. “Pretty cool, wasn’t it?” said Tom, smiling. “I’m hella good. Now come on, we’ve gotta move now!” He grabbed Ben’s arm and ran to the corner with Dave’s room, Austin and Adam’s room, and the J room. The corner seemed normal, except that the door to Austin and Adam’s room was slightly ajar, and there were both a dim bluish light and voices coming from inside. Tom pushed the door open and then quickly closed it behind himself and Ben. The room was the same as Ben had seen it earlier that night, except for the wall opposite the door was now filled by a large machine of some sort. The base was wide and black, with glowing buttons and screens covering most of it. The rest was an arch that reached all the way to the ceiling. The inside of the arch was filled with the same soft, blue light that Ben had seen when entering the room. In addition to himself and Tom, Justin, Austin, and Adam were also in the room. Justin was sitting on Austin’s bed, and the two roommates were lying on the floor, hitting buttons on the machine. “Where are Dave, Jason, and Jordan?” asked Tom “Well, Dave and Jason went back earlier tonight,” replied Adam. “I called for Jordan a while ago, but . . .” The unasked question answered itself as Jordan burst into the room. He was wearing a bathrobe, Rambo-style headband, and despite the darkness in the room, sunglasses. “Damn that Jon Tang!” he bellowed. “He turned the heat in our room up to max! I can’t get in there to get my weapons! It’s like the inner circle of hell in there!” “Actually,” said Ben, who had absorbed everything else that been said so far without understanding at all, “The inner circle of hell is ice, so it wouldn’t be that cold.” “Damn it Ben!” cried Jordan. “This is no time for your sarcasm!” Ben grinned, feeling a little more at ease in his playful banter with Jordan. “What are you talking about?” he replied. “It’s always time for sarc . . .” Ben was interrupted by a deafening explosion just outside the room’s window. Orange fire lit the room briefly like it was day, and the shockwave knocked everyone on the floor that wasn’t already there. After a brief pause, Austin raised himself to the window and peeked out. “Crap,” he said hopelessly. “They have a tank.” “It’s okay,” said Adam. “The portal is almost ready. I just wish Dave and Jason hadn’t used it earlier so it wouldn’t take so much damn time to charge.” The sheer amount of unknown information finally got to Ben. “Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” he shouted. “Why are there armed men on the floor? Who is shooting a tank at us? Where does this portal lead? And why the hell is none of this waking anyone up?” The other five looked at each other for a moment, and Jordan was the one who decided to answer. “We don’t have a whole lot of time to explain right now,” he started. “Well I figured that,” said Ben. “After all, people are trying to kill us. Just give me the basics.” “The why’s not important right now,” said Jordan. “Basically, these guys are out to kill us, and this portal will take us back to our base, where we’ll be safe.” “Okay . . .,” said Ben, sort of digesting this information. “What base?” “It’s our team base. I don’t want to go too much into it right now, but the team is us five, plus Dave and Jason. Dave’s the leader, actually.” “So, in other words, everyone in the All That is Man Corner except me.” Ben paused. “And Jon.” “Yeah,” said Jordan uneasily. “Jon is . . .” Adam interrupted the explanations with a cry of, “It’s charged! Let’s go!” The portal shone a bright sky blue for a moment, then resolved into an image of what looked like an empty gray room. Adam started toward the portal, but then the tank fired again. The shot blasted through the top of the wall and a section of the roof, but in between it took off the top half of the arch. The gray image fizzled and vanished. “We’re boned,” said Adam. “Umm, you guys have a backup, right?” said Tom, looking hopefully at Adam and Austin. “Yeah . . .” said Adam. “. . . in Lopata hall, across main campus,” finished Austin. “Well, that’s where we’re going,” said Jordan. “We should stay and fight here,” said Justin calmly. “To flee is dishonorable.” “If we move we’ll be fighting them also,” countered Jordan, “But on our own terms. No way is that damn businessman’s army going to stop us. Now if only I had my guns . . .” “Those mercenaries I took out in the hall had assault rifles,” said Tom. “Excellent . . .” said Jordan, and he walked off into the hall with an excited gleam in his eyes. Ben followed, more confused than ever. Team base? Businessman’s army? What the hell is going on? And why is no one else awake? The strange party made their way out the side exit of the building. Tom led, sword held forward like a sensor. Justin followed, and then came Austin and Adam, standing on either side of a still very confused Ben. Jordan brought up the rear, a heavy assault rifle in each of his hands. “So why is all this fighting not waking anyone up?” whispered Ben, still desperate to understand something of what was going on. “It’s a sleep field,” Adam whispered back. “The enemy must have set it up when they were planning this operation.” “Oh, thanks,” whispered Ben sarcastically as they turned the corner of the building. They stayed in the shadows, hiding from the tank whose attention was still focused on Austin and Adam’s room three stories above. “A sleep field???” “Yeah,” said Tom, in a voice much too loud for covert operations. “It uses a special sound wave frequency that puts anyone who isn’t a superhero or doesn’t have their ears properly shielded into a deep sleep from which it is almost impossible to wake.” Superhero? thought Ben. “Tom, be quiet,” hissed Austin. “We’re trying to be sneaky here.” The pathway next to the dorm suddenly became very silent, which amplified the sound of the tank’s turret rotating toward their position. “Shit,” said Tom. Jordan grabbed Ben and dove to the left while the others leapt right to avoid the shell that crashed through the window, reducing the Beaumont study room to rubble. “Damn it Tom!” yelled Jordan “You’re going to get us all killed!” He pushed Ben over to the rest of the group and opened fire with both weapons, drawing the tank’s attention, and gun, toward himself. The air filled with mechanical sounds as the tank reloaded. “Come on you bastard!” yelled Jordan. “Is that the best you can do?” “Get it quick!” yelled Adam. “Before it can reload!” “Don’t worry,” said Tom. “I’ve got my electric foil!” What good would that do . . .? Ben wondered Tom jumped in front of Jordan and held his sword like a javelin. He pulled his arm back then hurled the sword forward. It went straight down the barrel of the tank and stuck with a loud CLUNK. There was the sound of the tank firing, but no shot came out. Instead, electric blue sparks began to crawl around the outside of the tank. They increased in number and built up until the entire vehicle was covered in pulsating electric waves. It held like this for a brief instant then exploded in an ionized cloud of debris. “Yes!” said Tom, pumping his fist. “Suck it!” yelled Jordan. Meanwhile, four soldiers jumped up from behind the rest of the group, grabbing Ben and Justin by the arms. Ben was worried, but Justin merely flipped his body upside-down as they were hanging on to his arms. His legs flung out and connected solidly with the heads of the two guards holding him, knocking them out. He flipped back over in mid-air as they fell and landed gently on his feet. As this was happening, a tiny pink flamingo walked up to the two soldiers holding Ben. “What the hell?” asked one of them “Kinda cute . . .” said the other They dropped Ben and walked up to it. “I don’t get it,” said the first soldier. “Is that really a flamingo? It looks a bit . . . odd . . .” The two knelt down to examine it more closely. The flamingo’s eyes turned red and its mouth opened, shooting flames out and incinerating the two soldiers. “Holy shit!” said Ben “Sweet!” said Adam. He and Austin were on the ground nearby, crouched over a laptop. Adam typed in something, and the flamingo walked back to him. He folded up its legs and put it back in his pocket. “We’ve gotta keep moving,” said Jordan, coming back with Tom to rejoin the group. “There must be more of them around nearby.” The six of them, no longer attempting a stealthy exit, took off toward the main campus at a run. Ben preferred the running to the sneaking, because it forced him to concentrate on keeping up, which kept his mind from pondering all of the strange things going on. No more soldiers tried to stop them, and soon they had arrived on the Quad, not far from the engineering school. “We’re almost there!” yelled Austin. “Lopata’s just beyond that building!” “Oh, too bad, boys,” said a voice they couldn’t quite locate. The group stopped suddenly and looked around for the mystery person. “You guys were so close, too.” The group suddenly became aware that they were surrounded. Thirty soldiers all had their assault rifles pointed at them, ready to fire. The circle opened slightly to let someone enter. He was about average height, but the darkness made it difficult to see his face. As he got closer he seemed quite out of place, as he was wearing a full suit and tie with dress pants and, bizarrely, flip flops. Once he was just a few yards away, they suddenly recognized his short black hair and light brown skin. “Hello, boys,” he said, grinning. It was Jon Tang. “Damn you Jon!” yelled Jordan. “It was you all along!” “That’s right,” said Jon. “You boys ruined my nice tank, and it’ll cost quite a lot to replace it, but I think this investment will pay off in the long run.” He turned to look at Ben, who was just as surprised at this turn of events as just about everything else that had happened since he woke up. Jon is the bad guy? And why is he looking at me like that? “So how did you guys find out about Ben?” asked Tom, the end of his sentence drowned out by angry shouts of his name and curses from his friends. “Oh, don’t blame poor Tom,” said Jon. He started flipping a coin in his right hand as he talked. “I already knew about Ben, don’t worry. I have my sources. And it’s not ‘us guys,’” he added, “It’s just me. Old man Hurst doesn’t know anything about this little operation. I wanted a little . . . side venture.” “You sorry little b-schooler,” yelled Jordan. He jumped toward Jon, but several soldiers opened fire. A stream of bullets knocked the rifles from his hands and tore up his arms. “Take out their legs,” ordered Jon, angrily. The circle opened fire and the six people in the middle cried out in pain. “Can’t have you guys moving around.” Ben dropped down to the ground, his legs hurting worse than he had ever felt before. He looked around and saw the others in similar positions. They wouldn’t be able to help him anymore. Jon walked up to Ben and knelt near him. “They may have failed to find out what you can do, Benny Boy, but my methods are much more efficient. With your power on my side, I can overthrow the big cheese and take his assets for my own. This may be the best investment I’ve ever made.” Jon’s statement was followed by the chopping sound of rotor blades. Ben’s hair was blown back from his face as he saw a helicopter descend from the sky. As it passed through a light, He could make out the word ROFLCOPTER painted on the side. As it touched down just beyond the ring of armed men, Jon said, “Convenient, isn’t it? Travel is so much easier when you’ve got money. I’d love to stay and watch your pesky friends meet their end, but I have a meeting to be at. Don’t worry, you’ll see me again soon enough.” He stood up and headed toward the chopper. “Kill them all except for the short brown-haired one,” he said as he passed through the circle. Jon Tang jumped up into the vehicle and was just about to sit down when he turned back. “And just head shots, gentlemen. Let’s be economical with bullets here.” He sat back and the helicopter lifted into the air, flying off over Ridgley Hall toward the Business School. The soldiers closed in on the six wounded people. Ben looked around at his companions, and the situation did not look good. Tom probably couldn’t do much without his sword, and Jordan arms were too badly wounded to use his weapons. Justin could still fight, but with his legs shot up his mobility was severely limited. He guessed that fighting wasn’t Adam and Austin’s strong point, and the flamingo probably wouldn’t work a second time. And as for himself . . . despite what Jon and the others seemed to think, he couldn’t fight. Could he? The ring of soldiers stopped just a few feet away from the desperate
group. Their leader smiled as he looked at them. “You superheroes
think you’re so special,” he said, “but in the
end, it’s the business people who own this world. Say goodbye
to your precious ideals and ethics.” The five people from Beau3 stared at the monster in fear, but it ignored them and went after the soldiers with single-minded efficiency. They fired their guns wildly at it, but either the bullets did not hit or they had no effect on the demonic animal. The beast made short work of the ones who tried to fight, and those who decided to run were unable to escape the reach of its terrible claws. It sniffed around for a few seconds, searching for enemies, then vanished in a burst of light. The five superheroes from Beau3 stared open-mouthed at where the
giant fox had been. Then Jordan picked up the unconscious Ben and
the group moved slowly toward Lopata and the portal back to base.
