Arachnus was a little bit stronger. Dawn shape-shifted her muscles to be bigger, stronger, more lean and more powerful. She started to feel a bit like the Incredible Hulk, only less green. But Arachnus matched her. And then made himself even stronger.
He might’ve overpowered her if Ray hadn’t kept flying in front of his face. “Stop that!” Arachnus shouted. His voice could be heard for miles.
Luke dashed towards the center of the portal area. He drew a pair of wavy lines. Instantly the ground beneath them disappeared. Luke teleported back to solid ground, near the edge of the portal. But Arachnus started to fall. “Wh-whoa!!!”
Ray used his power to keep Dawn afloat.
Arachnus’s giant legs fell through. Then his waist. And some of his arms. But his remaining arms grabbed onto some nearby buildings and street lights. He held himself up. Half way through the portal. He started to pull himself back up.
Luke turned to the wall next to him. He drew a quick small circle. He placed the crystal in the center, ready to draw a symbol. “Arachnus,” he shouted, “if I open a new portal, the one you’re in will instantly close.”
Arachnus knew what that meant. He’d be severed in half. He was too big. He couldn’t pull himself up fast enough. Not faster than Luke could draw a symbol. He already lost an arm that way. Could his stolen shape-shifting power re-grow the entire lower half of his body? He didn’t want to take that chance.
He peered angrily down at Luke – and let go. He dropped all the way through, shrinking down to normal size at the same time.
The instant his head was through, Luke drew a triangle. A new tiny portal opened on the wall. The previous giant portal spread across the street had vanished.
Luke then X-ed out the new portal.
Dawn shrank back down to normal size too. Ray slowly descended back down to the ground. “Well that was fun,” said Ray, dusting off his hands.
“Good teamwork, guys,” said Dawn.
Luke agreed. “Now let’s make sure they’re all tucked away safe and sound, before we take on Mastermind.” He looked at them. “Ready?”
“Ready,” said Ray.
“Ready,” cheered Dawn.
Luke put his arms around both – and they teleported.
Back in the Mojave Desert, one last time.
Rhino-Man and Venom stood alone in the midst of a vast and empty desert. Nothing but miles and miles of endless sand and punishing sun in every direction. Barren mountains in the distance. No sign of civilization anywhere.
Luke, Dawn, and Ray appeared.
“Alright, you’ve got a choice,” said Luke to the two mutants. “Stay here and die in the desert, or relax on the tropical island planet.”
Rhino-Man gave him a curious look. “How about I pound your face in?”
Venom hissed.
Luke started drawing a large circle in the sand. The trail of pink light followed wherever the crystal touched. Then in the center he drew the symbol. The portal opened back to the lush jungle and beautiful beach. Paradise. A billion miles away on another planet. Where they couldn’t harm a soul.
“Well?” Luke asked.
Rhino-Man sized him up. Could he and Venom take them? Maybe.
Kraken was still on the other side, enjoying himself swimming around in the ocean. Slimer relaxed under a palm tree, drinking out of some kind of coconut. Arachnus, defeated only seconds ago, frowned at Luke and the others when he saw them through the re-opened portal. But he stayed put. Arms (most of them) crossed.
“Time’s up,” said Ray. He pulled Venom into the portal, dropping her to the other side. Then he moved his hand, about to do the same to Rhino-Man.
“Wait! Fine,” said the muscular gray mutant. “At least leave me the dignity to do it myself.”
The rhinoceros mutant walked over to the portal, looked in, and saw his fellow mutants on the other side. He sighed. Was this really over?
He stomped his foot on the ground. An earthquake knocked Luke and Dawn off their feet. Ray reacted quickly, waiting for the mutant to try something. Ray lifted himself an inch off the ground, and in one fluid motion, sent the big tough guy tumbling through the portal.
Luke didn’t waste another second. Crystal in hand, he didn’t even wait to get up and X-out the portal. He just quickly drew a tiny circle, a pyramid in the middle, and instantly closed out the previous portal. Then he closed the new portal. Easy-peasy.
