Heroes (The Young Neos Book 5)

by Lucas Flint

  Hopefully she and the others are okay, Kevin thought. Besides, sometimes you’ve got to work with what you got, rather than what you want. And what I’ve got is White, Stinger, and Talon, and I guess Eli and Chip, too. Not exactly the Leadership Council, but they’ll do for now.

  Finally, Eli finished putting the wires on his body. He walked out from the bushes, past Kevin, and toward the gates of the mansion. Eli did not look back as he walked; that was probably intentional, because they did not want to raise any suspicions in Mann’s mind that Eli was not alone. Part of him wished that he could follow Eli, but for the safety of the mission, Kevin would just have to wait in the bushes until Eli called them into the mansion. He heard movement beside him and looked to his left to see Chip crouching near them, a look of worry on his face as he watched Eli go.

  Eli walked up to the front gates without any fear or hesitation, although Kevin knew that Eli was very nervous about coming face to face with his grandfather. But Eli was good at looking and acting like he wasn’t afraid of anything, which would hopefully prevent Mann from suspecting that anything was amiss.

  “Be careful, Eli,” Chip muttered next to Kevin.

  Kevin said nothing. He merely watched as Eli drew closer and closer to the gates, ready to leap to Eli’s rescue if necessary.

  Finally, Eli reached the front gates. He stopped before what appeared to be the main speaker for the gates, which he spoke into. Kevin heard the speaker crackle from a distance, though he could not hear what the voice speaking through the speaker was saying.

  But he saw the results of the conversation when the gates slowly opened on their own. With Eli’s back to them, it was impossible to see his expression, but Eli showed no hesitation as he walked beyond the gates. As soon as Eli walked past the gates, however, they slammed shut immediately, their clanging noise making Eli jump. But Eli was not attacked, nor was he met by anyone, so he kept walking up to the front steps of the mansion. He reached the front doors and knocked on them a couple of times.

  Abruptly, the left door cracked open just wide enough for Eli to enter. Again, Kevin could not see who had answered the door, but Eli entered without delay and the doors closed behind him. Now neither Kevin nor the others could see Eli, but they didn’t need to. As long as Eli had access to his radio, it didn’t matter whether they could see him or not.

  “How long are we going to have to wait before he calls us in?” Stinger whispered.

  Kevin shook his head. “No idea. Eli said he would try to get us the coordinates as fast as he could, but it might be a while. Depends on how his meeting with Mann goes.”

  “I hope it doesn’t take him longer than half an hour or so,” said Stinger. He grimaced and sneezed. “I’m allergic to oak trees and can’t stand being out here much longer.”

  “You’ll just need to be patient,” said Kevin. “And ready, too. As soon as Eli summons us, we’ll likely find ourselves in the middle of a battle with Mann and his Venetians. But if we can strike first and strike fast, we might be able to end the fight before it even begins.”

  “Hope so,” said Stinger, rubbing his nose. “’Cause even though my wings have healed, they’re still kind of tender.”

  “Hopefully, you won’t need to do so much flying during the battle,” said Kevin. “As long as your stingers work, you should be fine.”

  With that, Kevin turned his attention back to the mansion. Even though the mansion was obviously still inhabited, the complete absence of human life was disturbing. All of the windows were covered with thick, dark curtains; indeed, the curtains were so thick that Kevin couldn’t tell if there were any lights on inside there or not. He had no way of following Eli’s progress from the outside. He was tempted to call Eli now and find out how he was doing, but he restrained himself; calling Eli right now would succeed only in making Mann aware of their presence. Better to sit still and wait for the message from Eli.

  But as the seconds dragged on, Kevin grew more and more restless. He kept glancing at his suit-up watch, but he did not see any messages from Eli. Beside him, Stinger rubbed his nose and his eyes, while Talon absentmindedly clawed at the ground with her claws and White appeared to be struggling to stay awake. Only Chip was watching the mansion with the same attention as ever, like he was afraid that he might miss something important if he looked away for even a moment.