Chapter
3: A Little
Overdue Explanation Ben woke up the next day and felt like he had slept for a week. He pulled his blanket over his head and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It was the second of two extremely weird dreams he had had lately, but this one was much more difficult to remember. He was out on the Quad in the middle of the night with a bunch of people from his floor, and Jon was trying to kill them for some reason. Maybe we ate his Chinese food, Ben thought sleepily. There was also a giant fox, and he remembered Jon saying “ROFLCOPTER,” one of the many equally meaningless mutations of his favorite phrase, “ROFL.” “Hey, Ben, wake up.” Ben rolled away from the voice. He had no idea what his roommate wanted, but it could easily wait until he had figured out what the fox had done. The image of it in his head seemed pretty terrifying, but he had a feeling that it had been on his side. “Dude, enough is enough. Get up.” Ben was about to mumble something dismissing to his roommate when he realized it was not his roommate who was speaking. He opened his eyes and looked at his blanket. It was not his blanket. He sat up quickly in a bed that was not his bed and saw the gray walls of a room that was not his room. Turning toward to his right, he saw that it was, in fact, not his roommate who had been telling him to wake up, but a boy of Asian descent about his age. He was a few inches taller than Ben and slightly rounded in the face and torso. This was Dave. “You look rather disconcerted,” he said simply. It slowly dawned on Ben that perhaps the dream he had been trying to piece together was not so much a dream as it was reality. He remembered the black-clad soldiers, the tank, the race to Lopata, the capture by Jon and the fact that the ROFLCopter was something he had used to escape, not something he had said. He also remembered being shot. Ben threw the blanket off of his legs and looked down, but he could detect no trace of blood or holes that shouldn’t be there. The thought suddenly occurred to him that perhaps he had really been asleep for a week after all. “How long was I asleep?” he asked, with a tongue still slowed somewhat by sleep. “Actually, just about twelve hours,” replied Dave. “I figured that was long enough.” He sensed Ben’s puzzlement and followed his gaze down to his legs. “Oh, the bullet wounds? You have Jason to thank for that. He’s quite the miracle worker. Look closer. You don’t even have any scars.” Ben looked closer and discovered that without his memory there would have been no evidence that he had been shot last night. The mention of Jason’s name sparked other memories in his head, strange discoveries about people he knew, or at least had thought that he knew. Tom’s swordplay. Justin’s martial arts skills. Jordan’s assault rifles. Austin and Adam’s dimensional portals and killer flamingos. Ben continued to speak slowly, but it was now slowness due to uncertainty rather than sleepiness. “So, does that mean that Jason is the doctor on this . . . team . . . thing?” he asked “Good guess.” Dave sighed. “I suppose you’d appreciate a little explanation now.” “Well, since I don’t think I’ve understood a single thing that’s happened to me since I went to sleep for the first time last night, yes I think an explanation may be in order,” Ben responded dryly. Dave laughed. “You’ve still got your wit about you, at least.” He looked quickly at his watch. “Do you have time?” “I guess so,” Ben answered, grinning. “Something tells me I won’t be going to class today.” “Yeah,” Dave smiled back, “I’m pretty sure you already missed them, anyway. All right, since you’ve got time, I’ll give you the full story. It all starts a few decades back with a businessman named Hubert Hurst.” Ben remembered Jon’s words from the previous night: Old man Hurst doesn’t know anything about this little operation, but he remained quiet and listened to Dave. “Back in the sixties, Hurst was the CEO of a major insurance company. However, one day he received a debilitating injury from a Super and was never the same again. After a long and painful recovery, he devoted his life and all of his resources to the destruction of all Supers.” “And Supers are what, exactly?” Ben asked “It’s a generic term for people with abilities far beyond those of average humans. We make up about .001% of the population. These abilities can range from seemingly unnatural power over one’s surroundings to superhuman physical capabilities, or they may just seem like a highly-developed skill.” “So you’re superheroes, in other words?” “Well, basically. There’s a slight difference in terminology. A Super is just someone who possesses these unusual powers, whereas a Superhero is someone who chooses to use these powers in the name of truth, justice, and the way of whatever country they may be from.” “Was Hurst really able to do anything? I mean, it kinda sounds like you’re describing a war between some guy in a suit and Superman. Well, I guess Superman was also a guy in a suit, but you know what I mean.” Dave shook his head. “Unfortunately, in this world, money is its own power. Driven by his insane desire for revenge against the Supers, Hurst was able to use ruthless business practices to become the richest man in the world. His status drew other businessmen to his cause, and in the early seventies he formed a massive conglomerate that basically runs things on this planet. With his vast wealth and influence he was able to develop weapons that could fight the Supers and train an elite army to use them. Through a combination of fighting back and hiding, the Supers have been able to survive over the years, but it’s never been easy.” Ben was extremely suspicious. “That can’t possibly be right,” he argued. “I may not keep up very well with current events, but I think I would have known if one businessman has been running the world for the past thirty years!” Dave stared at him. “Do you really think that if the man who essentially controls the world’s wealth does not want you to know he is in charge, you will know despite his will?” “But you said there’s a war going on! People are dying! If it were true, how can I not have noticed it until last night?” Dave sighed. “Those who are not Supers are unlikely to notice because they are not involved, and Hurst and his associates are quite skilled at covering up any ‘incidents’ made by Supers resisting. The sleep field is just one of many devices they’ve developed to keep non-Supers out of the loop. As much as you may not want to admit it, you’ve lived an extremely sheltered life, Ben. Plus, you went to Washington University.” “And the significance of WashU is . . .?” “WashU is a kind of neutral zone between the sides. The war does not go on there, and the people who are there aren’t supposed to realize that it is going on elsewhere. We don’t really know why, but about 20 years ago Hurst allowed it to become a sort of sanctuary for the children of some of the Supers. A lot of parents send them there so that they can be safe, at least for a few years. Now, as you might expect, each side has some of their people at the university to keep an eye on things, but there is no fighting.” “So if WashU is a neutral zone, why was there an attack on the dorm last night?” “That’s the part that doesn’t make much sense to me,” admitted Dave. “I have no clue why Hurst would be breaking his own rules about the neutrality of the campus.” Ben suddenly remembered something. “It wasn’t Hurst. It was Jon Tang. He said he was working on his own.” He paused. “But still, that would be going against the orders of his boss and risking his wrath, right?” “Ah, that makes more sense. It was a very risky move, but this just means that Jon thought he could gain something from the operation that was worth betting his job and possibly even his life on.” Jon’s voice came back to Ben again: With your power on my side, I can overthrow my boss and take his assets for my own. This may be the best investment I’ve ever made. Ben also remembered Jon’s words to him and already knew what was so important to Jon. Uneasy, and hoping that Dave didn’t know the right answer, he asked semi-jokingly, “What the hell could that be?” Ben’s hopes were shot down. “You, of course,” was Dave’s simple, indisputable response. An uncomfortable silence filled the otherwise empty room for about half a minute as each of them waited for the other to expand upon the life-altering statement. Ben gave in first. “Are you going to tell me why I’m so valuable? Am I a Super?” “We believe so, yes,” said Dave, “But that alone would not be enough to justify Jon going after you. After all, there are plenty of Supers at WashU, some that know it and some that don’t.” Dave stopped there, seemingly unwilling to go further. “You know why I’m different, though, don’t you?” “Yeah, I do. About a year ago, a prophet among us predicted that a Super of great power would come to WashU, and that he would be the cause of Hurst’s downfall. She marked you out at the convocation as the one in the prophecy. We’ve been there on your floor watching you and trying to help you discover your power ever since. Jon Tang must have found out about the prophecy somehow and decided that he wanted to take advantage of it to fulfill his own ambitions by using you to overthrow Hurst and take control of his global syndicate.” Ben was highly embarrassed by the idea of his being a “Chosen One” to save an entire race from perpetual war, so he tried to steer the conversation away from himself. “Umm, who exactly is this ‘us’ that has been keeping an eye on me?” Dave smiled. “Superheroes often find that they work better together, so we like to form teams. Most of the people you know from the ‘All That is Man’ corner on your floor, with the notable exception of Jon, make up one of these teams, and I’m the leader.” “And you said you had been helping me to find my power?” Ben asked, a little skeptical. “Well, basically, yeah. Most of the activities we’ve tried to get you involved with this year have been subtle efforts to see what your talent is. We wanted to use roundabout methods to avoid revealing everything you didn’t know and confusing you horribly.” “Oh, thanks,” said Ben, sarcasm seeping into his voice like venom. “Great job on the whole ‘avoiding confusion’ thing. I haven’t been confused at all in the past 24 hours.” “Well, Jon kinda forced our hand on the issue,” Dave countered. “Once he attacked we had to get you out of WashU and back to our base, and once that happened it was pretty much impossible to keep you in the dark about things.” “True,” admitted Ben. “I’m still confused about how you were trying to help me find my power. Which things were supposed to test me?” “It was a lot of different stuff. The fencing lessons were one way. So was Battlefield.” “Battlefield,” Ben said simply. “Yeah.” “You were seeing if I had superpowers . . . with a computer game.” “Yes.” “Riiiiiiight . . .” “We were doing the best with the resources we had,” argued Dave. “Battlefield was supposed to test your skills with guns and vehicles, something that would have been all but impossible to do in real life without arousing suspicion.” “I suppose. Was DotA a test also?” “No. DotA came from Jon, remember? You do have a point, though,” he conceded. “None of our attempts made any pro gress toward finding out what you could do. In the end it required a life-threatening situation to awaken your gift.” Ben was confused. Dave was speaking as if he had already used his power, whatever it may be, while Ben had no memory of having done so. Despite this, a nagging thought entered Ben’s mind: They were all cornered last night. None of them could have saved you. So why are you here right now instead of in Tang’s greedy clutches? Fortunately, Dave’s next statement temporarily pushed the unwelcome thought out of Ben’s mind. “So how about I officially introduce you to the team?” “Sure. Sounds good.” It did feel a little odd to be introduced to people with whom he had lived for months, but there were a lot of things changing in Ben’s life right now, so the reintroduction seemed strangely appropriate. Ben jumped off of the bed and went out the door of the room with Dave, ending up in a hallway that was just as gray as the room where he had slept. Just outside the door, six people stood in a semi-circle waiting. Ben figured that they were waiting for Dave, their leader. His stomach lurched as he had the sudden horrifying thought that maybe they werewaiting for him. Furthest to the left was a boy with long black hair and brownish skin. He was muscular but a few inches shorter than Ben. He wore a white robe with a black belt and American flag headband. In his right hand was the nunchaku Ben had seen him carry last night. “This is Justin,” explained Dave, “Our master of Karate, Kung Fu, and just about any other martial art you can think of.” Justin simply nodded to Ben. The next person in line was of Taiwanese parentage and had short black hair. He was slim like Ben, and about the same height. His clothes were less distinguishing than Justin’s, as he was only wearing a Hawaiian shirt and jeans, but at his side was a fencing foil and another, larger sword was strapped to his back. “Next we have Tom, a master in the use of any blade.” “Glad to see you’re okay,” said Tom. Following Tom were two people Ben recognized as roommates. The
first was a little over his height and a little heavier than him.
