The Bigtime Series (Bigtime superhero series, e-bundle)

by Jennifer Estep

  My body burst into flames. “You could try.”

  A loud roar filled the air, cutting off Siren’s clichéd retort. Good grief. It sounded like a couple of tanks were rolling my way. The floor trembled beneath my feet.

  “Lulu, what the hell is that?” I shouted.

  Lulu squawked something in my ear, but I couldn’t hear her over the rumbling. Ten seconds later, I got the answer. A sleek, silver-and-black motorcycle grumbled to a stop in between Siren and me. A motorcycle? In the middle of a factory?

  A figure clad in black leather pants sat astride the huge vehicle. Angel wings shimmered on the back of his tough-guy jacket. Johnny Angel. He was a minor player in the superhero-ubervillain scene in Bigtime, not really on one side or the other. Angel was more intent on riding his motorcycle around the city late at night and raising hell than anything else. The local motorcycle gangs loved him and often tagged along, whooping and hollering and making pests of themselves.

  But Angel wasn’t all bad. Sometimes, he helped out people who needed it. Damsels in distress mostly. Women about to be mugged. Women who were carjacked. Women fleeing abusive boyfriends. To them, he was an angel. To the Fearless Five, he was a minor blip on the radar screen.

  “Well, if it isn’t Johnny Angel. Back from the dead so soon?” Siren cooed. “And here I thought Intelligal had finished you off for good with her heat-seeking missiles.”

  I frowned. What the hell was Siren talking about? Johnny Angel wasn’t dead. He was sitting right there between us—

  Angel swung one leg over his bike, and I caught a glimpse of his face. His smooth, unlined face. With a start, I realized that he was around my age. Usually, this wouldn’t be of any importance, as most superheroes and ubervillains fell in the twenty-to-forty age range, with a few exceptions like my father, who was creeping up on fifty-five, or the Tween Terrors, who hadn’t hit puberty yet. But the last time I’d seen Johnny Angel, he’d been limping down an alley, struggling to keep up with the thug he’d been chasing. Lines and sweat had painted his strained, red face. Gray had glistened in his brownish hair. He’d moved slowly, as though every step hurt.

  He’d been an older man, just like my father.

  Not this guy. He moved with a loose, easy confidence. Blond hair. Tan face. Light eyes. Black-and-silver, wing-shaped mask. That was all I saw before Angel turned to face Siren. I frowned. Johnny Angel might not be an ubervillain, but he should know better than to turn his back on me. I was Fiera, for crying out loud. I could melt his ass like a candle, if I wanted to.

  “There’s a new Angel in town,” he snarled in a low, throaty voice. “And you’re going to pay for what you did to my predecessor.”

  Siren put her hands on her hips and laughed. The dulcet tones rang like church bells, all sweetness and light. “Now why would you want to hurt little ole me?” Siren lowered the zipper on her suit, exposing more of her buoyant chest. She focused her eyes on Angel like a snake trying to hypnotize a helpless bunny. “I’m just a simple girl who’s trying to make a name for herself in the big, bad city.”

  Yeah right. And I was the freaking Tooth Fairy.

  Angel stilled, struggling against the pull of Siren’s voice. Since the ubervillain’s attention was focused on Angel, her tone didn’t bother me as much as usual. I circled to one side, easing to the left of them.

  “Are you guys hearing this?” I muttered.

  “Every word,” Mr. Sage whispered in my ear. “We’re almost there to back you up. Let them keep talking.”

  Siren and Angel stared at each other, ignoring me. I took the chance to study the man. He was taller than his predecessor, his skin darker, his hair longer. My gaze swept lower, tracing over his leather jacket and the pants he’d poured himself into. And he was definitely in much better shape than the previous Angel. The old guy had a bit of a potbelly.

  Now, I’d run into my fair share of superheroes and ubervillains over the years. I’d seen more buff bodies, rippling abs, and bulging biceps in skintight spandex than I could remember. But Angel gave buns of steel a whole new meaning. I frowned. But there was something strange about his skin. It almost looked hard—

  “Am I interrupting something?” a tight, cold voice cut in.