Dawn got up, dusting herself off. “Is that everyone?”
Ray helped Luke up. “I think so,” he said.
“The new bat mutant’s still missing,” said Luke. “And we left the cat girl in Japan. But other than that, yeah. We’re good.”
“And no way they can get off that planet?” Ray asked.
“Not unless they have a crystal,” said Luke.
“Should we look for the bat?” asked Dawn.
“I dunno,” said Luke. “He could be anywhere. But he didn’t put up much of a fight. I dunno. It’s weird. There’s something oddly familiar about him. I feel like… like we can trust him. I don’t think we need to worry about him.”
“You sure?” asked Ray. “You do hear yourself, right?”
“I know. But even if he shows up, one mutant’s a lot easier to deal with than five. Besides, he can only turn invisible. Or teleport. I’m not sure. Either way, it’s not an offensive power. Still not sure where he came from, though. Whatever. We’ll be fine.”
“If you say so, man,” said Ray. “You’re the leader.”
“I am?” asked Luke.
Dawn laughed.
“Yeah, well,” said Ray, “I figured you know more about this stuff than either of us, with all your comic books and whatnot. So what would Superman do now?”
“Well, save the world, I guess.”
“Then let’s do it.”
“Yeah!” cheered Dawn. “It’s about frickin’ time!
Chapter Ten
Showdown
First they teleported back to Ray and Luke’s apartment, where Charlie was waiting.
He was watching the news, on mute with closed captions. “They just reported that some mysterious heroes took down a giant spider mutant in Saint Petersburg,” said the old man with a smile. “Well done.”
“That son of a bitch stole our powers!” Ray exclaimed.
“Copied,” corrected Luke. “Technically he copied them. If he stole them, we wouldn’t have our powers anymore.”
“Shut up. He didn’t take anything from you,” joked Ray.
“Good thing too,” said Dawn. “Could you imagine if he had all three of our powers?”
“Yikes,” said Luke.
“So what’s the plan?” asked Charlie. “Did you get all of them?”
“Mostly,” said Luke. “There’s a new bat mutant who disappeared on me. And we left Shadow, the cat girl, in Japan.”
Charlie noticed a news update. “Looks like other people are randomly starting to mutate. Says there’s reports of sightings in Spain, France, England, and… here in the United States.”
“It’s gotta be that chemical the hospitals are distributing,” Dawn said. “We gotta end this, now.”
“But all his original mutants are taken care of, right?” asked Charlie. “They’d be the only ones with powers. Should I tell our anonymous hacker friend to go ahead with his plan?”
“You sure we can trust this guy?” asked Ray.
“It’s worth a shot,” said Dawn.
Luke looked to his uncle. “I trust you. Do what you think is best. I mean, he did help mom and dad before, right?”
Charlie nodded softly. “Seems he still believes we have a chance to defeat Mastermind. Ready to finish what your parents started?”
Luke didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely.”
“Alright,” said Uncle Charlie. “Pray this works.” He pulled out his cell phone and entered a text message. “Mission accomplished. Proceed with plan.” He hit send.
A few seconds later, a reply text message came back. “Confirmed. Uploading no
w,” it read.
Ray looked around. “So what happens now?”
“Now we see if it works,” said Charlie. “But either way, you’ve still got a job to do.” He looked to Luke. “Have you made a decision?”
Luke nodded, considering a heavy thought. “As much as I want to kill him, I can’t do it. That’s a line I’m not willing to cross. But he’s too dangerous to let live, either.”
“We’re behind you, man,” said Ray.
“Yeah,” said Dawn. “Just tell us what to do.”
The easiest thing, of course, was for Luke to open up a portal to the derelict starship. Dawn could distract Mastermind with her shape-shifting. Ray would blast him into the portal. The vacuum would suck Mastermind right in. All Luke would have to do was close the portal – and Mastermind would be gone forever. On the other side, trapped on that abandoned space ship, he’d quickly run out of air – freezing to death at the same time.
That’d be the easiest, fastest, safest way.
But it’d make them all killers too.