He had long brown hair that made him look a little bit like a hippie,
except that it was covered by a hard hat. The other was taller and
skinnier, with very straight blond hair. Both wore orange shirts
bearing the flamingo that was the mascot of the engineering school.
“These are Adam and Austin, masters of all things technical,
mechanical, and computer-related. They can fix or build just about
anything they want. Basically, they’re the ultimate engineers.” “Yeah,” agreed Austin. “I thought we were goners.” Ben was a little disturbed by Adam’s statement and the unwelcome
thought resurfaced in his head, but he shook it away and moved on
to the next person. He was by far the most striking of the group.
The tallest among them, he had long red hair and was heavily built.
More interesting than his body, however, was his style of dress:
as he had been last night, he wore a bathrobe, a red Rambo-style
bandana and sunglasses. Unlike last night, they were accessorized
with a bandolier across his chest and an automatic rifle behind
his back. “The flashy one is Jordan, our resident gun nut.” Ben smiled. Some things never changed. At the end of the line was a boy almost as tall as Jordan and somewhat slimmer. He had very curly brown hair, and he wore glasses and a long white lab coat. “This is Jason, expert on the human body. He can cure any disease, heal any wound. He’s the team doctor.” “It’ll be so cool to have you on the team Ben,” said Jason. “And lastly, me,” said Dave, joining the others in the circle. “Team leader.” “What’s your power Dave?” Ben asked eagerly “Oh, nothing much,” said Dave, a twinkle in his eye. “Anyway, welcome to our team.” “Hey, does this team have a name?” Ben asked Dave sighed and shook his head. “The thing about that is . . .” “We’re obviously Team All that is Man,” interjected Adam. “No,” countered Jordan. “We’re the A-Team!” “We are The Incredibles,” Justin stated as an indisputable fact. “Yeah, you see what the problem is,” laughed Dave. “So welcome to Team Whatever the Hell We Are.” Ben smiled. Even though he had no real idea what was going on,
it always felt good to be accepted as a part of something.
Chapter
4: Life
as a Super The next day Ben was sitting in his room, by which he meant the place where he slept, not a place where he felt at home. Still thinking like a college student, he had the idea stuck in his head that the only way to learn was through books, and he had his face buried in a lengthy account of the ongoing secret war. There were two reasons he chose to read in the empty gray room. One was that he had never been able to get reading done while others were around. The other was that he was hiding after what had happened at dinner last night. They were all seated at a large table eating a very good meal, at least in comparison with the food back at the university. Ben was unsure where the food had come from, since no one had been identified as having super cooking skills, and he didn’t bother to ask. About halfway into the meal, Tom asked, “Hey, Ben, what does ‘QB no kitsoonay’ mean?” An alarm went off in Ben’s head. “What?” he asked, trying not to show the ill-at-ease feeling that had just arrived for reasons he was unsure of. “You said it last night,” Tom continued. “It sounded like a foreign language. ‘Kyoobee no . . . something.’” “Oh, you mean ‘kyuubi no kitsune?’ It’s Japanese. It means ‘nine-tailed fox spirit.’ In Japanese mythology foxes are believed to be powerful spirits that grow another tail for every hundred years that they live. A nine-tailed fox is the most ancient and powerful of these spirits.” “Oh, that makes sense,” said Tom. “You said it right before you summoned that huge fox.” Ben froze. The last piece of the previous night’s events fell into place with the force of a bomb. He had saved everyone. He had crazy powers. Suddenly it became much harder to distance himself from the idea of being a prophesized Chosen One. Ben looked down into his lap. He felt very uncomfortable and alone. “Oh yeah,” added Austin. “Was that the same thing those ancient runes spelled out as you cast the spell?” He grabbed a pencil and made an approximate sketch of four symbols on a napkin, which he then passed to Ben. “I guess so,” Ben replied, looking at the napkin. “They’re not ancient runes, they’re just Japanese kanji characters.” He calmed down a little by looking at it as a language question. “This one means ‘nine,’ and this one is pronounced ‘no.’ I guess the other ones are for ‘tail’ and ‘fox.’” Ben’s grew more concerned with the realization that he had somehow formed characters that he had never learned. Everyone else continued with their meal as before, except Dave who looked pensive and slightly concerned. A few minutes later, Adam asked, “So how do you use your power, Ben? Do you just think it?” “I don’t know,” Ben mumbled glumly. “What?” “I don’t know!” he yelled, slamming the table. Seeing everyone staring at him, he walked quickly out of the room before anyone could say anything. In the bland, boring room, Ben put down the history book and sighed. He wished he could have had the chance to get some of his stuff from the dorm, so that he would have some better way to amuse himself. The selection of books in the small library that he had found in the base was limited, and he had had to content himself with the history book. With no better option, he went back to a long and fairly uninteresting account of the Battle of the Midwest in 1986, whatever that was. He made it through about half a sentence before the door opened and Jordan walked into the room. He sat down on the bed next to Ben and peered over his shoulder at the book, seemingly waiting for Ben to respond to his rather overly obvious presence. Ben on the other hand was trying his best to remain depressed but was failing against Jordan’s mysterious ridiculous charm. “So Ben,” Jordan finally asked. “Is that book any good?” “No,” Ben replied, smiling. “Why do you keep junk like this in your library?” “Wasn’t my idea.” He sat there for a second. “You know, Ben, you shouldn’t feel pressure to perform just because of the prophecy. Your power will develop at its own speed. Don’t worry about it.” “I know,” said Ben, still worrying somewhat and not really wanting to be consoled. Diverting the topic away from this he asked, “What do you guys do for fun around here anyway?” “Same stuff we did back in the dorm. Here, I’ll show you.” Jordan jumped off the bed and headed out into the hallway. Ben followed as he led him down a series of bland gray hallways to an unmarked room. “This base could really use some decoration, or at least labeling,” Ben commented. “Yeah, that’s the problem with having no girls on the team,” Jordan explained. “Guys aren’t decorators. Plus, we haven’t been spending that much time here since we’ve been at the university watching you.” “Hey, why are there no girls on this team?” “Oh,” said Jordan, adopting a pompous stance and voice, “There were some girls from the floor that wanted to join our team, but, uh, they weren’t good enough for us.” “Really?” “No,” he answered, deflating. “It was the other way around. We wanted to team up with them, but we got rejected.” While Ben laughed, Jordan pushed open the door to a very familiar sight. Justin was seated on the ground at a dangerous proximity to the television playing video games on his Playstation 2. Jason and Tom watched from chairs a little further back. The game was God of War, where Justin played the half-naked albino Spartan Kratos, who used two swords on chains burned into his arms to slash his enemies and generally kick ass. “Hey guys,” Ben said. He was glad to be acknowledged just by nods or heys, like he would have been back in the dorm. He found a chair and sat down to watch the game. “That guy is such a wimp,” Tom suddenly interjected. “I could do so much better than him.” “Tom, those are chain swords,” responded Jason. “You don’t know how to use chain swords.” “Hey, if it’s got a blade, I can use it.” “Bullshit.” “You wanna try me?” “Okay, fine.” Jason opened the door and yelled down the hallway. “Hey Adam! Can you forge us a couple of chain swords? We’re trying to figure something out!” “Oh my god,” Adam’s voice called back. “Are you guys trying to act out Justin’s God of War game?” “Possibly! Tom thinks he can fight better than Kratos!” “Oh I’ve gotta see that! I’ll get to work on it!” A few seconds later, Austin’s incredulous voice could be heard from the room. “What are you doing? You can’t forge swords! You’re an engineer, not a blacksmith!” “Hey,” Adam responded, “I can make anything I put my mind to. Besides, I really want to see Tom make a fool of himself with these.” “Oh no,” moaned Austin. “Tom!” he yelled from his room. “Don’t do it, you’re going to cut your own head off!” “Well, if I do,” Tom responded, “I can just get Jason to fix it for me.” “No way,” said Jason. “I am not sewing your head back on just because you did something stupid.” Ben laughed. He had always loved the ridiculous arguments that they had had back in the dorms, and it seemed as though they still went on, though the topics of these arguments were now even more bizarre with the superpowers thrown into the mix. He was enjoying himself so much that he didn’t even notice Jordan slipping out of the room. Jordan wound his way down the hallways of the complex until he got to a door that looked just like every other door. He pushed it open and saw Dave sitting at a desk examining a laptop. Dave looked up when he came in and nodded. “So is he more comfortable now?” he asked. “I think so,” said Jordan, taking a seat opposite from Dave. “I left him watching Justin playing games over in his room, so I think he’s feeling more at home now. And he seemed more relaxed.” “That’s good. There’s something else I still need to talk to him about today. Hopefully he’ll eventually get to the point where we don’t have to break up all of these explanations with comforting sessions.” Dave shook his head. “And he doesn’t even know that he’s still in danger.” “Until the prophecy is fulfilled, Hurst’s men will always be hunting for him,” Jordan solemnly agreed. “Not necessarily Hurst’s men, but I’m sure Jon Tang will continue in his efforts to capture Ben. He’s already gone around his boss’s authority once, so I don’t doubt he’ll try again. In for a penny, in for a pound.” “Do you think that Jon is the only one on the other side who knows about the prophecy?” “It makes sense. The attack on WashU was clearly a solo operation. If anyone else but Tang had known, I’m sure we would have seen a different response.” “So,” Jordan began slowly, “If we eliminate Jon Tang, then the threat to Ben will be gone, right?” Dave frowned. “Going after Jon is risky. He’s not just some low-ranking officer in the syndicate. I’m sure we could deal with his guards, but we would also be attracting a lot of attention to ourselves, and we want to avoid that if at all possible.” “Still, we took it as our mission to defend Ben and to defend the prophecy. It seems like the best way to do that would be to take out the only real threat to him right now: Jon Tang.” Dave sighed. “You might be right. I’ll have to think about it. If we do, it’ll be better to move quickly, before he has the chance to leak the secret or make another attempt to get Ben.” “I’ll let everyone else know that they should be ready to move out tonight,” Jordan said as he stood up and walked toward the door. “Just in case,” he added hurriedly, not wanting to seem like he was usurping Dave’s authority. Dave nodded. They both already knew what the decision would be. A little later, Dave opened the door to Justin’s room, where Ben was still watching him play the game. “Hey Ben,” he asked, “Can I talk to you for a bit?” “Sure,” Ben agreed. He was a little nervous about talking to Dave, because he was sure that it would involve his powers or the prophecy in some way. He stood up and walked out into the hallway where Dave was standing. “Is this going to be about my power?” he asked resignedly, already assuming that he was right. “Yeah,” Dave conceded. “Why don’t we head over to my office to talk?” He steered Ben toward yet another room that was largely empty- here the exception was a desk surrounded by several chairs. I guess Jordan was right, Ben thought. Maybe they do need some girls around here to at least add a little color. He sat down on the side of the desk closer to the door as Dave took the chair across from him. “To start off,” Dave said, “There are a few things I need to tell you about Japan.” “Japan?” Ben wondered