by Lucas Flint
I looked over my shoulder. Treehugger and Talon were trying to help free Blizzard, who was still frozen to that person's car (and now the car's owner was standing nearby, ranting about how they were going to have to pay for the damage done to his car by Blizzard's ice). Stinger was nowhere to be seen and Shell was still on his back and unable to get up.
I looked back at Strike and the New Heroes. “Er, they're a to be senbit busy recovering from the fight.” I tried not to look embarrassed when I said that.
Strike, thankfully, seemed to catch my drift, because he said, “Okay. Well, I wanted to talk with you before we left.”
“Talk about what?” I said.
“About teaming up,” said Strike. “Like, forming an alliance between the Young Neos and the New Heroes.”
“An alliance?” I said. I looked at Strike suspiciously. “Why?”
Strike didn't seem to notice my suspicious tone, because he just said, “Because I've been meaning to extend this offer to the Young Neos for a while now, but Incantation was a bit of a … well, you know, and that was before I found out she was a member of Vision.”
I nodded. Incantation had been the previous leader of the Young Neos. She had also been a disciple of the Vision cult and had tried to murder me when I refused to join it. Her current whereabouts were unknown, but I was just glad she hadn't tried to kill me recently. I didn't exactly have very fond memories of her, to put it lightly.
“So I was hoping that we could form an alliance between our teams,” said Strike. “For mutual aid. So if, for example, you guys needed help against some powerful villain, you could call us over to help, and vice versa.”
I glanced at Enor. “You mean like we did just now?”
“Yeah,” said Strike. “But don't worry. I wouldn't, you know, boss you around or anything. We'd be equals.”
Strike seemed sincere, but I was a little annoyed at how easily the New Heroes had taken out Enor. Yeah, it was nice that they defeated him before he could cause too much damage, but I was starting to notice people on the streets and in the buildings looking at us, which meant that people had seen us get beaten by Enor. It made me feel embarrassed and pathetic, mostly because I figured there were going to be a million pictures and videos about this all over the Internet soon, if there weren't already.
And if forming an alliance with the New Heroes would result in more embarrassing saves like this, then I wasn't so sure I wanted it. But I didn't say that aloud because I knew it would look like sour grapes if I did.
Instead, I said, “How can we work together if you guys work under the INJ and we work under the NHA? It's not like we're part of the same organization, after all.”
“The Midnight Menace already gave us permission to speak with you about this,” said Strike. “Of course, it won't be official until the NHA approves. And that won't be until the Neohero Summit, which is about a month away now.”
I nodded again. The Neohero Summit was a yearly event in New York that drew neoheroes from all over the country and world together to talk about recent developments in the word that affected the neohero community, among other things. This year's Summit would be my first, since it was going to take place on Hero Island, which was the headquarters of the Neohero Alliance and the Young Neos.
Still, that didn't change how I felt about what Strike just did. Strike just felt a little too perfect to me. I doubted he was really a supervillain in disguise or anything, but there was something about his hair and his smile that put me off. Maybe it was the fact that he hung out with a literal blob monster or maybe it was just how he and his team beat Enor so easily.
“But you could talk to the NHA leadership about this,” said Strike. “I know that the NHA and the INJ don't exactly have a stellar history together, but this could be a way for the two organizations to put aside our differences and work for greater justice.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
Strike leaned closer to me, like he was telling me a secret. “Think about it. We're the next generation of heroes. The relationships we form now will define our futures. I imagine that you and I, in particular, will end up in important positions in our respective organizations when we're older.”
I had never thought about that. Yes, I had planned to join the NHA once I turned eighteen, but I wasn't thinking about becoming leader or anything like that. But when I thought about it, I found that I liked the idea of being a member of the Leadership Council. Not only that, but I had also been told that most Young Neo leaders usually went on to play important roles in the NHA, so there was a good chance I might get on the Leadership Council as long as I stayed in the Young Neos.
But I just didn't like Strike. He seemed too perfect, too nice, too … well, you know. I didn't suffer from low self-esteem, but I had to admit that his very presence made me feel inadequate. I couldn't explain it.
So I said, “I guess that's not a bad idea, but I'm not sure about it yet. We just met, after all, and I need to run this idea by the Leadership Council anyway, since they'd have to approve of it before we did anything.”
Strike looked disappointed for a second before smiling and saying, “Oh, I understand. Like I said, nothing official will happen until the Summit. That's when our leaders will determine whether or not our organizations will work together. That's plenty of time to think about it.”
Strike sounded optimistic that we'd be working together at some point, which kind of annoyed me.
But I nodded anyway and said, “Sure, yeah, I get it. Working together is often better than working separately, after all.”
“Glad you agree,” said Strike, flashing another white-toothed grin at me. “Now, if you'll excuse us, we have to leave. We've got some other business here in New York to deal with before we head back to California. See you at the Summit.”
With that, the New Heroes started to leave. The Lightning Triplets turned into lightning and zapped away, while Dizzy got on Strike's metal board and flew off with him. As for Slime, he just turned into a blob and sank into the cracks in the street, leaving me standing here all alone as I watched Strike and Dizzy fly away.