  Where is he? Kevin thought. Did he run into some problems? Why hasn’t he sent us any messages?

  Just as Kevin thought that, he heard a small beep from his watch and looked down at its screen to see that he had received a message from Eli. Excited and yet cautious, Kevin tapped the message and read it:

  BOLT—Below are the coordinates for the main living room of my grandfather’s mansion. My grandfather stepped out of the room briefly to get something, but he should be back any minute, so this is the best time to act. Once you input the coordinates into your Teleportation Buckle, you and your friends should appear in the center of the room, so don’t worry about appearing on top of me or anything like that.

  Below the paragraph was a long string of numbers which Kevin easily recognized as the teleportation coordinates of the mansion’s living room. He looked up at the others, who had all heard the notification beep also and were staring at him expectantly.

  “Eli just sent me a message with the mansion living room’s teleportation coordinates,” said Kevin. “Once I put them into my buckle, I want us all to hold hands so we can teleport in together. Except for you, Chip; you need to stay here in case we need backup. Someone will need to stay here to call the NHA in case things get dicey.”

  “But what if Eli is hurt?” said Chip. “I want to help him if he’s in trouble.”

  “Don’t worry about him,” said Kevin, waving at Chip without care. “We’ll keep Eli safe. You just need to call the NHA for backup if something bad happens to us inside the mansion.”

  Chip frowned, but nodded and said, “Okay. But if you don’t keep Eli safe, I will never forgive you. Got it?”

  Kevin blinked. He didn’t expect Chip to be so passionate, but he nodded and said, “Uh, sure. Got it.”

  “Okay,” said Chip. “Then go. No need to wait any longer now that Eli says it’s time to go.”

  Kevin nodded one more time at Chip and then inputted the coordinates on his watch into his Buckle. Once he finished inputting the coordinates, Kevin held hands with White, Talon, and Stinger.

  “Everyone ready?” said Kevin, looking around at his friends. “We don’t know for sure what is in there, but it could be dangerous.”

  “Come on, Bolt,” said Stinger. “We’ve been in worse situations before. Once we’re in, I’ll paralyze Mann instantly and he won’t even know what hit him.”

  “And I’m perfectly willing to use my claws to tear him or his Venetians a new one if necessary,” said Talon with a wolfish grin.

  “Am ready to fight,” said White. “Fight for the world.”

  “Good,” said Bolt. “Now here … we … go.”

  Bolt twisted the Teleportation Buckle.

  One moment, they were standing out in the dark forest around the mansion; the next, they were standing inside a dark room. In fact, Kevin almost didn’t think they’d teleported at all, because the room into which they teleported was almost as dark as the forest, but the firm concrete under their feet, combined with the smell of stale air and dust in contrast to the smell of green trees and grass of the forest, told Kevin that they had indeed teleported inside.

  “Why is everything so dark? Or did I just go blind?” said Stinger’s voice from somewhere in the shadows. “I can’t see a thing.”

  “It’s not just you,” said Talon. “I can’t see anything, either. And what’s with the concrete floor? I thought that a man as rich as Mann would have mahogany or something fancy like that.”

  “Darkness scary,” said White. “Wish there was a light.”

  A bright, white light suddenly bathed over them like a wave from the ocean. Kevin had to shut his ey
es to protect them from the sudden change in illumination, though once his eyes had adjusted to the light, he opened them to see where he was.

  But Kevin wished he had not, because he now found himself face to face with Eli’s corpse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Screaming his head off, Shell fell like a rock down a sheer cliff. He spun head over heels in the air, the sky and the ground changing places rapidly. He sometimes saw the white clouds of the sky and then other times saw the tall trees of a forest of some sort below him and still other times a large castle somewhere in the distance. Yet he could never fix on any one detail for very long, because he spun around too much to be able to focus on anything except his sheer, utter terror at falling, falling, falling through the sky.

