33 Cape High Mega Me, page 31
part #1 of Cape High Series
“So, um… are you two in a relationship?” Finn asks, motioning from me to Carla.
“Eww, no!” I say, jerking away from her. “Wait! You stole my candy bars, didn’t you?” I ask as I see her face. She blinks.
“What candy bars?” she asks.
“The ones you just yanked because as a norm I can’t see you move that fast,” I say. “She’s my sister,” I tell Finn. “Through… experiences.”
“You have candy bars??” she says. “I want a candy bar! Plllleeeeeaaasssee?” she begs, giving me puppy dog eyes. “I haven’t had chocolate in YEARS! You know, in my time it feels like years, at least!”
I give in, digging through my pockets and handing one over. I guess I HAD just accused her of stealing.
“Uh, okay,” he says. “This is from the Cosmics, I just got dragged into delivering it. If I never see you again, it’ll be too soon,” he adds as he shoves a bag into my hands and walks away.
I look at the package curiously, and then pull it open, staring blankly at what appears to be a slightly glowing rock. “What is it?” Carla asks.
I lift it up, turning it this way and that, and feeling a tiny smile pull at my lips. “A chunk of the first meteor I hit,” I tell her, certain of the fact.
“That’s bragging rights, right there,” Dad says. “Very nice little memento.”
“Eh, it’s no big deal,” I say. “Might make a nice little night light or something, right?”
Nico takes it from me, looking it over curiously. “The Colleck boys are going to want to get a sample,” he decides. “Natural luminescence in space rocks usually leads to some sort of scientific discovery.”
“Yeah, but it’s still mine,” I say, putting it back in the package. “Speaking of glowing rocks… uh… did we forget something?” I say as the reminder nudges something in my mind.
Nico goes perfectly still. “Kim’ba,” he says before there’s a “BEEP!” sound to drown out his curse. “We’re going to have to tell Checkmate that one of the power hunters ate her,” he says, groaning.
“Are we sure about that?” I ask.
“That’s the most likely explanation,” Dad says.
“The shard was last seen on one of the power hunters,” Nico agrees.
“Yeah, but does ANYTHING end that easily?” I ask. “Can we find out whether they have the shard on them? Or if they’ve got her powers?”
Dad and Nico look at each other. “I’ll go to the healing bay,” Nico says.
“I’ll check on the one waiting to be brought on trial,” Dad says. They’re gone the next second, leaving Rocco and Carla to look at me.
“What? It’s not like I can DO anything about it,” I say.
“What was that about not being a hero?” Rocco asks Carla.
She shrugs, grinning at me. “So, where did you get those candy bars from? They were definitely from Earth!” she says.
I groan. “C’mon, we’re going to visit Fauna,” I say, heading for the door. “I wanted to check up on him, anyway.”
“Fauna has a stash?” Carla asks. “Why did no one tell me that fact?”
“I wonder,” Rocco and I both say drolly.
***
‘Now, my precious, you can shift into one of the Cosmics, can’t you?’ Kim’ba says. The medi-box is broken, left in pieces behind them, and the two Cosmics who had been watching over them are unconscious, their powers drained. Kim’ba and the power hunter can’t go much further, though, not without leaving a very obvious trail of bodies behind them. To her utter delight, the power hunter shifts easily, turning into a rather short Cosmic with a grouchy expression on his face. ‘Lovely, precious, just lovely. Now we just need to head to the—‘
She stops as she hears someone racing down the hallway. ‘Hide, precious, we don’t want to risk it,’ she whispers. ‘Through that door, there, please.’
The power hunter goes through the door mere seconds before Technico races past them for the healing room. ‘Now, speed up and get to the docking bay,’ Kim’ba whispers, trying not to show how worried she is. If it had been a Cosmic, this wouldn’t be a problem, but it’s not. She’s dealt with Technico before. The power hunter had been taken out easily by him, as well. If only that hadn’t happened, she mourns. She could have gotten her revenge—
No… perhaps this is an even better opportunity than that had been! There’s no doubt that he has a connection to the ship she’d come out here on. She still remembers just how she’d tried to take his other ship, and how he’d reacted. He’d taken on a group of her warriors to keep the ship to himself. (Why yes, he’d done so rather easily, but not this time! This time he’s otherwise distracted!) And even if she’d had a bit of trouble trying to control the ship, the power hunter is stronger than her. She’ll beat the ship into submission!