out loud. “I thought this was going to be about my powers.” “They’re related, I believe. First I need to dispel a couple of delusions that may be affecting you right now. Right now, you believe that Japan is a country in the modern world, correct?” “Yes,” Ben replied warily, not liking the sound of the word “believe.” “It’s not.” “What? How could I believe that a country exists when it actually doesn’t? That’s impossible.” Ben pondered this for a moment. “Then again, it’s also about number seven on the list of ‘Things that Couldn’t Possibly be True but Are,’ that I’ve been working up for the past few days.” Dave smiled. “I’m glad to see you’re getting more used to receiving stunning news. It’s an important skill to have in a world controlled by an evil business conglomerate.” Dave sighed and looked off into the distance. “Money leads to power over many things, the most important of which is information. If Hurst wants to conceal a country’s existence or non-existence, he can and will. But I think I’ve misled you slightly; it’s not that Japan never was a country, it’s just that it isn’t one now.” “So everything that I’ve ever seen, heard or used that I believed was from Japan wasn’t completely made-up?” “Some of it is, but for the most part the Japanese culture you are familiar with today is authentic, but an anachronism. There once was a Japanese civilization, which was extremely advanced for its time, but it died out over a thousand years ago.” “But I know several people that have been to Japan. And what about my Japanese teacher, who is from Japan?” “The corporation goes to great lengths to keep up the lie. They could have been paid off, or more likely brainwashed. As for the teacher, they maintain plenty of ‘Japanese’ people across the globe so that the masses are less likely to become suspicious.” Ben slowly digested this new information, which was a much better process than his previous method of automatic rejection. “Wait a second. That means that all of the video games, anime and electronics that come from Japan were made over a thousand years ago?” “Precisely. As I said, they were an extremely advanced civilization. That’s why Hurst keeps it secret. For many years, the syndicate has been trying to uncover the islands’ secrets and discover why they were centuries ahead of any other civilization at the time. Most of what has been uncovered so far has been marketed as products for the consumers of the world, like the video games and the anime. But what Hurst is really looking for is weapons. Fortunately for us, he hasn’t found any.” Dave paused dramatically. “However, I think we have.” “Yeah, yeah, I get it. It’s me.” Ben sighed. “You really think that my power is linked to ancient Japan?” “You summoned a great beast by speaking Japanese words,” Dave pointed out. “You think it’s the Japanese language that does it?” Ben asked with a tone of incredulity. “Yes, but more specifically I think the power lies in the ancient runes, the kanji characters that are used to represent the language.” Ben gulped. “That . . . could be a problem. We only just barely started learning kanji in my Japanese class. I know maybe forty at the most.” Dave stared straight at him. “And yet you knew the symbols to summon a nine-tailed demon fox.” “I’m still not quite sure how that one worked out, to be honest.” Dave groaned. “So what do you know?” “Simple stuff. Numbers, days of the week- like, for Monday, ‘getsu,’ which means moon; for Tuesday, ‘ka,’ . . .” The kanji for ka flashed red in Ben’s mind and a small flame appeared in his right hand, which was stretched out over Dave’s desk in a basic explanatory gesture. “. . . which means fire?” Dave finished for Ben, bringing him out of the shock induced by accidentally creating fire from nothing. Ben saw that Dave was grinning widely in a way he hadn’t seen him do since leaving the university. “Why don’t you just think about that for a while?” Dave suggested, clearly pleased that he had guessed correctly. “I’ll see what I can do about getting you a kanji dictionary or something. Hurst will probably make it pretty hard to get hold of one, but I’m sure it will be doable.” Ben nodded and left the room, still rather stunned by his ability. When he finally figured out which unmarked room was his and lay down in bed, he had given himself a goal: Once, just once, I want to do that on purpose! Late that night, the team got suited up in preparation for leaving the base. “Suited up” wasn’t literally the truth, since most Superheroes had long abandoned the flashy tights and capes from the comic books. Jordan grabbed ammo, and Justin grabbed his nunchaku. Jason checked his medical kit, and Austin and Adam filled backpacks with just about any mechanical device you could think of. Tom reached for the chain swords which Adam had forged for him earlier, but Dave put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head, so he was forced to content himself with the foil. They were all dressed in black, making them difficult to see in the dimly lit room. When they had finished preparing, Dave turned toward them and said, “Everyone ready?” The six of them nodded. “Good,” Dave said. He reached down and hit a button,
activating the portal and filling the room with bright blue light.
“Next stop, Jon Tang.”
Chapter
5: Impossible
Doorways, Trajectories, and Other Physics Gone Awry Jonathan Leo Tang was not part of the inner circle of businessmen who served as Hurst’s primary advisors. However, this was due more to his youth than anything else. By age eighteen, he had already demonstrated a business acumen and a Machiavellian cunning that rivaled those of Hurst back in his early days. He was also extremely frugal and never spent money unless he had a very good reason. It was this frugality, coupled with his incredible business sense, that had allowed him to become so rich despite his young age. Tang’s miser-like qualities had often led people to wonder why he had spent approximately the gross national product of Europe building his house. In reality, the two were not in conflict; the palatial residence served an important purpose. It related the following message: “I have money and power (though in a world run by businessmen, the two were essentially the same) and I am willing to use them.” The complex was vast and extravagant. No necessary expense had been spared, and plenty of unnecessary ones had been thrown in just for good measure. For instance, Tang had bought out the entire city of Chicago and then bulldozed half of it to provide the space for the residence/business headquarters. In honor of his Chinese heritage, he had modeled the base on the Forbidden City, the ancient center of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The comparison was quite clear. Containing over five hundred buildings, Tang Enterprises Global Headquarters was beautiful, blazing with color, and filled with countless Chinese cultural artifacts that were beyond value. It also contained more gold than Fort Knox and was visible from space. The numerous fountains and artificial rivers that were built to adorn Tang’s home and base of operations used more water in a day than ran through Hoover Dam in a year. Five hundred thousand people had worked on the project and managed to finish it in only a year, though hundreds had died from exhaustion. The compound was a bizarre mix of Chinese elegance and American excess. A few hours before the break of dawn, seven black-clad warriors materialized in front of the main entrance to this imposing compound. They stared up at the thirty-foot high steel gate that featured giant twin dragons inlaid in gold. The dragons’ ruby eyes gleamed in a way that made them seem almost alive. Ordinarily this would not have unnerved the group, but since they had recently seen a giant monster fox appear from nowhere they were overly cautious about anything having to do with mythical Asian beasts. “Hey Adam,” asked Austin. “Why didn’t we set the portal to bring us in on the other side of the gate?” “Good question,” replied Adam. “Here’s another one: should we do this the quiet way or the fun way?” “Quiet way, I think,” Dave suggested softly but still in a way that would suffer no argument. “We don’t want our good friend Jon to know we’re here quite yet.” “Fine,” Adam grumbled, stuffing plastic explosives back into his sack. His face looked like Dave had just told him that Christmas was cancelled. Instead, Austin dove into his bag and retrieved a long length of fiber-optic cable and a staple gun. He started attaching the cable to the gate with the staple gun in an approximately rectangular shape, like a door. Meanwhile, Adam pulled from his pack a large battery and hooked it up to one end of the slowly forming doorway. Then he flipped out a laptop and started typing rapidly. “All set up,” said Austin, as he put in the last staple to finish the doorway. He reached down and flicked a switch on the battery, activating it. The cable glowed as electricity flowed through it. “Excellent,” said Adam. He stopped typing and hit the enter key with a flourish. The area enclosed inside the cable shimmered like a mirage for several seconds, then the steel disappeared and the assembled party could see the opposite side of the gate through the doorway. It seemed like the disappearance was not perfect, however, since the vision of the inside of the compound was obscured as though someone had covered the doorway with a thin layer of slowly fluctuating gelatin. “Whoa,” said Tom. “How does that work?” “How the hell should I know?” asked Adam. Tom turned to Austin looking for an answer, but Austin only shrugged. The group still was never entirely comfortable with Adam and Austin’s rather unique style of engineering. If you asked them to build an instantaneous matter transporter, they would think about it for a few hours and then come back asking you where you wanted it. But if you asked them to tell you why it was able to send you halfway across the world in less than a second, they were completely unable to answer. That was the idiosyncrasy of their power; it was inspiration without explanation. Adam often justified it this way: “We may not know why it works, but that’s not important. What’s important is just that we know that it does work.” And it always did. “You guys go on ahead,” said Austin. “Adam and I will stay behind and clear up this little contraption so that they don’t notice you entered. The door has to be closed from this side anyway. Call us when you want to get out.” “Thanks guys,” said Dave, nodding. He walked through the opening in the gate with Tom, Jason, Jordan, and Justin. After they passed through, Austin unhooked the battery from the cable. The doorway shimmered for an instant and then returned to ordinary steel. As he and Adam packed their equipment into their bags, the dragons’ eyes flickered again, moving left and right as the hidden cameras scanned the area in front of the gateway. In a room deep inside the base, a security guard got on the phone to let his boss know something funny was going on. The five team members raced through the largely unlit base, darting between buildings and keeping an eye out for guards, though there seemed to be none. “Where do we find Jon Tang?” asked Jason “He should be in the Hall of Supreme Money,” responded Dave. “According to our intelligence that’s where he sleeps.” The party halted quickly as a bullet struck the ground just ahead of Jordan’s feet. They quickly dashed back and pressed themselves against the wall of a tall building. The edges of the building shone like fire as countless bullets ricocheted off them. The group was kept from moving by walls of rapidly-moving lead. The shower stopped for a moment, and Jordan whipped his head around a corner of the building, quickly pulling it back before it was ripped off by the stream of fire that picked up again once the gunners saw him. “They’ve got six gunners,” he said, adjusting his neck after the rapid head jerk, “All in machine gun turrets. There’s no way we can move from behind this building while they’re firing, and they won’t run out of bullets until dawn. Plus, there’s no way I can step out from behind this building long enough to line up a good shot. Maybe if it was lighter out . . .” “So, what you’re saying is, we’re fucked,” said Tom. “No, Tom,” Jordan countered. “It just means I’ll have to improvise.” He pulled a small pistol from his bathrobe and pointed it up at the sky, concentrating hard like he was sighting a shot at the moon. “I thought you said . . .,” Jason