The Battle of the Werepenguins

by Allan Woodrow

He would be back, too. As soon as he defeated the Stranger.

  If he defeated the Stranger. That was still a pretty big if, no matter how hard Bolt tried to pretend it wasn’t.

  45.

  The Battle of the Werepenguins

  Bolt’s blood simmered, which it would do until midnight, when it would bubble and boil before he transformed. Should Bolt wait until morning to fight? Or would he have a better chance battling the Stranger as a werepenguin?

  Who knew?

  Might as well face him now.

  Although Bolt saw a penguin glaring at him, he barely flinched. Smile! The dense hatred in the air seemed to part, and the penguin’s beak slid up, just a little. It was hard to say. Beaks are rigid.

  Bolt was getting stronger. Was the approaching moon giving him that power, or was he just learning to harness his potential better? He had no idea.

  More penguins stood nearby, though none attacked. To some, Bolt sent thoughts like Be happy! and Hug your family! A little of that penguin hate melted away, but not much. A speck, really. But it fueled Bolt with hope.

  Bolt walked along the edge of the ravine where the avalanche had fallen earlier and saw no sign of penguins anywhere. He hung his head, hit with a tremendous wave of guilt. So many penguins may have died, and all because of him. Sure, the penguins wanted to destroy Bolt and his friends, but every penguin life was important.

  Besides, they couldn’t be blamed for their evil ways. It was all the Stranger’s fault. The thought angered Bolt, but he knew anger would not defeat the Stranger. He couldn’t let the anger simmer.

  Bolt crossed a bridge, a natural span of ice that connected one ridge to another. One hundred, maybe two hundred penguins stood on it, and Bolt tensed as he approached them. But the penguins gave no sign of attacking. They let Bolt pass.

  The Stranger was expecting Bolt. Bolt could sense it. Maybe that meant the Stranger was overconfident, and perhaps that would be the Stranger’s downfall. Or maybe the Stranger would win, in which case he was not overconfident just properly confident.

  Bolt dipped his thoughts into the minds of the nearby penguins. Some thought, You can save us. Others thought, You’re a goner, you know. While a few penguins mused, I don’t care who wins as long as we can eat fish sticks soon.

  Bolt crossed the bridge, and the hundreds of penguins on the other side also made way to let him pass. Bolt’s blood was bubbling quicker as midnight grew closer. Nearing the Stranger’s ice cave, Bolt felt his enemy’s energy, like a radiator blasting, or like a furnace in an ice rink.

  And there the Stranger stood, outside the cave, tossing fish to Saytana. She tossed a fish back to him. Bolt tensed, thinking of the silver-tooth-engorged fish in his backpack. He thought, Give me the strength to use the weapon—but not out of anger. Was such a thing possible?

  The Stranger burped and turned to Bolt, smiling. He did not even seem the least bit perturbed. “Welcome back! Have you changed your mind about joining me? Do you accept your fate?”

  Bolt shook his head. “Never.” He gritted his teeth.

  “Why do you fight it, man? Why do you fight the feelings of ruling and hate that are inside you? I know they’re there. When I visited you in your dreams, I felt them, just under the surface, trying to come out. You’re as evil as I am.”

  “No, I’m not,” Bolt said forcefully. “I’m good.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Bolt didn’t know. He wanted to be good, but being something and wanting something were hardly the same thing.

  The Stranger smiled, and it chilled Bolt to his core. “I feel your doubt. Stop freaking out about it, though. Being a werepenguin means never having to say you’re sorry. Embrace the hate.”

  Bolt narrowed his eyes and curled his toes, feeling harsh thoughts flowing from the Stranger and churning in the air around them. “I won’t. I can’t,” Bolt said through clenched teeth.

  “I think you will.” The Stranger winked, and it felt like a giant boulder had been dropped inside Bolt’s head, one filled with vicious thoughts of mayhem and dominance.

  No! Bolt resisted. Decency! Generosity! Honesty! He pushed back the boulder of evil, but it was so heavy. So large. Bolt’s knees almost buckled under the weight of it.