Chapter Three
After making sure the police took Enor off to jail, the Young Neos and I returned to the House. I was pretty much the only one who could fly long distances without tiring, so we had to take the Neocopter, which was the private helicopter of the Young Neos that was sometimes used to transport the team to wherever we needed to go. The pilot's name was Willy and, as far as I could tell, he was not a neohero himself, but just an ordinary guy who happened to work for the NHA. I told him we wanted to go back to the House, but Willy excitedly asked me if I had gotten Strike's autograph; apparently, everyone was a fan of Strike and I hadn't even known it until not even ten minutes ago.
We sat in the Neocopter as it flew back to Hero Island, not saying much because of the loud rotors and wind outside. Prior to liftoff, I had told the team about what Strike and the New Heroes had said, but we wouldn't get a chance to talk about it much until we got back to the House.
So I took this time to look around at the team that the NHA had assembled for me. I already knew everyone and what their powers were, but after seeing the efficiency of the New Heroes, I found myself comparing my team to them.
Sitting next to me was Treehugger, real name Alica Simpson. She was checking out something on her phone, looking at what appeared to be Strike's Neo Ranks page, which I thought was kind of a waste, considering how we wouldn't even be seeing him again until next month.
From what I had been told, Treehugger was from Virginia, having been raised by her hippie grandparents. Her powers were pretty simple: She could control and command plants to do her bidding. Depending on the environment, that could be either a devastating or incredibly weak power; unfortunately, Treehugger's powers hadn't exactly been very useful so far, mostly because she didn't have much practice using them and we hadn't done many missions in places with lots of plants.
Then I looked at Blizza
rd, who sat across from me. She was slightly younger than me by about a year or two and had snow-white hair and dark skin, and was looking down at the floor, probably feeling embarrassed by freezing herself to that car. I had been told that she was from Arizona, which seemed like an odd place for an ice-powered person to come from, but neohero powers were genetic, so anyone could get any power from anywhere.
The thing was, though, that while Blizzard could control ice and coldness, she was really bad at controlling it. I mean, really bad. Freezing herself to that car back there was hardly the most embarrassing thing that had happened to her due to her lack of control over her powers. I think her lack of control came from a severe lack of confidence and fear of her own powers, although I didn't understand why she was so afraid of her powers. She probably just needed some more practice.
Sitting to Blizzard's right was Talon, who was the same age as her. Talon, unlike Blizzard, showed no embarrassment or fear whatsoever. She was looking at her claws, which were razor sharp appendages that came out of her wrists, kind of like Wolverine. Her claws could cut through almost any substance, but the problem was that she didn't like getting dirty or chipping her claws. Made sense, given that she was apparently the daughter of a major fashion designer, although it was very frustrating whenever we were fighting a villain and I told her to cut something and she instead worried about what it would do to her claws.
And sitting on Blizzard's left, was Shell. He was the youngest member of the team at thirteen years of age. He was pretty short and stout, with an abnormal growth on his back that resembled a turtle shell, which was where his name came from. He wore coke bottle spectacles and was pretty introverted, although he didn't seem as fearful or timid as Blizzard. His 'shell,' as we called it, was incredibly thick and strong, capable of taking direct blows from powerful villains and weapons. He wasn't much of a fighter, but unlike Talon, he at least didn't worry about his appearance whenever I asked him to do something that might get him dirty. He was also incredibly smart and good with technology, though not on the same level as Dad.
And finally, sitting next to Treehugger, was Stinger. He was a really tall, skinny guy with a big head (a literal one, though sometimes he had a metaphorical one, too). He had insect-like wings sprouting from his back, but his real powers came from the stingers he could create on his hands and feet that allowed him to paralyze or even poison whoever he touched. Out of all of us, Stinger was probably the most reliable, since he had used his powers more than once to help us capture villains since the team's formation.
And, of course, there was me, the leader and the most experienced in fighting crime and supervillains. I was a pretty good leader, all things considered, but seeing how Strike led the New Heroes … well, I wondered if we could be better.
But I probably shouldn't have been surprised. My team, to be frank, wasn't all that good. All of us had come from outside the Neohero Academy, which had been an intentional choice on the part of Mecha Knight, our supervisor and one of the Leadership Council members, in order to minimize whatever Visionist influences existed in the Academy. But it seemed to me like our team had been thrown together rather haphazardly, like the NHA had been in a hurry to put together a new Young Neos, maybe in time for the Summit.
More than once since New Year's, which was when I was first introduced to the team, I found myself wondering what Mecha Knight was thinking when he put us together. Maybe he saw potential in us that we couldn't see in ourselves, or maybe he was just in such a hurry that he lowered his standards and accepted anyone he could find. Whatever the case, I knew we weren't exactly the most popular incarnation of the Young Neos, because I had seen on Neo Ranks that our incarnation of the team was ranked a 4, in contrast to the previous incarnation, which was still an 8 even after everyone knew about the true nature of Incantation and the others. And the only reason our rank was even a 4 was because of my presence on the team; I didn't even want to think about how low it would be without me.