  My head snapped up. Intelligal hovered over us in her chair. Damn. I’d forgotten about her during my perusal of Johnny Angel’s new, improved body.

  “It’s about time you got here,” Siren snapped. “Take care of them. Now.”

  Intelligal hit a button, and two missiles spewed out of the depths of her chair.

  Right at Angel and me.

  Chapter Eight

  I immediately hurled a fireball at my incoming missile. The two met in midair and exploded. Smoke, ash, and sharp bits of flying silver metal filled the factory. I ignored the smoldering debris and turned to help Angel. But it was too late. The missile was bearing down on him. Angel was going to get blown to hell and back in two seconds.

  But he didn’t run or duck or even try to leap out of the way. Instead, Angel curled his hands into fists, held them down by his legs, and flexed. Please. All the chiseled muscles in the world weren’t going to save him from a rocket. The missile hit him in the chest and exploded.

  I threw up my hands to ward off the bloody man-chunks and brain matter that were coming my way. To my surprise, nothing hit me, except a few bits of metal shrapnel that stung my hands and arms. Dust and soot hung like thick clouds in the air. I waved the smoke away from my face and squinted through the soupy fog.

  My mouth gaped open. Johnny Angel stood in the exact spot where the missile had hit. He was still alive, although his bike was a smoldering piece of melted junk now. Incredible.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” Angel mocked.

  The explosion had ripped into his white T-shirt, black leather jacket, pants, and boots, but the man himself didn’t seem to have a scratch on him. His hair wasn’t even mussed. Now that was a neat trick.

  “Do you care to explain this, Intelligal?” Siren hissed, taking a few steps back.

  “He...he should be dead!” Intelligal sputtered. “Those are hundred-load explodium missiles! He should be nothing but a stain on the floor!”

  Angel kicked aside his melted motorcycle and stepped forward. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing I have a superstrong exoskeleton then, isn’t it?”

  My eyes narrowed. Wait a minute. The old Angel hadn’t had any superpowers that I’d known of, just a souped-up motorcycle. It looked like this guy was the new and improved model. My eyes strayed back to the hard body. In more ways than one.

  “Don’t just hover up there!” Siren screeched. “Gas them, you fool!”

  I started forward to body slam Siren into next week when a puff of light blue smoke exploded in my face. I coughed and gagged and tried not to retch. It was the same odd smell that I’d inhaled before outside the factory. The sweet, noxious stench worked its way down my throat and into my lungs. My arms and legs felt like gelatin, all loose and wobbly. Beside me, Angel choked and sputtered. We both slid to the ground, caught in a cloud of blue gas. I tried to focus. Where were Hermit and Mr. Sage?

  “Hurry up! Get it loaded!” Intelligal’s voice drifted through the fog.

  Metal screeched. Something hit the floor. Siren cursed.

  Somehow, I rolled over onto my hands and knees. Those bitches didn’t know who they were dealing with. I was Fiera. Member of the Fearless Five. Protector of the innocent. Superhero du jour. A little knockout gas wasn’t going to keep me from kicking their asses. Slowly, very, very slowly, I crawled forward. Metal dug into my hands and scraped my knees, but I ignored the pain and kept going. After about twenty feet, I broke free of the cloud. I drew in a deep breath of soot-filled air. I still felt weak and disjointed, but some of the feeling returned to my arms and legs.

  Too late. Siren stuffed something in the side of Intelligal’s chair and hopped on the arm. The helicopter rotor popped up out of the back, and the chair whirred and flew right over me. I pointed my fi
nger at them, but I couldn’t find the strength to muster up so much as a single spark. I couldn’t even roast a marshmallow, the shape I was in right now.

  A pair of familiar green boots flashed in front of my face. “Fiera! Are you all right?” Mr. Sage asked, his eyes bright with concern.

  I coughed some more. “Johnny Angel...still...in...there,” I wheezed. My tongue felt like I’d eaten a whole tube of sugar-flavored toothpaste, sticky and gooey sweet. Yuck.

  “I’ll get him,” Hermit said.

  He took a breath, held it, and plunged into the blue gas.

  “A little help, please!” Hermit called out. “He’s too heavy for me!”