  He closed his eyes, trying to gain strength from the penguin mist around him. He just needed to find a hint of love somewhere, anywhere, but it was like trying to grab a strand of wind. His mind drifted, across the snow, over the ice bridge, along a ravine, and then back. The penguin-verse was such a dark, desolate place, cluttered with hate nuggets like a wall of hail.

  But he felt something else, too. Something far purer than hate. Right behind him.

  Annika had come, and she stood behind Bolt. Of course she had followed him; he was not surprised at all. She smiled at Bolt, and the smile warmed him. He could feel her love for him. Like a sister. Like family. She wasn’t a penguin, but her friendship mattered. Every friend mattered.

  He could feel Grom, too, although he was not there with Annika. Still, Grom was sending his own thoughts into the penguin-verse, thoughts of his own sister and moles, thoughts of gratitude for Bolt’s help, his own thoughts of love. And it was Grom’s thoughts, just as much as Annika’s, that tingled inside Bolt.

  A calm came over Bolt, a calm carried on the whispers of the penguin-verse. He had grown stronger, but that strength was nothing like the power of love he felt now: his own love, boosted by the love of his friends.

  When Bolt opened his eyes, it was as if the world had gone from black and white to full color. Or since penguins are mostly black and white, it was as if the world were now a more vivid black and white.

  A soft squeal, like the sound of a balloon emitting helium, blew from Bolt’s lips and through his ears as a small, crusty nugget of hate, one buried inside Bolt’s head long ago, flitted out.

  Pfft!

  The Stranger glared at Bolt. And Bolt now felt another giant block of evil crashing onto him, but this time Bolt deflected it easily, and it bounced away. More virtual hate flew, followed by more effortless deflections. Bolt stood tall, chest out. “You can’t control me.” He brushed aside the hate as if it were dust. “Is that all you got?”

  The Stranger’s face turned beet red. “Feel my power, boy!” he yelled as he whipped another hate block in Bolt’s direction. This one Bolt felt, and he staggered back.

  “I guess that’s what I get for being a little overconfident in myself,” Bolt muttered.

  Bolt held out his hand at the Stranger, fingers spread apart. It was a meaningless gesture, since his powers lay in his head, but it felt cool to hold out a hand like they did in the movies when someone was conjuring spells and such. He sent a shock wave of force toward the Stranger, a vibrating, furry, mind-controlled energy blob of love and kindness. At the same time, the Stranger threw his own hate boulder at Bolt. They collided, blue love energy against reddish hate rock, sizzling in the air. Neither seemed to have an advantage, energy against stone.

  Bolt’s arm grew tired. He took a deep breath, then lowered one arm and raised the other. It still felt cool to have one arm raised.

  Behind him, Annika gasped. He sensed her surprise at his power. Frankly, Bolt was a little surprised, too. He had never done anything like this before! He wanted to sit back and congratulate himself for his awesomeness. But he couldn’t let up, not for a moment.

  Bolt took one step toward the Stranger, and the Stranger matched him. Their energy bursts remained in the air, crackling above them. Both Bolt and the Stranger moved closer to one another. Closer. They were now so close, Bolt could smell the Stranger’s rancid fish breath.

  “This is so uncool, Bolt. Perhaps you weren’t chosen to rule. Instead, you were chosen to fail!” The Stranger sent another boulder at Bolt, so big and strong that it shattered both the love blob and hate rock above them. The Stranger lunged at Bolt, closing his hands aro
und Bolt’s neck. “This ends the only way it ever could!”

  And then the Stranger was no longer on top of Bolt. Annika had flung herself at him, and they were rolling on the ground, Annika scratching and kicking. And then Saytana—Bolt had forgotten about her—was on top of Annika, biting and slapping.

  Bolt was about to jump on Saytana, although jumping on someone who had jumped on someone who had jumped on someone felt a bit unsteady. So he hiccupped instead.

  There were no clocks anywhere near, but Bolt heard a chime in his head anyway, a chime that always sounded in his head at midnight during a full moon.

  His skin tingled and bubbled like boiling water in a teapot. Steam spritzed from his ears. His skin stretched, and his bones reshaped. His arms curled into semi-pretzel shapes before feathers popped out, forming wings. His legs shrank, and his belly ripped through his pants.