And heroes didn’t kill. At least, not these heroes. Luke wasn’t willing to cross that line.
The alternative, much riskier and far more dangerous option was to somehow disable Mastermind. Make him powerless. And let the police take care of him. Lock him up forever. He’d still be alive, but he wouldn’t be able to harm another soul again.
Still, this was the man who killed both of Luke’s parents in cold blood. This was the man who came back to LA, possibly to finish off Luke too. This was the man who mind-controlled random strangers, mutated them, and turned them all into super villain henchmen. This was a man who declared himself to be a god – and at this very moment, was actually starting to take over the world.
His mutants were out of the picture. Locked away safe on another world. But it was only a matter of time before Mastermind found new mutants, and larger numbers of mutants, and gave them all powers again.
Luke had considered just dumping Mastermind off on the same planet as his mutants. But that felt too dangerous. What if Mastermind had another secret crystal they didn’t know about? What if someone, somewhere else in the universe, unintentionally opened a portal to that planet – and suddenly Mastermind and all his super-powered mutants were suddenly set free?
He didn’t know how to destroy the pyramids either, and even if he could, he’d cut off their own powers – and the powers of countless other people throughout the galaxy. That might make a lot more enemies – alien enemies, with high-tech space craft – once they found out someone from Earth was responsible.
Maybe, just this once, he should cross the line. Just kill off Mastermind. Just this once. And be done with it. Fire a cutting laser straight through the center of his head. Suck him through a portal into the vacuum of space. Inject him with his own chemical, without donor DNA, and let his own cells slowly deteriorate and disintegrate him from the inside out.
But would he still be a hero? Did Batman or Superman kill? Captain America? Spider-Man? Sure, sometimes villains died. But the heroes never directly, intentionally, pre-meditatively tried to kill anyone. That was the difference, Luke believed, between heroes and villains. Both had powers. Both, because of those powers, were something more than human. But that being “more than human” part – did it make them above the law? Above ethics? Above morality?
Luke was still a United States citizen. With or without powers. And murder – whether by laser, portal, or deadly chemical – was still murder. Mastermind, no matter how evil, was still a human being. He still, regrettably, had his rights. Luke knew he was guilty. But was Luke about to become judge, jury, and executioner for everyone he thought was bad? Did he – a young man with the power of time travel, the ability to erase and change history – did he want to cross that line, and single-handedly decide the fate of anyone he so chose?
Yes, Mastermind was bad. Yes, Mastermind was a murderer. And that was the difference between them. Luke had great power now too. But he wouldn’t use it to kill. Not now. Not ever. That was why he was a hero.
For Luke, there was only one decision when it came to dealing with Mastermind. He just wished it was the easier option.
“We avoid eye contact,” he said, answering their question, “and we disable him. We take him down, but we don’t kill him. We leave him for the police to take care of – and let the people of world, and all his victims, decide his fate.”
Ray nodded. “I never thought for a second you’d say otherwise.”
Dawn agreed. “He’s vulnerable now without his mutants. Between the three of us, he should be no problem.”
“Then let’s do this.” Luke put his metal-gloved hand out in the center. Dawn placed her hand on top of his. Ray placed his hand on hers.
“Ready when you are, man,” said Ray.
“Here we go!” said Luke.
This was it.
A bright flash of white light – and they vanished.
Charlie watched. He stared at the empty space in his nephew’s living room, where those young new would-be heroes stood only a second ago. “Good luck, kids,” he said proudly.
An instant later, and they found themselves in Times Square, New York City. Still holding hands together as a team.
And then Ray’s jaw dropped. Dawn’s eyes opened wide with disbelief. “Oh… shit…” said Luke.
Mastermind had been busy.
They should’ve gotten here a lot sooner.
Ray readied his hands. This was going to be a busy day. Dawn prepped herself to start shape-shifting. Luke’s heads-up display went haywire trying to track it all.