  Wind tore through Shell’s hair, his glasses barely hung onto his face, and the ground was getting closer and closer every second. All Shell could do was scream in pure terror, even when his mouth went dry.

  Just beyond the dim terror that dominated his mind, Shell’s reasonable voice was trying to tell him to use his powers. But he was too freaked out by finding himself falling to his death to pay attention to his reasonable side. Fear dominated his entire consciousness and Shell wasn’t sure what would kill him first: The impact with the ground below or his own heart giving out from sheer fright. For some reason, the latter seemed more likely to him than the former.

  Yet Shell somehow managed to focus on his powers. He closed his eyes and a large red bubble suddenly appeared around his body; just in the nick of time, because just as the bubble appeared around his body, he crashed into and through the trees at the foot of the cliff.

  For another few seconds, Shell found his whole world replaced by wood and leaves and twigs and branches. He smashed through branch after branch, each one seemingly harder than the last. The bubble protected his body from the worst of it, but he still had no way to stop himself from going down, down to the unknown ground below, although Shell was now starting to think that there was no ground at all and that he was just going to keep falling forever into an endless void of branches and leaves.

  A second later, however, Shell broke through the lowest branches of the trees and slammed against the ground. His bubble bounced a couple of times before coming to a stop, at which point Shell turned off his power and he fell face first onto the ground. It was not a particularly hard impact; however, when Shell landed, his glasses flew off his face, forcing him to paw across the ground frantically until he found his glasses again and put them back on his face.

  But Shell did not get up. He was so exhausted from screaming and falling that he just wanted to rest for a while. Granted, the bubble had kept him from taking the worst of the fall, but the fact was that Shell was still quite drained of energy. He inhaled the scent of mud and leaves underneath him, but did nothing else, because he just didn’t have the energy for it.

  Can’t rest forever, though, Shell thought. Must get up and find out where I am. That’s the only way I am going to save the others.

  Panting and sweating, Shell propped himself up on his hands and knees and looked around the area in which he had landed. All around him, Shell saw gigantic trees, much bigger than any trees he had seen on Earth. It was impossible to tell what kind of tree they were, though Shell thought they looked like a weird cross between pines and oaks, though given their ridiculous heights, it was also possible that they were partly coconut as well.

  Aside from the trees, there were strange bushes near the wide bases of each tree. The bushes had green leaves, but with strange purple berries that looked rather alluring. Shell was not very hungry at the moment, but if he was, he probably would have tried out the berries. Then again, given how Shell didn’t know where he was, it would have been foolish to eat those berries, because he had no idea what they were and whether they were even healthy for a human to eat.

  As far as Shell could tell, there were no trails or pathways anywhere in the forest. Indeed, the longer Shell lay there, the more out of place he felt in this forest. It felt like no human being had ever set foot in this place, or if they had, it must have been years, possibly even centuries, ago, long before Shell came here. That was a disturbing thought, if only because Shell wondered how a forest like this could exist if there was no other life in it.

  I’ll figure that out later, Shell thought as he rose to his feet. For now, my main priority is figuring out how to get back to Earth.

  Shell wiped the mud off his costume as he looked around again. He was convinced that he had not ended up in some forest on Earth, mostly because of the alien atmosphere of this dimension. Trees didn’t grow that tall. Forests were not this quiet. Everything smelled fresh and alive, but it was not a very inviting feeling. It was more like the forest was bragging about its own beauty, as if it existed in and of itself, not merely to please humans or some other creatures.

  What if this whole dimension is one big dimension of trees? Shell thought. If multiverse theory is true, then that means that there is a universe out there where trees are the dominant form of life. Either that or I ended up in Middle-earth, though these trees don’t look much like Ents to me.

  Shell shook his head. What was he thinking? Of course this dimension was not a tree dimension. He had fall down the side of a huge cliff, after all, and he also seemed to remember seeing a huge castle of some sort just beyond the forest in the distance. Of course, Shell’s memories were somewhat fragmented, because he had not been paying much attention to anything when he had been falling, but he was still sure he had seen a castle somewhere beyond the forest.