It wasn't all bad, of course. We got to stay in the House on Hero Island, which was a large compound-like structure with plenty of food, dozens of rooms, and video games and TVs for us to use. Granted, we spent most of the time training there, since we were always on call for any missions Mecha Knight gave us, but it was still a fun place to hang out.
Yet sometimes the House felt like the only good thing about the Young Neos. Even the fact that I had some actual neohero friends around my age was dampened by the fact that I had more experience than the rest of them when it came to superheroics, so I didn't have as much in common with the others as I could have even if I did get along with them well.
When we landed on the helicopter pad on top of the House an hour later, we immediately split up. The others went to the medical room, where they would have their injuries looked at by the robots and systems of the House, while I went to my office to report back to our supervisor, Mecha Knight.
Yeah, I had an office. Or at least I called it that. It was really just the other half of my room in the House. The left half of my room had my bed, my closet where I kept my civilian clothes, and the door to my personal bathroom, while the right half of the room had a huge screen on display that would connect me with Mecha Knight, plus dozens of buttons and switches that I could use to watch the news or watch the security cameras. Thankfully, the two halves of the room were usually separated by a retractable wall, so that way I never had to worry about the screen turning on just as I walked out of the bathroom without my clothes on.
It was a lot nicer than my room back in Texas, but it didn't quite feel like home, even after I put up posters of my favorite bands and movies and kept my clothes strewn across the floor. It was probably because Mom and Dad weren't here. Dad talked to me every day via my suit-up watch, but it wasn't quite the same as talking to him in person.
Shaking my head, I walked over to the huge screen on the other side of the room and then tapped a button.
Immediately, an energetic male voice said, “Hey, Bolt! Has your day been AWESOME so far?”
I cringed at the voice's excitement, but said, “It's fine, Carl. Just connect me with Mecha Knight. We're back from our battle with Enor and I need to give him my report on how things went.”
Carl was the new AI of the House, designed and installed by Dad, and was the replacement for Reeve, the previous House AI, which had turned out to be a willing collaborator in the last team's evil plans. Carl's main purpose was to make sure that the utilities kept running and that we were all on time for whatever was on our schedules, as well as keeping an eye on our security cameras and the like. But I didn't understand why Dad gave Carl such an enthusiastic and happy personality. Maybe Dad had a better sense of humor than I thought.
“Sure thing, Bolt,” said Carl in a cheery voice. “Please stand by while I connect with Mecha Knight's office.”
The word 'CONNECTING' appeared on the massive screen for a few seconds before it was replaced by 'CONNECTED.' Then that word also vanished, showing me the face of Mecha Knight, the supervisor of the Young Neos and one of the leaders of the NHA.
Or rather, it showed me his helmet, which completely covered his face. Unlike most neoheroes, Mecha Knight didn't have any actual powers, at least as far as I knew. He instead wore a suit of powered armor that gave him all sorts of abilities, such as flight. His armor looked like a suit of old-fashioned knight armor, except updated and streamlined to make it more modern and aerodynamic.
“Bolt,” said Mecha Knight, who didn't sound surprised to see me. “You and the others are back already.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I'm here to report on the success of our mission. Is this a good time for you?”
“It always is,” said Mecha Knight. “But I heard from the police that you apparently had help from another group of young heroes from a rival organization.”
I heard disapproval in Mecha Knight's voice, which I had expected. After all, the New Heroes worked for the INJ, and the NHA and the INJ rarely got along. I wasn't e
xactly sure why the two superhero organizations didn't get together, but I knew it had been that way for a very long time.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “It was the New Heroes, led by Strike. Have you heard of them?”
Mecha Knight nodded. “Yes. I have actually met Strike before, though that was a couple of years ago, before he … well, that is irrelevant.”
That piqued my interest. What had Mecha Knight been about to say about Strike? Maybe he was just going to say that he had met Strike before Strike joined the New Heroes, but I had a feeling he had been referring to something else.
Regardless, I said, “Yeah, the New Heroes took out Enor in like, five minutes.”
“Why didn't you and your team defeat him?” said Mecha Knight.
I scratched the back of my head in embarrassment. “Well, see, that's an interesting question. Enor turned out to be a lot stronger than we thought, so fighting him turned out to be more complicated than we thought.”
Although Mecha Knight's face was completely obscured by his helmet, I could tell that he didn't buy that excuse. “I see. Well, what were the New Heroes even doing here in New York? I did not know they were going to be here. They usually operate on the West Coast.”
“Strike offered to form an alliance with me and the others,” I said, grateful that we were moving beyond my team's failure to defeat Enor on our own. “He said that if the New Heroes and Young Neos worked together we would be able to handle far worse threats against the world than we could handle on our own.”
“He made this offer to you?” said Mecha Knight. He sounded curious, but also a little worried.
“I told him I'd tell you about it,” I said. “He said that the alliance will probably be finalized at the Neohero Summit at the end of the month, assuming we go through with it.”