started, but Jordan waved him silent. A few moments later the bullet fire stopped again, and Jordan took this occasion to make his move. Pointing the pistol straight in the air, he fired off all six shots in rapid succession. The machine gun fire burst into life as the gunners heard the sound of the shots, but then it quickly died out once they realized that the bullets fired were not headed toward them. “Uhh, Jordan . . .” Tom tried to complain, but he was interrupted as Jordan whipped out a second gun, a huge hand cannon that looked almost as long as his arm. He pointed this gun straight up as well and fired six more times, but this time twisting his wrist almost imperceptibly in between each firing to slightly change the angle of each shot. Above the roof of the building, six metallic clinks could be heard as Jordan’s second set of shots collided with the first set on its way down. These collisions sent the first set of bullets on six different trajectories, and they flew into the heads of the six machine gunners, striking each one right between the eyes at the same time with one simultaneous THUNK. Jordan stuck his hand past the end of the building and waved it about, waiting for it to be shot at. After a few seconds, he put his head out and looked around. Finding nothing, he jumped out past the building into the open and started dancing a victory dance. “Oh yeah, oh yeah,” he sang, grooving to his own internal victory beat. “Thank you Jordan,” said Dave after enduring the dance for almost a full minute. “As always, we are very appreciative of your talents. But I think it might be good to be moving on, since the enemy knows we’re here now.” “Fine,” said Jordan. He put the hand cannon (which he had been incorporating into the dance) back into the bathrobe and ran off with the rest of them toward the huge building in the very center of the complex that was the Hall of Supreme Money. Inside the building, the five of them worked their way up a narrow, unlit, staircase. An occasional window let in a small amount of moonlight to keep them from tripping. Tom was leading, followed by Jason, Dave, Jordan, and then Justin who was bringing up the rear. Dave’s intelligence said that this hidden staircase should lead straight to Jon Tang’s bedroom chamber, but they really had no idea since there was no way for them to see the inside of the building. “How much farther, Dave?” Jason asked “Hard to say,” Dave answered. “According to blueprints, the bedroom chamber is on the top floor, and this is a very tall building. Plus I’ve lost track of how many floors we’ve climbed so far. Don’t worry, we’ll be there soon.” “Stop,” said Justin suddenly. “Why?” asked Tom “Because there are ninja above us,” he responded simply. As he said it, four ninja descended silently from the ceiling, two at either end of the party. They were armed with ninja short swords and their equally deadly fists. Their black suits made them all but invisible in the darkness. “Surrender or we will kill you,” one of them offered, in a voice that suggested he hoped they would decline. “Justin, Tom,” ordered Dave, “Get rid of these guys. We don’t have time to waste here.” The two ninja behind the group advanced on Justin slowly, looking
for an opening in his defenses as he adopted his standard crouching
battle pose. “Why don’t you give up?” suggested
one of the ninja. “We have swords, and you are unarmed.” “Now you are unarmed,” continued the first ninja who
had spoken, “And you cannot block our swords with your bare
hands.” “You may be preventing us from using our weapons,” said the second ninja, “But now your fists are useless, whereas we can still use ours. Plus, now you cannot move.” Still gripping their swords, the two raised their arms for a finishing blow. “My arms are not my only weapons,” said Justin. Lifting himself by pushing up on the hilts of the two swords, he struck out with both his feet and hit something in the darkness, hard. Two somethings, to be precise. As Justin slid the blades out of his wounded hands, his enemies fell to the ground with broken noses and concussions. Up in front, Tom parried the blows of the two ninja blocking the party’s way up the stairs. His trusty foil was keeping him from being hit, but he was unable to get past their defenses either. Tom stepped back suddenly and put his sword up. “Man, I’m really getting nowhere with you guys,” he thought out loud. “I guess I’m going to have to do a lunge to deal with you.” “A lunge?” one of them laughed. “We are ninja. Your pathetic Western fencing moves will do nothing to us.” “I guess you’re right,” said Tom. “I’d better do a Supersonic Lunge, then.” He placed himself in the standard fencing ready position, with the sword held forward, the right foot pointing ahead and the left one facing off to the side. He waited a moment or two to get set into the position, and then he went. The tip of the sword started to move forward, and then he vanished. The two ninja stared forward, wondering where he could possibly have gone. “Game over,” said Tom, now standing behind them. His feet spun to his right, carrying the foil through the wall and through the ninja in a sudden swoop. They collapsed to the floor in a heap. “Oh yeah!” said Tom, pumping his fist in the air. “Excellent work,” said Dave. “Jason, patch Justin up quick. We’ve got to get to Jon Tang quickly.” Jason opened up his med kit and spread a salve over Justin’s hands. It steamed as it seeped into the wounds and Justin winced. The bleeding quickly stopped, and soon there was nothing left of the wounds other than a little dried blood. The five of them raced up the stairs and crashed through a door into a pitch black room. “Is this it?” Jordan whispered “I don’t know,” replied Dave. “I can’t see anything.” Suddenly, Tom started to giggle. He slapped his hand over his mouth to stop it, but it could not be contained. “Tom, what’s so funny?” asked Jason, but Tom was unable to answer, and soon he was rolling on the floor and laughing at the top of his lungs. “What in the hell?” asked Jordan, but in a second he was in the same predicament as Tom, laughing so hard that he was unable to pick himself up off the floor. He was shortly followed Jason and Dave. Even Justin’s stony face was soon split wide by a grin. As they slowly lost consciousness from lack of oxygen, the lights came on and they saw Jon Tang’s face above them, grinning evilly. “ROFL,” he said as they passed out. “Owned.” The five of them woke up in a cage with bars that looked like steel but were in fact much stronger. They had all been completely disarmed, and they found that they were reunited with Adam and Austin, who had been captured long before they made it to the building. They looked like they had not given up without a fight, though, since both of them had been singed, presumably by one of their ridiculous weapons. Standing in front of the cage, in a suit and flip-flops as always, was Jon Tang. He was holding a device that looked like a ray gun from a low budget sci-fi movie. “You boys like this?” he asked, indicating the gun in his hand. “It’s a little device I had worked up for me by my Research and Development boys. I call it the ROFL Ray. Once you get hit, it’s impossible to stop rolling on the floor laughing until you pass out or die. I think it worked pretty well. I mean, I was able to take out your entire team with it.” “You didn’t take out our whole team,” Dave countered through the bars. “There’s still one team member left.” “Ah yes, little Benny Boy,” said Jon. “Don’t
worry, I didn’t forget about him. I hope he comes. In fact,
I’m counting on it.” His harsh laugh resounded around
the bedroom chamber.
Chapter
6: ROFLSAURUS
OWNAGE Ben was woken in the early hours of the morning by a harsh beeping noise. He rolled over in bed and waited for his roommate to turn off his alarm. It took him several minutes to remember that he no longer had a roommate, though to his credit this was mostly due to the fact that he was still half-asleep. Ben sat up in his bed and looked around in the darkness for the source of the noise. He wished there were a window in his room so he would know what time it was, although the sensible part of him said that that would only be useful in determining how upset he should be about being woken up. The noisemaker was not hard to locate, as it was the only source of light in the dark room- a cell phone sitting on the bedside table. Being a college student and not having a cell phone was one of the ways Ben had thought of himself as unique (before finding out about the whole Super thing), so he was rather surprised at first to see the phone. His parents had often left one of their cell phones with him when they had gone out, though, so he figured that the rest of the team had gone off on some mission and had left the phone in case they needed to contact him while they were gone. He shivered a bit as he wondered what they could possibly need to talk to him about so urgently while on a mission. Hand trembling slightly, he pushed the TALK button and raised the phone to his ear. “Frrnnn?” he asked, sleepiness and fear reducing the question “Hello?” to a nervous mumble. “Ben?” answered the voice on the other end, moving past the incomprehensible statement and getting right to business. “We need your help.” Ben identified the voice as Dave’s. “The team went out to attack Jon Tang, but we got captured. We need you to come to his compound in Chicago and rescue us right away. Hurry, he could kill us at any moment.” “What . . .?” Ben started, but there was no answer at the other end. The disastrous situation had woken him up fully, and he set down the cell phone and started to think. Why would they go after Jon and not tell me anything about it? he wondered, but the answer came quickly: They were trying to protect you from Jon but didn’t want you to know they were risking their lives to do it. He thought it was nice of them but frankly he was getting sick of the way they felt he was so important. “It’s just some stupid prophecy,” he said out loud to himself. “How could I possibly take out the enemy they’ve been fighting for so long? I’m not that special.” If you’re not so special, then why did they ask for your help? retorted his subconscious. “They must not have had anyone else they could contact,” Ben replied to himself. “Wait,” he added after a few moments. “This means they’re in big trouble and I’m the only one who can save them. And I still have no idea how to use my power.” He paused to consider this for a bit. “Craaaaaaaaaaaap.” “I can’t go,” he added after a bit more silent thinking. “I wouldn’t even know how. I don’t have a car, so how can I get to Chicago? I’m sure if I actually knew how to use my powers I could do something, but I don’t so I’m just going to stay here. And I’m going to stop talking to myself, because this is getting weird. Jon Tang put down the cell phone and turned back to his caged prisoners. “How about that, boys?” he asked, grinning like a fool. “Did you like my voice imitation trick? I’m sure that little Benjamin will be on his way down here soon to save you.” “We’re not impressed by your stupid gadgets,” Tom spat back with venom. “And neither is Ben. He’s not gullible enough to fall for your stupid trap.” “If you want to make fun of my stupid gadgets,” answered Jon slowly and dangerously, walking toward the cage, “Then do so when you are not a prisoner after being OWNED BY THEM!” These last words were bellowed in rage as Jon swung the ROFL Ray in a wide arc that caught Tom’s face while it was stuck out between the bars of the cage. “You can’t deny my power,” he continued, calming down and straightening his suit. “You have seen it and been defeated by it. You have no choice but to respect me.” Dave continued the argument while Jason attended to Tom’s broken nose, but he did so in a much calmer fashion. “You have no real power,” he said. “All of this is just the result of money. Without money, you have nothing.” A subtle cunning slipped into his voice. “I wonder, Jon Tang, why you seem so desperately to want us to admit your power? Are you jealous of ours, perhaps?” Jon raised the gun to strike again, but something in Dave’s eyes suggested that he was not someone he wanted to risk irritating. “It doesn’t matter what you say,” he finally responded, shrugging. “What matters is the result. I’m out here, and you’re trapped in there. I beat you. Money won. Accept it.” “So what are you going to do with Ben even if he does come here?” asked Jordan, who knew that if they kept Jon occupied with questions, he