  The backpack’s straps that had been around his arms snapped, and the bag fell to the ground. Bolt cursed himself for forgetting to take it off; he had really liked that backpack. He would also need new pants in the morning, if he survived. Frankly, new pants were not at the top of his concerns, although he did think of it.

  Bolt’s nose was the last thing to turn—the order of his transformation was always different—and he opened his beak and roared.

  There was a time that whenever Bolt turned into a penguin, he thought mostly like a penguin; he would forget he was part human. But he had taught himself how to remember who he was—he was still Bolt, just a penguin version of himself.

  And, now, a master of the penguin-verse.

  The force of the transmutation had thrown Annika off of the Stranger, and Saytana off of Annika. But the Stranger had not transformed like other werepenguins did. He was a werepenguin, but a far worse one. He stood ten feet tall and was as wide as a tank. The Stranger-penguin was pure white, from the tips of his feathers to the top of his head. His beak was twisted, like a soft-serve ice cream cone. And when he opened it, a long, snakelike tongue slashed out. His eyes flashed orange.

  “You should have fought me as a human, silly boy,” he said in a deep rasp that sounded like doom personified. “You cannot defeat me as I am now. For I am not just a werepenguin, but the GOAT. The greatest of all time!”

  46.

  Inside Man

  The Stranger-penguin swatted his wing, impossibly long, and it smashed into Annika, sending her flying off her feet. When she landed, her foot bent back awkwardly, and she lay on the ground whimpering. “You broke it,” she cried, tears in her eyes.

  “I’m hardly done breaking things,” the monster roared, staring down at Bolt, who felt very small next to him.

  The Stranger slapped his wing at Bolt, but Bolt sensed it coming and hopped out of the way. They were linked, both part of the same penguin cosmos. Again the Stranger swung his wing at Bolt, but Bolt had anticipated the move and jumped back to avoid it.

  Meanwhile, Saytana faced the fallen Annika. Bolt aimed his thoughts at the armored penguin. He didn’t expect much to happen. Silver was impenetrable, wasn’t it?

  Maybe not . . .

  When they were trying to enter PEWD, Annika had been picking a lock when penguins were coming. Bolt made one hesitate just enough for Annika to scurry away. Later, Kiki the silver-fanged penguin was about to hurt Annika inside the fish fryer dome. Bolt had made Kiki pause then. Just for a second.

  Why had he pushed through silver those times but not other times? The answer rushed inside Bolt as fast as a penguin mother waddling toward her egg. It was because both of those times Bolt hadn’t thought of saving himself. He had thought only of saving Annika.

  Love had been the key, even then.

  Bolt narrowed his eyes as he stared at Saytana. He gripped the love in the penguin-verse, the love of his friends, and his thoughts penetrated her silver plating as if it were as thin as paper.

  He flicked his wing, and Saytana flew into the air and landed with a thud twenty feet away.

  The Stranger stared in surprise. “How did you do that?” And then a snowball smashed into the Stranger’s head.

  Another ball of snow hit him. Annika wiped away her tears with one hand while scooping up a ball of snow and throwing it with the other. She had good aim. Unfortunately, snowballs can’t do much damage to ten-foot tank-sized werepenguin monsters.

  The Stranger stomped toward Bolt, ignoring the snowballs pelting his head. He was upon Bolt in an instant—faster than Bolt had imagined he could be—and kicked him.

  Before he could crawl away, Bolt felt a sudden burning sensation in his head. He was slowly being lifted. A surge of energy surrounded him, levitating him off the ground! He couldn’t move his wings or legs, couldn’t break out of the crackling energy globe that encompassed him. The Stranger-penguin stared at Bolt with glowing orange eyes.

  “Didn’t know I could do that, huh?” the creature snarled. “This is your last chance to join me. Your last chance to accept your fate. Accept! Not except!”

  As Bolt hovered in the air, he could feel the Stranger’s attempts to force evil into his head. But Bolt was not the scared boy looking for beds to hide under. Not anymore. He was strong. Powerful. Bolt was the penguin-verse.

  Unfortunately, he still couldn’t move. The large energy blob of hate and cruelty swirled around him, crackling with viciousness.