The power hunter is just going on, heading past the other Cosmics and down another hall—
“Cosmic?” one says. The power hunter ignores him until his hand lands on his shoulder. “I thought you went back to your sentient planet to oversee the—“
The power hunter turns without being prompted, opening her mouth. The Cosmic stumbles as a strange glow starts to leave his body. “You’re—“ he says, weakly. “You’re the…” He drops to the ground before he can finish.
‘Run, precious,’ Kim’ba orders. The fact that the power hunter had done that without her telling her to bothers her. She should be completely unconscious still, right? Power hunters have a habit of going into hibernation for centuries. The power hunter starts running, following her directions perfectly, which makes Kim’ba forget the problem quickly enough.
The door to the docking bay opens and they head in. Kim’ba scans it, and then urges the power hunter towards the spaceship named Fauna. She goes, but she’s going far slower than Kim’ba wants her to. It’s almost like she’s hesitating. ‘I told you, take the glowing ship!’ Kim’ba snaps.
“Le…” the sound comes from the power hunter.
‘Shh, shh, precious, forgive me,’ Kim’ba whispers. ‘All we need is to take a few more steps and we’ll be safe and sound from the Earthlings who did this to you. Don’t you want to hurt them for what they did to your child?’
The power hunter speeds up, reaching the ship just as a hole opens in the side and three kids step out carrying a ton of prepackaged food. They stop, staring at the power hunter blankly.
“Didn’t you go back to the sentient planet?” one asks.
“YOU!” the power hunter roars, and her eyes open.
Kim’ba thinks a word that would be censored if she’d said it aloud.
***
Yeah… I have no idea what’s going on right now. The short and grumpy Cosmic is glaring at us, and I’m almost positive that he’s not supposed to be here. But he’s a Cosmic, which means he could come right back with his portal powers, so… maybe he forgot something? Change of underwear, possibly?
He lets out a snarl and starts straight for me, and suddenly I’M the one who possibly needs the change of underwear. I don’t have my powers. HE does. There’s no chance I’d be able to take him out in a fight, and—
A tiny cannon comes out Fauna’s side, aiming straight at the Cosmic and shooting out electricity. The Cosmic does something strange—he opens his mouth, sucking up the shot of electricity like it’s some sort of snack.
“Cosmic’s can’t do that!” I yell. “Fauna, let me in!” Okay, yes, this is a cowardly move, and I realize it, but it’s not just so I can save my own hide. A hole opens in the side of the ship, and I jump in as quickly as I can—but it’s not fast enough. Hands grab the edges of the hole, starting to force it to stay open—until the hands and body are hauled away by one of the ones outside of the ship. I shake it off and rush to the nearest console. “We need a power blocker,” I tell him.
‘It’s Kim’ba!’ he says over the wall even as the console folds out, showing the weapons control. ‘Kim’ba has come back, and she wants to steal me again! PEW PEW!’
“No! Don’t shoot her!” I say. “We need to cut off her powers, because THAT is not Kim’ba, that’s the power hunter!” Which is jumping to conclusions, I know, but I don’t think Cosmics eat electricity and I’ve heard that outraged “YOU!” before. I’m pretty sure it’s going to haunt my dreams.
‘It’s Kim’ba! I can FEEL her! The scanner says it’s her!’ he texts. ‘Grandpa REALLY should have seen that coming!’
“It might be… both?” I offer. I’m not about to argue the point about Nico. He sort of had, which is why he’d gone looking for her, right? But now’s not the time. “If it’s both Kim’ba and the power hunter, we’ve got the perfect reason to get us a power blocker ray and take them both down! So give me a hand, here, Fauna! You’re a smart spaceship, you should be able to download Nico’s blueprints for a power blocking gun, right?”
‘BOTH!’ blinks several times on the screen before several different files start flooding the wall, as he searches. Something slams into the side of the ship, and almost rocks it, but we ignore that fact as we keep searching for the blueprints.
