by James Riley
Someone shouted from very far away, but she couldn’t hear, not over the sound of her pounding heart. Get off of me! Let me go, you can’t have me! I’ll rip you apart, all of you!
A bright light exploded just past her head, bringing her back to reality. The shadow over her face disappeared, and she collapsed to the floor, her whole body limp. Though she was still scared, somehow it wasn’t so intense, and the hate-filled rage dissipated quickly.
What were these shadow things? And more importantly, what would she have done if the thing had completed its takeover of her?
Someone yelled again, closer now, and another light shot past her. Shadowy bits exploded around her, and she tried to move to see who was doing all the rescuing, but couldn’t.
Finally, the darkness disappeared, and a bit of energy returned. Bethany managed to lift her head just enough to see Owen and Charm standing over her, Charm aiming her ray gun above Bethany’s head.
Someone from Bethany’s side gently pushed her head back down. “You had us worried for a minute there,” Gwen said, leaning over her with a smile. “You’re sure you’re feeling all right?”
“No,” Bethany said, trying to smile and failing. “Are the shadows all gone?” Almost against her will, she remembered the flood of hatred and fear she’d felt, and shivered.
“I got rid of them, no thanks to the rest of you,” Charm said, finishing up her ray-gunning at Bethany’s feet. “You’re not wrong. You really do need me to give you powers.”
“Or just let us borrow your ray guns,” Bethany said, trying to forget the emotions the shadow had pushed on her.
“No one touches my little princesses,” Charm said, clicking the ray guns off. “But that’s all there were, right? No more shadows?”
“The entire city is filled with them,” Owen said quietly.
Charm sighed. “I really, really do hate magic.”
“That’s okay,” Bethany said, groaning as she stood up. Gwen rushed to help, and Bethany got up to her feet. “I can go grab more flash-bangs. I just have to jump back through the portal real quick and grab some book pages from the library.”
“The portal,” Owen said. “Um, what happened to it?”
“What’s wrong?” Bethany said, turning around to look.
The portal was gone. And with it, any chance of them getting out of Jupiter City.
CHAPTER 20
They all stopped and stared at the spot where the blue circle of fire had been before the shadow attack. Charm opened her arm up and began scanning the room. “The machine powering the trans-dimensional gate is gone,” she said, nodding at a now-empty spot near the wall. “The shadows must have taken it when they fled.”
“While we were fighting them off Bethany, probably,” Owen said quietly. He looked over at her, unsure what to say.
Bethany gritted her teeth, staring at the floor for a moment, then shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?” Owen said quickly. “We might be stuck here.”
“We’re going to rescue my father,” she said, glaring at him. “And when we find him, we find the portal machine too. This doesn’t change anything.”
“Except that now we have no way to escape or get more help,” Owen said, spreading his hands. “Shouldn’t we maybe think about finding another way home before doing anything else?”
Bethany’s eyes narrowed, and she opened her mouth to yell, when Gwen stepped between them with her hands up. “Hey, this is going to be okay,” EarthGirl said, looking back and forth between Bethany and Owen. “The last thing we should do is argue amongst ourselves. How about instead we prepare in case the shadows come back?”
Owen paused, then nodded, and Bethany did too. Gwen grinned. “See? We’re all on the same side, even when things go wrong. We can do this as a team!”
Charm sighed deeply. “If I hear anything else about a team, I’m going to throw up. But she’s right. Who wants to be genetically engineered first?” She wandered past the killer robot with Dr. Apathy’s brainwaves, giving it a derisive snort, then moved over to the remaining machines, taking inventory of what they had. “Wow, I haven’t seen one of these since a museum trip to Quark. This thing can’t still work, can it? No way, is that a transmogrifier?”
Owen watched her for a moment, then moved closer to Bethany. “Look, I’m sorry about that. It’s just—”
“No, you’re right,” Bethany said, not looking at him. “This whole thing is going downhill fast. Let’s just have Charm do her thing, then get my dad and the portal machine so we can go home.”
“Sure,” Owen said. “Speaking of that, I have an idea about the powers. You might not like it, but hear me out.”
She shrugged. “At this point, what’s the worst that could happen?”
He paused, wondering how best to put this. “I want to base our powers off a superhero team. Teams in comic books come together to handle things when the individual heroes can’t, and that seems like exactly what’s happening here. Plus, it’d make our powers complement each other.”
Bethany sighed. “How much of this is the comic book world rules, and how much is you just wanting to get certain powers?”
He half smiled. “Don’t ask. Anyway, there are a bunch of iconic comic book teams, but given how old we are and who we’ve got here, there’s one that works best for us. First, the team has a magic-user—”
“Which we don’t have,” Bethany said.
“I know, that would have been Kiel,” Owen said. “But that’s okay, it also has a half-robot guy, and we have Charm.”
“Fair enough,” Bethany said as Charm hit a button and a large death-ray-looking machine began to power up. Charm began to laugh in what was probably a joyful way, but sounded far too terrifying for Owen’s nerves. “What about Gwen?”
“Well, the team also has an alien who can fly and shoot energy bolts,” Owen said. “I know she’s not an alien here, but she is on her world, and I’m betting Charm can build something that lets Gwen fly and shoot things without actually messing with her regular powers.”