  “The hunger for power is in you, Bolt!” cried the Stranger-penguin. “The hunger is inside all of us! It’s real, man! And it will consume you!” And then he rammed his beak through the energy blob and straight into Bolt’s stomach.

  The pain! Bolt’s insides burned. He peered down. Blood trickled down his belly.

  He gasped for breath, but it was hard to suck any in.

  “Take that!” Annika cried, firing another round of snowballs at the Stranger. It was all she could do on a broken foot. One snowball bounced harmlessly off the Stranger’s wing.

  “Would you quit it with the snowballs already?” the Stranger moaned, peeking over his shoulder. But then he smirked, shifting his attention back to Bolt, seeming to be deciding where he should plunge his beak next. In Bolt’s neck and end the fight forever? Or smaller pecks to prolong the torture?

  Bolt’s mind was growing fuzzy as his wound continued to bleed. He glanced at Annika again, noticing his backpack on the ground next to her.

  What was it the Stranger had said just moments ago? The hunger is inside all of us! It’s real!

  The seer had chanted almost those exact words: The hunger inside, it’s so strong and so real!

  Bolt could not speak in a human voice as a werepenguin, at least not well, so it took all his concentration to shout at Annika: “Throw him the fish!”

  Annika blinked. “Huh?”

  “Inside the backpack. Do it!”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Bolt could see Annika opening the discarded unicorn-and-rainbow backpack and reaching inside. A smile crossed her face as her hand landed on something slimy and wet. “Hey! Mr. Stranger!” she called. “Care for some dinner?” She tossed the fish in a wide arc, toward the Stranger. She was a talented thrower of things. It sailed high, shimmering in the air.

  The fish somersaulted once, twice, three times. It seemed to fly in slow motion. The Stranger, without even thinking, opened his mouth to swallow it whole. It was instinctual, really. Habit. Bolt knew a lot about habits, like biting his lips.

  They say old habits die hard, and that’s true. They can die very hard.

  The Stranger caught the fish in his mouth, swallowing it in one gulp. For a moment, nothing happened. But then the Stranger’s face turned green. His stomach rumbled loudly. He coughed, and a trickle of blood dripped from his beak. He looked at Bolt in panic. Then he glanced down at his stomach.

  The energy holding Bolt in the air shattered, and Bolt fell back to the ground. The Stranger’s orange eyes blinked wide, and then he let loose
an enormous belch.

  The tooth that had been sitting inside the fish flew out of the Stranger’s mouth, coated with red phlegm and maybe a kidney.

  Seconds later, the Stranger stumbled to the ground, gurgling. Until suddenly, he was still.

  Bolt felt the dense hatred in the air dissolving around them. He hadn’t realized how truly thick it was until it was gone.

  Annika hobbled onto her foot and limped over to Bolt. She would be fine, the foot would heal, but what about the Stranger? Was he dead? Were the penguins free?

  No. Bolt sensed a small, almost invisible current of hate left in the atmosphere. The Stranger might be horribly wounded, but he wasn’t dead yet. He was weakened, though, and so was his mind control.

  Still, Bolt could feel his thoughts now unrestrained, his aura of goodness spreading. Until—clomp!—it rammed into something at the end of the ridge. Or rather, someone.

  A familiar, high-pitched, half-penguin, half-human voice rang out. “I’m here! Did I miss anything? Because if I missed something, I’ll be very angry. And you don’t want to see me very angry.”

  A burly and powerful werepenguin stomped forward, his eyes flashing red. The monster wore a cape made of scallops. Bolt recognized him at once.

  Baron Chordata.

  “But . . . but you’re dead!” yelped Bolt.

  “Obviously not,” said the Baron.

  47.

  The Return of the Baron

  Grom sat in the snow, eyes closed, trying to sense the penguin energy around him, but it was hard to do. In the middle of his trancelike efforts he felt something horrible, a massive disturbance in the penguin-verse. A stabbing pain in his stomach. But then the pain subsided, replaced by something warm and hopeful. Grom found himself drawn to the warmth, like someone stepping outside a nice underground mole hole and onto a hot, sandy beach.

  And then he opened his eyes.

  How long had he been sitting here? An hour? Two? He stood up to stretch his legs—they had started to cramp—and went to join Bolt and Annika.