would be less able to concentrate on whatever his plan was. “Didn’t you, uh, have him shot the last time you met? I don’t think he’ll be too willing to work with you.” “That’s easy to deal with,” said Jon. “I can just buy him. Every man has a price. You guys don’t get it, do you? Your superpowers may give you some limited abilities, but with my money I can do anything I want. Money runs this world and everything in it.” There was a long silence after this, broken eventually by Justin. “You know Jon,” he said, “Even if you acquire all the money in the world, there will still be one thing you cannot buy.” “Oh yeah, Justin?” Jon sneered. “And what’s that?” “A dinosaur,” Justin responded with a completely straight face. “It’s funny you should say that . . . ,” Jon started, but he was interrupted by one of his guards who came running up at that moment. “Sir!” yelled the guard, saluting. “He’s here.” “Good, it’s about time,” said Jon. “I’ll head out to meet him.” He jerked a thumb toward the cage. “You get a forklift to bring them down, too.” As Jon and the guard exited the room, Austin turned to Dave with a worried look on his face. “Do you think Ben will be okay?” he asked “He won’t do what Tang wants, if that’s what you mean,” Dave answered slowly. “No, that’s not it,” interjected Adam. “He doesn’t know how to control his powers yet. When he rejects Jon Tang, he’ll have to fight. Do you really think he can stand up to Jon when he doesn’t know what he’s doing?” “Don’t worry, it will all be okay,” Dave consoled them. “He’s not completely inept. After all, he doesn’t know how to work the portals, but he still ended up here somehow.” This cheered them up a little, and Dave continued. “Besides, Jon Tang is having us brought down, so I’ll be watching him the whole time. There’s no need to worry.” Ben knew full well that it was a trap. He had realized not too long after the call that Dave never would have asked the person he was trying to protect to come to the enemy’s base to save them. He was mad at himself for believing it even for a while, but he was even madder at Jon Tang for thinking he was gullible enough to fall for it. Jon Tang treating him like a foolish little boy was the last straw after Dave had spent the last few days explaining everything to him like he was some ignorant kid. A maddening rage filled him and his one thought was to go down to Chicago and kick Jon Tang’s ass. He concentrated on how Chicago would be written in Japanese (since it was an English word, the characters used to write it were ones he had already learned). A fierce wind started to blow and he blinked because of the pressure. When his eyes opened again, he was standing outside of Tang’s compound. He wasn’t sure how he had ended up there, since he had never even been to Chicago, or how he knew it was Jon Tang’s base, but he did. Fuming, he stormed into the base and headed for the center. Doors flung open for him as he passed, while characters that he did not recognize flashed by in his head. Of course, now that he was standing in front of the main hall and his anger had worn off, he felt rather different. Wanting to defy Jon, he had let his rage carry him away and done exactly what Jon had wanted him to do. Worse, once the rage had drained away he seemed to have lost his power, and was no longer able to open doors and run the hell away like he figured he probably should. Ben felt like a complete idiot. Suddenly, four suns blazed over Ben’s head and he was temporarily blinded. Four huge spotlights had just flashed on, illuminating the courtyard where Ben stood. Great halls that looked like they belonged in Ancient China almost fully walled in an area about the size of a football field. Stone pathways between their entrances formed a cross in the square, and the rest of the ground was dirt. The lights had transformed the buildings from deep shades of purple and blue to brilliant oranges and reds, all fringed with an obscene amount of gold. Ben’s eyes were first attracted to the intricate designs on the buildings, but it didn’t take him long to notice the group outside the largest building of the square in front of him. “Welcome to my humble home,” announced Jon Tang from across the square. Ben started walking toward him upon hearing his voice, and stopped about twenty feet away. He looked to Jon’s left and saw the cage where all of his friends had been locked up. “You came to save your buddies, right? Well, they weren’t the ones who asked you to help them. For you see . . .” “Save your breath, Jon,” Ben said gloomily, his head lowered. “I already know it’s a trap.” Jon seemed a bit put out with the abrupt end to his tirade, but he quickly recovered. “If it’s not a trap, then why did you come?” Ben sighed. “Because I’m a moron, Jon.” “Well, I guess you’re all caught up then,” said Jon. “That’s good. It saves time. Time is money, after all. Now all that’s left is to talk numbers.” “Huh?” Ben asked, lifting his head in confusion. He had expected to be attacked by guards or knocked out or captured or something like that, but it seemed almost as though Jon wanted to negotiate with him. “Numbers?” “Of course, you noob,” continued Jon, using the tone of voice one uses to explain to a child the basics of life such as going to the bathroom. “How much money is it going to take to get you to work for me?” “You’re . . . trying to . . . buy me?” Ben stammered. Some of the rage from before was returning, and he glared fiercely at Jon. “How dare you!” “Wh-what?” was Jon’s uncertain response “I’m not for sale, Jon. Your money has no power over me.” “But look at the power money has,” Jon argued desperately. “You think my money has no power? Money is what defeated this entire team of so-called ‘Superheroes’ tonight. Money is the conqueror, and they are the defeated. Would you side with the defeated over the conqueror?” “You’re so sad, Jon,” said Ben, shaking his head. “Money is neither power nor conqueror. It’s just a piece of paper that you pretend has value. And I am not the kind of low-life scum who would trade my friends for that.” Ben spat defiantly at the ground. “Unlike some people here.” Ben felt a little silly ranting like that, but Jon Tang had insulted him by thinking he would value money over friendship. At the end of the little speech, the cage near Jon erupted in cheers, the first noises that had come from it since Ben arrived. “Yeah!” said Adam “You tell him, Ben,” added Jason. “Ged him for breaking by node!” Tom encouraged “You see, Jon?” Dave asked, turning to face Tang who was still shocked by the harsh rejection. “It looks like we’ve found something you can’t buy with your money after all. Ben’s power will never be under your control if you try to buy it.” “Is that so?” Jon asked in a voice just louder than a whisper, talking more to himself than anyone else. Then he turned back to Ben. “Strong words from a little boy that doesn’t even know how to use his power,” he yelled. “How about you back them up with actions?” He pulled a tiny whistle from a pocket of his jacket and blew a harsh blast that no one could hear. Then a huge crashing sound shook the ground, followed shortly by another one. This pattern continued. It didn’t take much imagination to visualize some giant, two-legged creature walking and leaving huge footprints in its wake. And the thunderous crashes were growing louder. Jon tossed the whistle back into his pocket and smirked at Ben. “If money is so powerless, then prove it by defeating my most expensive and greatest creation. I put over a billion dollars of my money into this project, and I think you’ll have a hard time dealing with it.” “But I thought you needed my power to go up against your boss,” Ben yelled frantically, his body shaking continuously from the combined influences of fear and the echoing footsteps of the unseen beast. “Yes,” Jon answered, “But once you’re dead, I can figure out just what makes those powers work from the autopsy. I should thank you, really. This way is a whole lot cheaper than paying for your services.” Jon watched Ben twitch nervously for about a minute and a half before a huge shadow fell over the courtyard. Ben looked up as a huge dinosaur crossed between the buildings into the square. It seemed to be based on a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but with no tail. It was at least forty feet tall, reaching about halfway up the main hall. Two huge, scaled, three-clawed feet pounded the ground as it made its way over to where Jon Tang stood. The arms were scrawny and weak, but the head was clearly the part to look out for. A long, dragon-like snout extended far out from the neck and was filled with teeth that were as long as katanas and equally sharp. Two great, orange eyes rolled around on either side of the head, scanning the ground eagerly in search of prey. When it reached Jon’s side, it lowered its head and let out a primal roar, the kind that seemed to reinforce why dinosaurs had ruled the world for millions of years. “Meet the ROFLsaurus,” Jon said, patting the colossal beast on the leg, “the greatest product to ever come from my genetic recombination facilities. It’s more powerful than a tank, and it can be imprinted upon creation to obey one master’s every command. I’ve never had a chance to use it in a battle before, so this will be a good opportunity to test out its power. Now,” he said, turning his head away from Ben to face the monster, “Attack.” With a speed that greatly belied its huge size, the ROFLsaurus leapt toward Ben with its great jaws wide open. As it drew close to him, Ben thought it seemed to slow down a little, most likely just because it was a dramatic moment. Ben rolled to his left shortly before the giant snout crashed into the ground and came up with only a mouthful of dirt. Ben breathed a sigh of relief, but the dinosaur recovered just as quickly as he did, and he was forced to slide sideways to avoid its fangs. “Don’t just jump around!” Austin yelled from the cage. “Do something!” “Like what?” Ben yelled back, diving forward so that the monster overshot him with its attack, its huge body forming an arch over him. “They didn’t teach me any symbols in class that would useful in a fight!” “What about Tuesday?” Dave suggested calmly “I guess . . .,” Ben said. The ROFLsaurus had been searching back and forth for the past few seconds, looking everywhere but under itself. However, it chose that moment to swivel one of its fierce eyes around under itself to find its prey. “Shit.” Ben was filled with a panicky fear, and he held his arms out defensively in front of himself. “Ka!” he yelled, visualizing the kanji character which he still associated more with Tuesday than with fire. A short but violent burst of flame erupted from his trembling hands and struck the dinosaur full in the face. “Sweet!” Jason called out. “Holy shit!” Jordan added, stunned. “Did I just do that?” Ben wondered, staring at his surprisingly unburned hands. Distracted by his sudden ability to at least somewhat control his powers, he did not notice the dinosaur’s head coming at him until he heard the strange rushing sound that accompanied the weird feeling of time around him being slowed down. He tripped to his right and ended up in front of Jon, who was laughing at him. “Nice, Ben,” he said, straightening up a little. “Unfortunately for you, the ROFLsaurus’ scales are completely fireproof. It is good to know that you do possess some power worth having. I want to get something out of having this courtyard trashed. I’ll be very curious to see how you tick.” “You won’t see it,” said Ben, picking himself up off the ground. “Some team of morticians on your payroll will. I bet you couldn’t handle an autopsy.” “Well lucky for me that I don’t have to do the dirty work,” Jon said, smiling. “Hurry up and die, please. I have business matters to attend to.” Jon stepped back to give the ROFLsaurus a clean shot. Ben had never exercised much, and he was starting to get worn out from all this running to avoid being slashed. He was also pretty sure that the genetic anachronism he was fighting had more stamina than he did. I’ve got to do something, he thought, but what? What do I know how to write? I can write ROFLsaurus, he realized. ROFLsaurus was a made-up word, and the Japanese equivalent would therefore be written in katakana, an alphabet which Ben already knew because it had only about fifty characters as opposed to the thousands of kanji. He dashed through the dinosaur’s legs, temporarily confusing it, and knelt down on the ground. He scratched the angular