“Good,” Bethany said. “We can’t change her, not if she’s going back to her own book.”
Assuming any of them made it out of this one. “Right,” Owen said, moving on. “That just leaves us two. For me, the team has a speedster, someone who can run really fast. I’ve always been—”
“You want to be the Flash,” Bethany said. “And me?”
Owen took a deep breath. “So don’t take this the wrong way, but of the last two members of the team, one doesn’t have any powers—”
“Done. Perfect. I’ll take that one.”
“And the other can turn into any animal he imagines,” Owen finished.
Bethany’s eyes narrowed, and she stepped closer until their faces were just inches apart. “If you’re suggesting that I get the power to turn into an aardvark or something, you’re picking the wrong day to joke with me.”
“But it’d actually be really useful,” Owen told her, backing away.
“How is turning into a platypus useful?!”
“It can be any animal,” Owen said, throwing his hands up in surrender. “Think about it. You could turn into an elephant, or an alligator, or a giant eagle. Dinosaurs, even!”
“Dinosaurs don’t exist anymore,” Bethany told him.
“Doesn’t matter, still animals! And I know Charm can make this work.”
“And what if I get stuck?” Bethany said, jabbing a finger into his chest. “What if I think I’m an animal and lose my human mind? What if she does it wrong and I end up with the bottom half of a chimpanzee for the rest of my life? This is a terrible idea.”
“This team has been around for years, Bethany. Their powers totally complement each other!”
“Whatever team it is, it’s only a team because someone wrote them that way!”
“After everything we’ve seen, are you sure about that?” Owen asked her, and Bethany dropped her head into her hands.
“This is the worst idea of a whole host of worst ideas,” she whispered as Charm’s death ray shot out a beam of deadly green light that blew a hole in the wall. Charm began to cackle with delight.
“It’ll be fine!” Owen said, definitely not looking at the smoking hole in the wall. “What could go wrong? Accidents are built into the plan! When things go wrong in science here, you get powers, you don’t get hurt. Trust me, it’s how comics work.”
Bethany peeked out of her hands, then nodded. “You know what? Okay. I’m trusting you on this, Owen. But if I get stuck as a bug or something, just squish me, okay? I’ll be better off. And I promise to do the same for you.”
Owen laughed, then stopped when he realized she wasn’t kidding. “Uh, I’ll go talk to Charm about all of this,” he said, quickly moving away from stomping range.
Dodging another death ray, Owen quickly made his way to Charm’s side, then explained his idea for Gwen.
“Easy,” Charm said. “There’s plenty of parts around here. Give me five minutes.”
“Great. Second, Bethany needs to be able to turn into any animal that’s ever existed—”
“Morphing DNA was my kindergarten science fair project,” Charm said, turning the death ray to face another wall. “I thought you were going to challenge me.”
“Oh, the third one’s the easiest, then,” Owen told her, breathing a sigh of relief. “It’s what we talked about earlier, making me run really fast.”
“Right,” Charm said, accidentally shooting the death ray just inches from Bethany’s head. “I haven’t exactly made that one work just yet in my head.”
Owen blinked, trying to ignore Bethany’s evil stare at the back of his head. “But it’s just speed. Why is that a problem?”
“Like I said before, the faster you move, the more you’ll weigh, until you reach the speed of light and are infinitely heavy,” Charm told him, shaking her head. “How were you not taught this already? I’ve never heard of such a backward dimension. And even if that weren’t a problem, we can’t just ignore air friction or how exactly you’re going to power this speed. You think you can just run at the speed of sound on a regular lunch? You’d have to have an IV feed constantly injecting energy directly into your muscles. It’s impossible, and that’s a word I never use.”
“The natural rules are a bit different in this dimension,” Owen told her. “Let’s just say that here, if something looks cool on paper, and helps you fight bad guys, it’s possible. I know that’s weird—”
“It might be weird if it made any sense to begin with.”
“But I know you can do this, Charm. I believe in you. You’re the smartest, most amazing, prettiest—”
“What did you just say?” Charm said, dropping the controls of the death ray and turning to stare at him.
Owen’s brain stopped working, and he almost choked. “I . . . I just—”
“Fine,” she said, aiming the death ray at him. “It’s your life. If you want to throw it away on this, I’ll try some things. And if this dimension’s natural laws work like you say they do, you might not even die. But if you do, don’t blame me. Now, leave me alone so I can get these done!”
Owen quickly jumped out of the way and fled, though he almost thought he might possibly have caught what looked like the hint of a smile on her face.
CHAPTER 21
Absurdly nice girl, you’re up first!” Charm shouted, and gestured to Gwen to come over.
“I think she’s talking to you,” Gwen said to Bethany. Charm growled, then just got up and dragged Gwen over to a different machine and began tinkering. In a lot less time than Owen would have guessed, Gwen was fitting on a jet pack and goggles.
“Here,” Charm said, giving her gloves with some kind of beam emitters in the palms. “These will shoot out a ray of force that will basically obliterate anything in your path. They’re amazing, you’ll love them.”