  Mr. Sage reached into the cloud and helped drag Angel free of the fumes. I got to my feet, wobbling back and forth like a newborn fawn. The others weren’t in much better shape.

  Something smacked against the front of the building. The windows that weren’t already busted out shattered with a collective roar. The factory quivered and trembled like a feather floating on the breeze.

  “Intelligal’s firing explodium missiles at the factory! The whole place is going to come down on top of you! Get out! Get out now!” Lulu screamed in my ear.

  I took another breath. My head cleared, and most of my strength returned. I put my arm under Johnny Angel’s shoulder, and my knees threatened to buckle. Hermit was right. He was heavier than he looked. The other superhero and I half carried, half dragged Angel toward the back of the factory.

  “Back there!” Hermit shouted, pointing toward a door a couple hundred feet away.

  Mr. Sage stopped long enough to grab some of Intelligal’s weird schematics and drawings, then followed us.

  A hundred feet to go. More explosions ripped through the building. Pipes creaked and snapped like dry twigs, while the floor ripped and bucked like water.

  Fifty feet. Fire shot through the air above our heads. Smoke seared my lungs.

  Twenty, ten, five...

  We stumbled out the door and down some steps. The night air, still reeking of garbage, revived me the rest of the way, and the fire inside me flared back to life. Behind us, the building moaned and creaked. The front section collapsed with a low, long groan, and the resulting shockwave threw us fifteen feet forward. We scrambled up and kept hobbling along, trying to get clear of the dust and debris.

  About a quarter mile away, we lunged out into the street and stopped. Angel slumped against the side of a nearby building. Hermit put one knee on the ground, while Mr. Sage rested a hand on his shoulder. I put my hands on my hips, trying to get my breath back. Superstrong exoskeleton indeed. Superheavy was more like it. The four of us stood there, gulping down air.

  After a few minutes, Johnny Angel straightened. His eyes swept over us. Then, he turned and started to walk away.

  “Hey! Come back here!” I grabbed his arm.

  “Let go of me!” he snapped.

  He tried to shake me off, but I tightened my grip. It was like trying to squeeze a cement block, but I held on. Superstrength came in handy sometimes.

  “Who are you? What happened to the old Johnny Angel?”

  “None of your damn business.”

  I pointed a smoking finger at his chest. His skin felt like solid steel through the thin fabric of his ripped, blackened T-shirt. “When you waltz in when I’m trying to apprehend two ubervillains and almost get my friends and me blown to smithereens, then you make it my business. What the hell did you think you were doing in there?”

  His face hardened. Angry gold flecks sparked in the depths of his eyes, which glowed a rich green. “None of your damn business.”

  “We’re not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Mr. Sage said in a calm, soothing voice. “We only want to talk.”

  Hermit nodded. Smoke smudged his thick goggles.

  Johnny Angel stared at the three of us. Outnumbered. He nodded. “All right. We’ll talk.”

  He stared down at my hand on his arm. I dropped it, even though I didn’t want to let go.

  Angel leaned back against the side of the pockmarked building. From his pants pocket, he fished out a pack of cigarettes and a black lighter that had somehow survived Intelligal’s missile. Silver angel wings gleamed on the dark surface. He lit his cigarette, drew in a long drag, and blew smoke out his nostrils, showing us what a badass he was. Please. One snap of my fingers, and that cancer stick would blow up in his face like a grenade. I should light up the cigarette anyway. Didn’t he know those things would kill you? Or perhaps his lungs were as hard as his chest. And his head.

  After another couple of puffs of his cigarette, Johnny spoke. “I’m the new Angel. I have been for a few months now, ever since Siren and Intelligal killed my predecessor.”

  “We hadn’t heard. How did it happen?” Mr. Sage asked, his voice soft and kind. My father. Always the diplomat.

  Angel stared at the ruined factory, which smoldered behind us. “The two muscled in on some of the High Riders’ territory. The motorcycle gang asked the old Angel to get rid of them. He owed the gang a favor, so he took the job. It was going to be his last gig, since he’d been training me to take over as Angel. One night, he tracked down the ubervillains and confronted them. He told them to get out of town or else. They just laughed at him, and Intelligal fired off some of her heat-seeking explodium missiles. He tried to outrun the missiles on his motorcycle, but he never had a chance.” Sad, bitter anger colored his low, throaty voice.