characters in the dirt, sounding out the word as he wrote. “Ro . . . u . . . fa . . . ru . . . so . . . u . . . ra . . . su.” After he finished the hurried work, he quickly moved away from it so that the beast wouldn’t smash the writing while attacking. All right, I did that, he thought. Now what the hell do I do? He tried hiding against one of the buildings where there was less light, but the monster saw him and charged. Ben dodged, and the teeth went into the building, slicing through steel and reinforced concrete. “Holy crap!” Ben said. “If I don’t do something about that beast it’s going to be my death.” He paused. “Wait a second . . .” He dashed back to where he had written ROFLsaurus on the ground and added another character after it. It wasn’t one he had learned in class, but one he had picked up watching anime, the one representing death. He turned to the giant dinosaur bearing down on him and commanded it to die by crying out “SHINE!” while concentrating on the character he had written. Absolutely nothing happened. Everyone in the courtyard, including the ROFLsaurus, stood still for several seconds, waiting for Ben’s power to activate. When it didn’t, the monster charged forward to attack. Ben seemed to see the world around him slow down as before, but he was still stunned by the fact that his power had done nothing, so his reaction time was worse. Though he managed to avoid being cut to ribbons, he was left with a large gash along his right arm as he flung himself to the left. He looked up from the dirt to see the dinosaur staring him in the face and preparing to finish him off, but Jon called out “Stop,” and the beast reared back. Jon came over to Ben and knelt near him in the dirt, observing the characters he had written. “I know this one,” he said, pointing at the one representing death. “Kanji characters have the same meaning in Chinese, after all. You were trying to kill it, weren’t you?” Ben didn’t answer, so Tang continued talking anyway, grinning inanely the whole time. “I think I know why it didn’t work. You can’t cause death because you don’t understand it any further than the dictionary definition. You’ve never seen someone die, have you, Benny Boy?” he asked condescendingly. “You have no idea what death is really like, because you’ve never seen a friend die. Or even an enemy. You’re just a sheltered, ignorant, naïve little boy who is out of place dealing with deep ideas like life and death.” There continued to be no response from Ben, who was agreeing in his head with most of what Jon was saying. Jon Tang was on a roll, though, so he stood up and continued his rant. “Of course, in the business world we don’t have to worry about the big, philosophical ideas like life and death, right and wrong, good and evil. The real basis of capitalism is much simpler than that. It is a basic concept, something grasped very early on in life: the idea of possession. The birth of a businessman is the first time a young child looks at something and says, ‘Mine!’ My only concern in life is how to make everything mine. Isn’t that so beautifully . . .” “Thanks Jon,” interrupted Ben, who stood up as well. “You finally gave me an idea of something I know how to write.” On the ground at his feet, the character for death had been rubbed out, and before ‘ROFLsaurus’ Ben had added two new characters, reading ‘Watashi no’ and meaning ‘my.’ “And by the way, Jon,” Ben added. “Saying that good and evil don’t matter always proves that you’re evil.” Ben stared at the slightly blood-streaked characters on the ground and called out, “Watashi no Roufarusourasu!” The great dinosaur gave a great twitch all along its back, and then it turned to face Ben, no longer regarding him as prey but as master. “Go get Jon,” Ben said, and the monster swiveled to stare down the tiny man in a suit standing before it. It raised its head up high and prepared to bite down. Ben nodded his head, and the snout began its downward plunge. “Owned,” he said softly, grinning. Jon’s face had gone from concern to outright fear since Ben had started talking again, but it suddenly was filled with rage. “This isn’t over yet,” he snarled, and he pulled the ROFL Ray from inside his suit and fired it at the ROFLsaurus. The great beast froze in place and shattered like a dropped crystal, reduced to nothingness in less than an instant. “What?” Jason asked from the cage. “I thought that gun just made you roll around and laugh. Why did the dinosaur get disintegrated?” “It must be,” Adam thought out loud, “That since the ROFLsaurus already had some component of ROFLness in itself, then the ROFL from the ROFL Ray neutralized it and the two mutually destroyed each other.” “What the hell?” asked Jordan. “That doesn’t make any sense.” “No,” agreed Austin, “But it works.” Outside the cage, Jon was now pointing the ROFL Ray at Ben. “Very good, Ben,” he said, smiling with his mouth but raging with his eyes. “You forced me to destroy an extremely valuable possession of mine, but now I think you don’t have much left. Plus, you’re up against the ROFL Ray, something not even your whole team was able to beat.” Jon narrowed his eyes. “I think I’ll keep you ROFLing until you slowly run out of breath and die.” Jon pulled back the trigger and Ben shut his eyes, anticipating a hilarious but pointless end. “I think this has gone just far enough,” Ben heard Dave say. Ben opened his eyes and noticed that he was neither dead nor laughing. Ahead of him, Jon Tang stood completely motionless. Ben moved closer and saw that the trigger of the weapon had been pulled, but nothing had happened. Or at least, nothing had happened yet. Ben turned to look at the cage and his mouth dropped open. He saw the bars rusting through at a tremendous speed, like watching a movie in turbo fast forward. Soon the entire cage was reduced to nothing more than a cloud of reddish dust, and the formerly trapped team members all stood up and stretched. Dave came over to the stunned Ben and pointed at Jon. “They’re not actually frozen,” he explained like a teacher demonstrating how to solve a mildly difficult math problem. “Both Jon and his ROFL Ray are still advancing temporally, but very slowly.” Ben regained his senses and turned to face Dave. “That’s your ‘nothing much?’” he asked incredibly. “You can control time?” “Well,” Dave answered slyly, winking, “Maybe a little.” “Wait,” Ben asked. “If you could destroy the cage and stop Jon any time you wanted, why didn’t you just do that earlier?” “We had to wait until you got here,” Dave explained simply. “You . . . wanted me to come? Was this some sort of test, to see if I could use my powers?” “You yourself pointed out that none of our earlier methods had been working.” “But this was serious! I could have easily been killed!” “Do you think I wasn’t watching out for you?”
Dave inquired calmly. “Who do you think it was that sped up
your time slightly whenever the beast got too close? Did you really
think that time slows down for a dramatic moment like it does in
the movies?” Dave shrugged. “It was necessary for you to learn to use your powers without becoming enraged. Blinding rage can make you powerful, but it also tends to, well, blind you. I never would have let you die.” Ben sighed. “Because I’m part of the prophecy, right?” “No,” said Dave, “Because you’re my friend.” Ben was filled with emotion and could find nothing more to say. Dave put his shoulder on Ben’s and said, “Let’s get out of here.” They started to walk back to the rest of the team, but Ben said, “What about Jon Tang?” “Oh right,” said Dave, stopping and taking his arm off of Ben. He turned around and walked back to Jon Tang. He flipped the gun around in his fingers so that it pointed straight at Jon’s chest. Dave snapped his fingers, there was a soft rushing sound, the world seemed to jerk ever so slightly, and then Jon Tang was rolling on the ground and laughing his head off. “I’m going to tell you this now, Jon,” announced Dave, standing over the rapidly rotating body and speaking in a raised voice to cut through the laughter, “Because I know you can hear me, even though it doesn’t look like it. I’ve decided not to kill you, because you’re not worth it. Instead, I’m just going to let your boss know what you’ve been up to recently and let him deal with you. See you around.” Dave left Jon making a fool of himself out in the open and rejoined the group with Ben. “Austin, Adam, how long until you can get the portal set up?” “Shouldn’t be too long, if we can get our stuff back from inside that building,” said Austin. “All right, you go ahead . . .” Dave started, but Ben interrupted him. “I’ve got a faster way,” he said. He stepped into the middle of the group and said, “Uchi ni kaerimashou,” then repeated it in English: “Let’s go home.” The wind rushed around them for a few brief moments, and then they were back in the base. Ben passed out, feeling more content with himself than he ever had before. “He’s amazing,” Jordan said as he and Dave carried the short, brown-haired boy back to his room. “I think that prophecy may just be right.” “Don’t think about the prophecy,” Dave replied. “It only separates him from the rest of us. From now on, he’s just part of Team All That is Man.” “You mean the A-team!” “Yeah, sure . . .” |
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Chapter
1: The
Tables Turn
[PART 1] CHAPTER 1 | CHAPTER 2 | CHAPTER 3 | CHAPTER 4 | CHAPTER 5 | CHAPTER 6 [PART 2] CHAPTER 1 It was a dark and stormy night in Chicago. Actually, it was 9:33 A.M., but the darkness of the storm made the difference between night and day rather academic. The winds were actually relatively calm, somewhat disappointing in the Windy City, but the rain fell so hard there seemed to be more water in the air than air. Not a single shaft of light penetrated the clouds, but this did not mean that there were no sources of natural light in the city that day. Huge forks of lightning split the sky and for one very brief instant made it possible to refer to the weather as a “bright and stormy day.” One of these tremendous bolts lit up a wide room in a Chinese-style building, where a Chinese-style man was walking hurriedly with his arms full. The Relaxation Room in the main hall, one of many throughout Jon Tang’s compound, was ordinarily a very bare room. The bareness was accentuated by the size of the room, for while the ceiling was only twelve feet high, the walls went to the very edges of the building on two of the four sides, ending in long banks of windows that filled the entire outer wall for that floor. The only permanent feature of the room was a large hot tub in the center, which was six feet deep in the middle and big enough around to hold eight businessmen. At that moment it was filled with water and had its jets running full blast. The room was bare because Jon was not a man who appreciated clutter, and normally whatever he called for was brought to the room by the staff then taken back to nearby storerooms when he was finished with it. Unfortunately for Jon, none of the staff were answering his calls that day, so he was forced to provide his own amusement. Jon sped to the center of the room and dumped his armful of stuff onto a card table he had placed next to the hot tub a few minutes earlier. The haphazard pile now contained a computer monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, two CD cases, and several blue glass bottles that were already open, a couple of which started to spill across the table. Relieved of his load, he hooked the monitor, keyboard, and mouse into the computer that was already underneath the table. After this, he paused for a moment to think, and then followed that up with pacing frantically back and forth. Jonathan Leo Tang did not appear to be in good shape that night (technically, that morning). He looked like he hadn’t showered, and though his trademark suit was on it was badly wrinkled. His flip-flops seemed to be from two different pairs of sandals. The absence of Jon’s usually very clean and precise demeanor could be explained by two things: the failure of his staff to show up and the fact that he had not slept in several days. These two factors were probably equally at fault for his unkempt appearance, though the second was probably more responsible for his talking to himself at the same speed one would imagine a hummingbird using if it spoke English. “Okay, first I need to get in the hot tub, because I need
to calm down,” said Jon, listing things on his fingers and
twitching as he went. “Hot tub will make me relax. Gotta relax.