“That one!” I say, slapping my hand on one of the designs. “Can you replicate this?”
‘I’m on it!’ Fauna says and I hear a strange rumble from one of the walls. Before he can finish, a hand slams through the wall of the ship, grabbing onto the biological material and starting to rip it open. I grab the nearest heavy thing (a metal box of some sort) and slam it into the hand as hard as I can. That… would have been much more impressive had I had my powers, I have to admit. As it is, the hand keeps pulling at the wall—
“Noyoudon’t!” I hear Carla say, once again speaking far too quickly. The hands are pulled away from the hole, but trickles of blue liquid are leaking. Fauna is bleeding, I realize, stunned. It heals up a second later, but I can still see the streaks on his inner wall.
“They’re going to pay for that,” I say, heading for the console for the weapons. “Have you gotten the power blocker ray made, yet?” I ask.
‘Not yet,’ comes over the wall.
“Then why don’t we feed them something they CAN’T eat?” I say, grabbing onto the joystick. “Bring up that cannon for me, please.” A window opens in front of me, showing the sight down the barrel of the cannon, and I swivel the joystick, looking at the ceiling. I shouldn’t be firing on a spaceship, it’s not safe, I realize that… but hey, they’ve got a technopath, right? They can fix the problem later! I see several different ship pieces hanging from the ceiling, and I take a shot at the machines keeping them aloft. I groan as I miss, and suddenly the view changes to zoom in automatically, and calculate the velocity of the shot.
I pull the trigger.
“Carla, incoming!” I yell as the ship part drops to the ground. “Set her up!”
My zoo sibling grabs the power hunter and sends her flying, right to where the part hits. Before we can find out if we got her or not, the doors leading to the main part of the ship open, and Cosmics come rushing in, along with Negatia, my dad, and Nico.
You, ah, think I’ll get in trouble? That ship part’s a bit… you know… on fire, now.
Whoops.
***
“Where’s Ward?” Nico demands. The words seem to slam into Negatia’s brain like a truck—but she’s not the only one. Mega goes pale.
“Don’t tell me she—“
“He’s on the ship!” Rocco calls out. “First thing he did was run in there and, uh, possibly start shooting? It could have been either of them, honestly.”
“Was there a lot of ‘pew pew’ noise when it happened?” Nico asks dryly.
“She—or he, right now, I guess—they got Checkmate’s shard!” Ward’s voice comes over a loudspeaker from the ship. “So we were just trying to keep her distracted while Fauna made a power blocking ray.”
Negatia lets out a silent sigh of relief, and then another, louder sigh, because as a Hall leader she has to think about possible collateral damage. “You fired a weapon in a spaceship,” she says. “Do you know how dangerous that is?”
“Um… yes… but on my behalf, she hurt Fauna,” Ward says.
“Which is an excellent excuse for risking exploding an entire space headquarters ship,” Negatia says blandly.
“Yes, yes it does,” Ward says. “He’s still got blood streaks in here. Poor little guy, I’ll get you cleaned up, I promise. Also, she might NOT have been hit by the falling debris, so maybe we should leave the lecture for later? You know, as a powerless kid right now, I’m feeling extremely vulnerable!”
“You are… in a Lerrestian ship,” one of the Cosmics point out.
“Yeah, your point?” Ward says.
“Spread out and find the power hunter!” the Cosmic says, rather than argue this. “Get the sentient planet shard from her as soon as possible!” The Cosmics either start digging through the rubble on the ground or race off in every direction.
“If she’s got the shard…” Nico says, only to let out a curse. “Next time we strip them before putting them in a medi-box, female or not,” he says before running off. Negatia considers all of the things happening, and then heads for the ship, knocking on the side.
“Let me in, please,” she says.
“Negatia, I can—“ Mega starts out.
“I understand that you wish to check on him, as his father,” she says, “but right now, I need to have a conversation with him as his Hall leader. Or do you plan on turning my offer down, even if he agrees to it?”
He goes silent for a moment, looking at the ship. “No,” he says, finally, “If he decides to go West, I won’t stop him.”
“Ah, yeah, not sure I want to if it means I’m in bigger trouble than usual right now,” Ward says over the loudspeaker.