  “Because he didn’t have superpowers,” Hermit said.

  Angel nodded. “All he had was his bike. It wasn’t fast enough.”

  I stood to one side and listened to the question-and-answer session. Generational superheroes and ubervillains were rare, but not unheard of. Fathers and mothers who moonlighted for the greater good or evil often passed down their powers or some variation thereof to their children. When the old folks got tired of fighting or creating crime, the youngsters donned the cape and spandex and took up the family mantle. It didn’t even have to be a family member. More than one aging hero and villain had plucked a young orphan off the streets, trained her, and introduced her to Bigtime and the world as the new whomever. Pistol Pete and Hangglider were classic examples. If I remembered correctly, Johnny Angel had been around in three incarnations now, counting the new guy.

  “But you have powers, don’t you?” Mr. Sage asked. “I believe you mentioned something about an exoskeleton?”

  Angel rolled up the sleeve of his tattered T-shirt and flexed his bicep. At first, I couldn’t see the difference between his bicep and anybody else’s. Well, it might have been a bit more defined than the average superhero’s. But when I looked closer, I realized there was a hard look to his skin, almost like it was stretched over steel. Plus, I could just make out a faint, weblike pattern in it.

  “When I concentrate and focus on what I want to do, I’m impervious to pretty much everything. Missiles, guns, grenades, lasers.” Angel’s eyes flicked to me. “Fire.”

  “Fascinating,” Hermit murmured, tapping a few buttons on his computer and angling the camera embedded in his suit for a closer look.

  “We’re very sorry for your loss,” Mr. Sage said. “Believe me, we know how hard it is to lose a member of your team. But killing Siren and Intelligal won’t bring back your friend and mentor. And it won’t ease your pain. We need to capture them and turn them over to the police before they hurt someone else. That’s what superheroes do. It’s our duty. Dishing out your own brand of vigilante justice isn’t the way.”

  “Turn them over to the police? Why? So they can spend a couple of weeks in prison before they break out and come back to Bigtime? The police in this town are useless. They always have been, and they always will be,” Angel scoffed.

  Ouch. I glanced at Mr. Sage. His face was smooth and unreadable, but his eyes glittered. Being the chief of police, he didn’t think his men were useless. Quite the opposite. They provided valuable support to the superheroes in town, as well as taking care o
f the more ordinary, mundane crimes.

  “I’m going after Siren and Intelligal, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.” Angel’s green eyes shimmered in his tight face. “Get in my way, and you’ll be sorry.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked. “Kill us too?”

  “If you get in my way—yes. I will kill you, superheroes or not. I won’t hesitate. Not for a second. Remember that. Or suffer the consequences.”

  With those words, Angel turned and stalked into the darkening night.

  Chapter Nine

  “Can you believe the nerve of that guy? Telling us, the Fearless Five, to stay out of his way or he’ll kill us? He must have a pair of steel balls on him to go along with that exoskeleton,” I snapped.

  “Fiona,” my father chided. “There is no need for such language.”

  “Well, he must,” I muttered.

  After Johnny Angel huffed and puffed and stormed away, Lulu had brought the van around, and we’d gone back to Sublime. Now, we were gathered in the underground library, reviewing the mission and planning our next move. The others clustered in front of the film screen, staring at the footage from inside the factory. I sat in the corner, munching on the cookies I hadn’t had a chance to eat in the van, along with a couple of cheese burritos, a tray of tortilla chips and hot salsa, Spanish rice, refried beans, and a gallon of raspberry iced tea. The fight with the ubervillains and dragging Mr. Two-Ton Ego around had zapped a lot of my energy, so I’d made Henry stop at Olé, an all-night Mexican joint, before we headed home.

  “Right now, I’m more worried about that doomsday-looking contraption the ubervillains were building. Not to mention whatever it was they gassed you with, Fiona,” Lulu said.

  “Gas, missiles, flying chairs, weird inventions. It comes with the territory.” I took another bite of my cheese burrito. Spicy Monterey Jack cheese melted in my mouth. Ah, so good.