ROFL. Also, that can take the place of a shower. Good. Good. Doing
two things at once saves time. Time is money. ROFL. Then, after
that, I should have time for two games of DotA before Hurst shows
up. Yeah. I can fit in two games. And I should have enough Bawls
to keep me awake the whole time. ROFL. I’m okay. I’m
okay.” A few seconds later, a hand reached into the water and helped the fried and sopping wet Jon Tang out of the hot tub. The incident having sobered him somewhat, he turned to his rescuer with a broad smile on his face. “Thank you so ver . . .,” he said exuberantly as he started to thank the man, but when he realized who it was he stopped dead. He gulped as he realized he had just gotten out of the frying tub only to end up in the fire. The man standing before him was, in fact, the one man he would rather not have saved him, the one whose arrival he had been dreading ever since the Superhero team had left his compound. It was the man who controlled the planet using his money and the influence that came with it, Hubert Hurst. Strictly physically speaking, he was not an intimidating man. He avoided being a legal midget, but barely. He was possessed of no great physical strength. In his younger days his hair had been a rather handsome brown, but Hurst had now been running the world for almost thirty years, and while his hair was not falling out, most of it was nearly white. Someone that looked just below the hair, however, would find the one physical feature that truly identified the man, and it was truly scary: his eyes. From a scientific point of view they were perfectly average human eyes, but they were eyes that served as a window into his mind. His amazing cunning, insatiable ambition and ruthless determination were visible in the metaphorical fires of those eyes, and it was those eyes that would have made Hubert Hurst a feared man, even if he was a penniless beggar on the street. At that moment, Hurst’s eyes were bearing up on Jon Tang and making him wish he was still being zapped in the hot tub. Of course, it certainly helped that Hurst never went anywhere without at least eight bodyguards dressed in black suits, black ties, and black sunglasses. These men were physically impressive in the classical sense, none of them under six feet tall and all at least 300 pounds. Their arms were the kind that seemed out of place performing a task that required any less than full force. Under the sunglasses their eyes had none of the spirit that their boss’ eyes had, which was perfectly fine with Hurst, since having a bodyguard with ambition is, frankly, like trying to play computer games right next to an open hot tub: mind-numbingly stupid. It was one of these guards that had, by unplugging the computer, saved Jon Tang from an embarrassingly shallow watery grave, though Jon was sure one of them would soon be returning him to it. An unnerving silence had filled the room, and Jon was so lost in Hurst’s eyes that it took him several seconds to realize he was supposed to say something. When he finally got his tongue working again, this first thing he said to his boss, (following the ancient tradition of manager-employee relations) was a blatant lie: “Mr. Hurst! I had no idea you were coming!” “Jon, Jon,” the little man replied sweetly. “I think we know each other well enough to use first names, don’t you? Why don’t we sit down and chat a bit?” Hurst snapped his fingers and two bodyguards walked up, looking awkward carrying folding chairs that they could have easily snapped like normal people snap matches. “My staff can take care of that . . .,” Jon started weakly. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Hurst answered politely. “I knew I would be coming over today, so I had your staff take the day off. My bodyguards will take care of everything.” Jon didn’t at all like the way Hurst focused on him when he said “everything,” and the implications of his staff being sent home were even worse. No witnesses . . . The two chairs were unfolded about five feet apart, and Hurst and Tang sat down facing each other. “There we go,” the short man said. “Much better.” Hurst’s overly friendly tone of voice was scaring Jon almost as much as the eyes had. He had heard him use that tone a few times before, and the people with whom he used it were either dead or wishing for it by the end of the day. Attempting to remain calm, Jon tried to make small talk. “So, what brings you to Chicago, Mist . . . I mean, Hubert?” he asked nervously “Why, to see you of course!” answered the Earth’s ruler, still smiling sweetly with his mouth while the eyes raged. “Who else in this town is rich enough for me to come see personally?” “Oh . . . of course,” Jon answered. He didn’t like where the conversation was going, but he figured his ability to direct the topic elsewhere at this point was limited. “And why do you want to see me?” “It’s funny,” started Hurst, holding a coffee mug that one of his thugs had just handed to him. “Coffee?” he asked, gesturing toward Jon with the mug. “N-no thanks,” Jon answered, assuming (probably correctly) that if he took in any more caffeine his eyeballs would pop out of his skull. “Anyway,” the little man continued, taking a sip of his coffee, “A little while ago I got an interesting message from someone on the other side.” Jon continued to play the innocent, wondering how long it could possibly last. “You mean from a Super?” “Yes,” Hurst replied, handing the mug off to the bodyguard standing behind his chair, “But that wasn’t the most interesting part. What was interesting was that the message was about you.” Jon willed the sweat beads slowly appearing on his forehead to go back under his skin, but to no avail. He hoped that Hurst had ignored the message, but the logical part (the largest part) of his brain told him that Hurst probably wouldn’t have come all the way to meet him if he had. “Well, I’m assuming you didn’t believe what you found in there, since it’s a message from the enemy. I’m sure it’s all lies designed to disrupt the operations of the conglomerate.” “That’s what I thought at first, but I decided to look into it further. The claim was that you used troops when I hadn’t authorized it, and for an attack on Washington University, no less. The neutral zone! Can you believe it?” he asked, laughing loudly. Jon would have joined in the laughter had he not seen that the eyes were still as fiery as they had been the entire time. “But then I checked the books,” he said, and the phony smile finally vanished. “The records say I did authorize it, and the funny thing is I don’t remember doing that. So then I went to the satellite photos,” he added, his tone growing harsher every second, “And there they were. The troops I never authorized, opening fire on people in territory I gave my word would be neutral. And guess whose face I recognized on the satellite, Jon?” Jon sighed and surrendered. “Mine,” he answered quietly. “YOURS, JON TANG! YOURS!” Hurst yelled triumphantly, pointing his finger in Jon’s face. “You betrayed me right under my nose, and I caught you! Though I should really thank this Dave who sent me the message, because otherwise you might have gotten away with it.” Hurst pointed at a thug who had materialized behind Jon’s chair. The guard sent one of his brick-like fists into Jon’s side, causing him to fall out of the chair, moaning. “I . . . had a . . . good reason . . .,” Jon coughed, spitting a little blood on the formerly clean floor. “I’m sure you did,” Hurst said, bending over to bring his face close to Jon’s. A situation like this was one of the few times that Hurst ever got to bend over for anything, and he reveled in it. “Don’t worry,” he said, helping Jon pick himself up off the floor. “My friends here will learn that reason from you soon enough. But first, they will teach you the importance of respecting my authority.” Another blow, this time to the kidney, sent Jon sliding forward across the floor. Hurst bent down again. “Especially when it concerns the neutrality of WashU.” Something, probably a combination of Bawls and beatings, caused Jon to snap. He knew he was dead anyway, so he decided to rage a little before he went. “And what’s so important about the neutrality of WashU?” he yelled, startling everyone in the room, but mostly himself. Hurst was a bit shocked. He was not used to people standing up to him while he was trying to have them beaten to a bloody pulp. “It is important because I say it is important,” he answered quietly. “That is all you need to know.” “But that’s not enough! It doesn’t make sense!” Jon yelled in reply. “I know the story,” he continued frantically, thinking that Hurst wouldn’t kill him as long as he continued to say something interesting. “You could have beaten them all! Back in the 80’s, you had the Supers right where you wanted them. You could have ended the war right there, after the Battle of the Midwest! But you didn’t. And then, you let them have Washington University as a safe area! You didn’t have what it took to finish them,” he roared, staring Hurst down with his caffeine-crazed eyes. “You got soft,” he summed up contemptuously, spitting at Hurst’s feet. “That is NONE OF YOUR CONCERN!!!” Hurst bellowed. He had a lot of volume for such a small man, and it was clearly not a subject he enjoyed discussing. Calming slightly, he added, “Especially since you are about to be dead.” He motioned the guards to close in on Jon in a tight circle. “But I don’t CARE!” Jon screamed, and he slammed his right foot down with the last word, for emphasis. As it struck the ground, a shockwave echoed out from where it hit, dazing all the guards for a few seconds. Another giant streak of lightning shot across the sky. “Wh-what the hell was that?” Hurst stammered, looking back and forth at his guards. “Don’t just stand there, you idiots! Get him!” “Interesting,” Jon commented, looking down at his foot. It didn’t seem any different than it had before. It began to dawn on him that maybe he wasn’t dead after all, and this feeling filled him with a clarity he had not felt in quite some time. Suddenly, he noticed the guards running toward him again. “Oh no you don’t!” he yelled, stomping his foot down harder. The steel floor roared from an even larger shockwave, which knocked all the guards off their feet and into unconsciousness. Jon advanced slowly on Hurst, who was now slumped sadly in defeat on the floor in front of him. The fire in his eyes had gone out. “Sarah,” he said to the floor. “I’m sorry.” Jon ignored the comment and stopped just in front of the now pathetic man. “How the mighty have fallen,” he said softly to himself, grinning. “As I was saying,” he began, his voice full of confidence, “You’ve become weak.” Jon snapped his fingers, and a long wooden staff appeared in his right hand. The staff was unremarkable except for the light blue crystal at the top, which seemed to be made of ice. The air around the staff started to chill. “And it’s time for you to step down.” Hurst stared at the staff in terror. “What are you going to do to me?” “I’m succeeding you,” Jon answered. The sound of Hurst and his bodyguards’ screams was drowned out by the icy explosions which rocked the huge room, shattering all of the windows as a thunderbolt struck the ground outside the hall. |
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[PART 1] CHAPTER 1 | CHAPTER
2 | CHAPTER 3 | CHAPTER 4
| CHAPTER 5 | CHAPTER 6 [PART 2] CHAPTER 1 |
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Since 5/1/2005 |
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| Last
revised 5/12/05. [Revision notes] Added first chapter of Part 2 and revisions to Part 1. Major overhaul of the title image and addition of the part title images. Added chapter titles, confirmed "The Awakening" as the title of Part 1 and not just a working title, and made some very minor formatting changes. |
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| "Super Story"®™ © Ben. Don't claim to own this or we'll pwn yo 455 j00 n00b. | ||
| Website created by Dave. Don't copy it or Jordan will sodomize you. ¥ | ||
| DISCLAIMER: All characters, names, places, ideas, things, nouns, adjectives, exclamations, colors, bathroom jokes, powerades, inside jokes, ROFLCopters, Jon Tangs, businessmen, accents, clothings, burgers, chickens, adam's apples, corn husks, seasonings, and Italian foods in this story are purely fictional. Any resemblance, similarity, analogy, facsimile, or relationship to real stuff of any sort is purely accidentally on purpose. I like cheese wedges because they smell good, and because of that, you cannot be a llama. All rights reserved for people who don't have left hands. Eat the tomatoes. They're good for you. Ben's story pwns. If you don't agree, I will come down there and thou shall be ownt. And, remember: "It's 'Defense of the Ancients,' not 'OMG I Fragged You of the Ancients.'" |
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