  I’ll just use my suit-up watch to go somewhere else, Shell thought, looking down at his watch. I wish I could reprogram it to take me directly to Earth, but I’ll just have to settle for random dimension-hopping until I find what I’m looking for. Hopefully that won’t take too long.

  But all Shell’s thoughts of escape went out his head as soon as he tapped the touch screen of his watch and nothing happened. Frowning, Shell tapped the screen again, but once again, nothing happened.

  What’s wrong with it? Shell thought, taking his watch off his wrist and turning it over. Why doesn’t it want to work?

  Shell saw the reason why it wouldn’t work: The battery was busted. It looked like it had exploded inside the watch, yet Shell had not felt it blow up when he had dimension-hopped.

  God damn, Shell thought, lowering his watch. I must have overloaded the watch’s battery when I opened that portal. These watches weren’t designed for full interdimensional travel, after all. I’m surprised it even got me this far, to be honest.

  Normally, this would not bother Shell, because he could just go to the Tower of Heroes to get more batteries for his watch. Unfortunately, Shell was nowhere near the Tower of Heroes—or even Earth—at the moment, which meant that Shell would need to find another way to get new batteries for his watch. He couldn’t repair them himself; after all, he didn’t have the right equipment and experience to do something like that.

  But if I can’t get new batteries or repair the ones I have, then does that mean that I’m … stuck here? Shell thought. He would have added ‘forever,’ but he didn’t want to dwell on such depressing thoughts.

  Shell took a deep breath. He needed to be calm about this. Maybe his watch didn’t work anymore, but that did not mean that Shell was stuck. Perhaps if he could find that castle he saw, he might be able to find someone there with dimension-hopping tech that could take him home. That didn’t seem very likely, because so far Shell had not seen even a hint of other living creatures, but it wasn’t like Shell had much choice at this point. He would just have to risk traveling through the large, silent, dark forest in hopes of reaching the castle. He seemed to recall that the castle lay somewhere to the north, so Shell turned north (as best as he was able to figure, anyway, because the branches of the trees above him made it hard to see the sun) and began making his way in that direction.

  But Shell did not get very far before he heard rustling among
the treetops. He looked up, but did not see anything among the upper branches of the trees themselves.

  Did I just hear something? Shell thought. Or am I just hallucinating everything?

  Then he saw movement among the branches. The leaves rustled and shook, like someone or something was running across them rapidly, and before Shell’s startled eyes, something fell out of the tree branches and landed on the ground before him. Shell immediately threw up a large red bubble before himself, which he put up between himself and the thing that had fallen out of the trees just in case it attacked him.

  Through the thin transparent form of the bubble, Shell saw that the thing which had fallen from the trees was not human, though he had a difficult time identifying what it was at first. It slowly rose higher and higher above him, until the thing towered over him, allowing him to see it clearly for the first time.

  To the best of Shell’s knowledge, the creature which stood before him looked somewhat like an elephant crossed with trees. It had a long wooden trunk which somehow was as flexible as a fleshly elephant trunk, while its blue eyes shone from within its wooden skull. With the leaves covering its body, Shell was reminded of a woolly mammoth, except for the strange leaf wings rising from its back.

  Okay, I’m definitely going insane now, Shell thought, staring up at the towering tree elephant, his knees shaking. This isn’t real. It can’t be real. This is just something made up by my mind, right?

  Unfortunately, Shell could not deny the very real movements of the elephant, nor could he ignore the way that its leaves would fall off its form and flutter through the wind toward him. The fact was that this creature was very, very real, at least as real as himself, and possibly even more so, if that thought made any sense. It really didn’t, but Shell was so terrified of the clearly alien being standing before him that he didn’t know what to think or what to do, except hope that the elephantine creature would decide to let him go, because he didn’t think he could beat it in a fight if he had to.