Mutants. Mutants everywhere. Flying mutants. Wall-climbing mutants. Crawling mutants. Mutants crawling out of the sewers. Ugly mutants. Monstrous mutants. Creatures of all types – spiders, scorpions, snakes, frogs, lizards, birds, lions, tigers, and bears, oh my! All that and more. Every animal. And a whole bunch of strange combinations of animals. All mutants. Some still looked somewhat human. But most did not.
Were these all once people? How on Earth had Mastermind transformed so many of them so fast? They were everywhere! Hundreds, no, thousands of them! Crawling, climbing, and flying all over the city. Running around in a chaotic rampage. Attacking each other. Tearing apart buildings. Overthrowing vehicles. Roaring, screeching, crying, wailing, laughing, gurgling, hissing… every type of creature, every imaginable hybrid – and then some – were running amuck here.
“Holy nightmare, Batman!” Luke exclaimed.
“You can say that again,” Ray said.
“We can’t fight them all,” said Dawn.
“Everyone, get ready. I’m going to try to send us all back in time. We gotta stop—”
“No!” said Ray. “Save your power. We may need it later at a more critical moment. First we take down Mastermind. Then we find a way to save all these people.”
“He’s right. If Mastermind gets the upper hand on us again,” said Dawn, “we’re going to need you to go back in time and save us.”
“Alright, scanning for him now…” His heads-up display had a hard time processing all the information around him. None of the mutants seemed to display any supernatural powers. They were just … mutants. Scared, confused, angry, out of control mutants.
A few started charging too close. Ray blasted them back with his power. Dawn couldn’t figure out what to shape-shift into. Every creature was different. If she made herself too big and strong, a smaller faster mutant could get the jump on her. If she made herself small and agile, the bigger monsters could easily crush her.
Many mutants looked poisonous – was that one a scorpion or a mutant tarantula? It looked like a mix of both. A frog-like mutant hopped on top of one of the billboards, and snatched up another mutant below with its long tongue.
A dragonfly-like mutant with way too many sharp teeth buzzed by, chasing after a female butterfly-like mutant that was holding, what looked like, a lizard baby. Then something with three tails, two heads, and a lion-like body charged o
ut from around the corner, jumped up with a back-flip, and snatched the dragonfly mutant right out of the air with its massive paws! The butterfly woman and her lizard baby flew away to safety.
Some kind of giant ape beast lifted up and smashed two cars together. Some kind of wasp mutant with spider-like legs slowly crawled up a skyscraper. And a squirmy little mole-man hid in the shadows around the corner, watching Dawn and the others cautiously.
“Come on, come on…” said Luke. “He’s gotta be here somewhere.”
“Anytime now, Luke,” said Ray, blasting away a few more dangerous-looking mutants who got a little too close.
“Got him!” Luke exclaimed. “This way!”
“Right behind you,” said Dawn.
“Me too,” said his best friend, blasting back more mutants.
The three ran forward. The mutants were everywhere. Many ran off in other directions. Several attacked each other. But Luke, Ray, and Dawn stuck out from the crowd – being the only humans in sight. Many mutants spotted them and charged to attack.
Ray blasted the oncoming mutants left and right, and ahead, and above… Oh shit! One popped up from a sewer hole beneath them! “Hang on guys,” said Ray. He quickly levitated them all up into the air. Much easier this way. They were out of reach of most of the mutants now, anyway. “Where to, captain?”
“He’s moving fast!” said Luke. “Wait… he’s turning around… he’s coming… oh fuck.”
“What?” asked Dawn.
Mastermind flew out of nowhere, rushing right past them, as if he didn’t even see them.
“What the hell?” yelled Ray.
They all turned around. Mastermind blew past them, racing ahead to his next destination – but he stopped. He hovered in the air – and slowly turned around. He faced them. Made eye contact.
“I was wondering when I’d see you three again.”
“Don’t look at his eyes!” Dawn shouted.
Mastermind laughed.
“He can fly?!” Ray remarked.
Luke couldn’t believe it. “Could he always do that?”
Dawn shook her head.
“Great. What else can he do?” said Ray.
Mastermind grinned. “Glad you asked, boy. Let me show you my true power – the power of your God!”
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