Gwen stared at the gloves for a second, then shook her head. “That’s okay. I don’t believe in violence.”
Charm blinked. “I’m sorry, I must have misheard you?”
“I’ll just take the jet pack, thanks!” Gwen said, and started it up. A double jet of fire shot out of the pack on her back, and at first she rose a bit unsteadily into the air. She quickly corrected herself, though, and was soon flying around the lab with a huge smile on her face. “This is perfect!” she shouted down at them.
“I want to hate her,” Charm said to Owen as she watched Gwen fly. “Why can’t I?”
Owen just smiled. “Me next?”
“You’re last, Mr. Black Hole,” Charm said, motioning for Bethany. “You. Come.”
Bethany slowly stepped over, her eyes on the death ray, but instead, Charm led her to what looked almost like a glassed-in shower, just without a shower head or knobs. “In here,” she said, holding the door and tapping her foot impatiently. “The radiation should rewrite your genetic code in a few seconds.”
“Rewrite my—”
“It’s fine,” Charm told her, rolling her eyes. “I left everything the same, right down to the quadruple helix in your DNA.” She paused. “Don’t get me wrong, that raises some interesting questions which I’m going to investigate later, but for now, I’m just adding some fun stuff.”
Bethany shot Owen a murderous look. “You better be right about all of this!”
“It’s a classic comic team!” he whispered to her, holding his breath that she wasn’t going to turn into the Hulk or something.
Bethany slowly walked over to the glass enclosure, pausing right before it to say one last thing, only to have Charm shove her in and slam the door. Before Bethany could protest, Charm started up the machine, and purple rays began to fill the shower stall.
“I take it back!” Bethany yelled as the rays bathed over her. “I’m not okay with this. Let me out!”
“I don’t say this often enough, but wow, I really just love science,” Charm said, a dreamy smile on her face as she turned several dials. Gwen landed next to them and stepped over to the stall, putting her hands up on the glass with a concerned look on her face as Bethany banged on it from the other side.
“Are you sure about this?” Gwen asked, her hand on the door.
“Open it, and she’ll only be half-done,” Charm said. “Probably turn her into a toad or something.”
Gwen’s hand jumped off the door’s handle, and Bethany began to scream something that might have been pretty mean, if only they’d been able to hear it over the machinery.
Finally, with purple light filling the chamber, Charm flicked the machine off and opened the door.
And there was Bethany, looking completely normal, if a bit queasy.
“I might puke,” she said, and all three of them backed up.
“You look okay,” Owen said, wondering what they’d just done to her. “Is she . . . radioactive?” he asked Charm.
“Nah,” Charm said, grabbing Bethany’s arm and yanking her out in spite of the vomiting threat. “See? She’s fine. Now morph.”
Bethany just looked at her, her hands still on her stomach. “And how exactly do I do that?”
“What am I, a set of instructions?” Charm said. “Figure it out. It’s your DNA.”
“Just imagine yourself as an animal,” Owen suggested, crossing all of his fingers.
Bethany closed her eyes tightly and made fists with her hands as she concentrated hard.
Nothing happened.
“It’s not working,” Bethany said, her eyes still closed. “Am I just supposed to—”
Then there was a loud POINK, and where Bethany had been, a bear now stood.
Well, a statue of a bear.
“Huh,” Charm said, tapping the stone bear that was Bethany. “I wonder what she did wrong?”
CHAPTER 22
Bethany felt nothing for the first time in her life, and it was the most amazing thing ever.
There was no guilt. No worry. No wondering about the right thing to do.
In
stead, everything was just stillness and silence, not a thought to cross her mind.
“She’s a statue !” she heard Owen say, sounding a lot more worried than she was. “You have to fix her, Charm!”
“Me?” Charm said. “She’s the one who turned into this. Tell her to fix it. She can just switch back.”
“She’s a statue!” Owen said again. “How can she do anything? She’s made of rock.” He touched Bethany’s cheek, which she could barely feel. “Is she even still alive?”
And then Bethany felt a hand on her arm, and in spite of not being able to move her eyes to see, somehow she knew it was Gwen’s. “Bethany, you’re still there, aren’t you,” Gwen said quietly, not asking. “And I know you can turn back. I’ve seen this kind of thing before. Just . . . reverse whatever you did the first time. You can do it, I know you can.”
“All right, everyone step back,” Charm said. “Feelings aren’t going to solve this. I’ll fix it with real science if she can’t do it herself.”
An image managed to make it through Bethany’s mind, just a small thing: Charm shooting more purple rays into her. And with that image came a pang of fear.
I have to turn back.
Even if this is really, really nice.
She sighed without making a sound, then with a loud POINK, turned back into a human being. “Fine, I’m here,” Bethany said. “Everyone happy now?”
“Bethany, you’re okay!” Owen shouted, plowing into her with a hug.
Gwen threw her arms around them both, and despite having normal strength now, still almost knocked the breath out of Bethany. “I knew you could come back!” Gwen shouted, oblivious to Owen’s creaking bones and choking noises.
“It was all thanks to your pep talk,” Bethany told Gwen, glaring at Charm over Gwen’s shoulder. “It made all the difference. Basically it worked when no science would have.”