Negatia barely manages to not roll her eyes. “Even if you don’t go West, I still have the right to lecture you, young Hall member, as well as the ship,” she says. “Now, open this door.”
“I’ll just be, uh, over here watching the Cosmics work,” Mega says, and moves several feet away.
***
“Okay,” I say, giving up. “Let her in, Fauna, we’ll face the music as a team.”
‘I was going to be stolen!’ he says with crying emojis.
“Yeah, I know, trust me,” I say, “but open the door, anyway, because we’re still—actually, I’m NOT a hero right now, I’m a norm! Score!” I say as a hole opens in the side of the ship. The other walls light up with images from all around the ship, and I glance over curiously. “Did you do that?” I ask Fauna as Negatia walks in.
‘Stellar’s doing it, I’m just piggy-backing,’ Fauna explains.
“Okay, yeah, cool—“
“You are STILL a super, Ward,” Negatia says, and I feel my cheeks heat up quickly. “Just because you are temporarily powerless does not suddenly make you a norm. Now,” she says, “close the door, please, Fauna.”
The hole seals up, and she turns to me with a very stern expression. I’m about to be lambasted, aren’t I? “I—“ I start out.
“Very quick thinking,” she says, smiling. “Of course I still have to take points off for the firing a weapon in this type of environment, but you aimed for something outside of the power hunter, which means you realized what she was doing, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, she was totally eating the electricity,” I say, feeling a bit awkward. “Um… you can probably have me put in detention for a few months, if you want, but all we do during detention is either extra sparring or helping with cleanup duty, which I’m probably going to do anyway, since being tall helps with building repairs.”
“I think, perhaps, we can work around that,” she says. “What I want to do is ask you a very serious question, one that I think you need to consider carefully for the rest of your time in school.”
“I don’t wanna be a Cosmic,” I say, “but I wouldn’t mind coming out now and then with Fauna to shoot down meteors! What do you think, Fauna?”
‘Pew! Pew!’ Fauna writes, having to open up a little window among the feeds to do so.
“Well, I will consider that, if you go with an appropriate backup,” she says. “But what I truly want you to consider is… do you honestly hate the idea of taking on responsibility?”
I blink. I hadn’t seen that one coming. I turn away from her, wondering how I should put it. “It isn’t… that… I hate it, exactly,” I say, slowly. “But I’m not the right choice for it. You know, um… about my past, right? How I was a zoo kid? Well, I learned just how little power I had during that time. I’m not the one you want for your second-in-command, or whatever it is that Nico’s aiming for. I’m… I kept failing, and failing, and…” I take a deep breath and turn to her. “All I can do is grow and shrink, and I only just learned the shrinking thing recently, so it’s not that good. You need someone amazing to back you up—“
“Do you truly think you’re not amazing?” she asks.
‘I think you’re amazing!’ Fauna texts. ‘I wanna shrink, too! Let me have some DNA, please!’
“It wouldn’t work even if you got it, now,” I point out. “And I’m surrounded by amazing, you know? There are a ton of people at my school that are better than I am, so… Maybe you should keep looking?”
“I think,” she says, “that you underestimate yourself. You have a lot of promise as a super, and yes, even as a second-in-command. But if I can’t force my own son to take the job, I will never force someone else.”
I should be relieved right now, shouldn’t I? I don’t exactly know what it is I’m feeling, but something must show on my face, because she lets out a laugh.
“Now, as far as… encouraging you to take on the job, that’s another subject, entirely,” she says. “You have a tendency to step into the role that’s needed, you know. I’ve been watching you very closely, Ward. And I need a second-in-command, and a successor for the distant future. Now that you know that, will you really be able to ignore it?” she asks. “Fauna, open the door, please.”
“Can’t I make my dad do it?” I ask, pathetically, and she bursts out laughing as she leaves the ship, not answering the question. I look at the wall, still not seeing any sign of the power hunter, and shrug, chasing after her. She’s right, if she leaves it like this, I’m always going to be stuck on the offer. It isn’t like with the Cosmics. There are tons of Cosmics, and they all carry the same name. That means someone will fill any holes that show up. It’s different when it’s a Hall—
