by King, Wesley
There was an undercurrent of venom seeping into his story now.
“I didn’t have any supernatural abilities myself, but I was obsessed with obtaining them. I spent many years trying to unlock the secrets of their mutation. During that time, I became very close friends with the original four, and it was I who proposed the League of Heroes. We would fight crime, solve world issues, and serve as a home for any superpowered individuals who came along.
“In time, the League became a symbol of justice: we captured terrorists, dismantled drug cartels, even supervised international peace negotiations. New recruits began to surface around the globe. And most importantly, after many years of research, my experiments were nearing completion. I was ready to begin my transformation and fully join my friends. But alas,” the Baron said darkly, “they had other plans.
“For some time, I’d noticed that some of the League members were starting to push me away. I wasn’t like them: I wasn’t ‘chosen’ to be a hero. Despite the fact that I had formed the League, that I was its creator, they wanted me gone. I knew I had to complete my transformation before they acted and expelled me from the organization.
“But a few days before I was about to begin, Captain Courage discovered the schematics for my chamber. We had a tremendous argument that morning. I argued that my ability to construct the machine was fate just as much as his powers from birth. But he would not see reason. He forbade me from going through with my plans.
“As soon as I stepped out of his quarters, I ran for my laboratory. I knew I didn’t have much time. If I could just make the transformation, then it would be too late. They would have to accept me.”
The Baron stopped at the front of the room, his eyes looking beyond them.
“But right before I could get in the chamber, Courage, the Champion, and Thunderbolt burst into my lab. They destroyed everything. Twenty years of work, gone in an instant. I had been betrayed by my closest friends.
“On that day, it became my single-minded mission to destroy the League of Heroes. But as the years passed, I realized I had no power to challenge them. Until one day, three years after the destruction of my chamber, the League found a new teenage protégé, one more powerful than any they had ever seen. But there was a problem. He was angry and ambitious, imperious and condescending.”
“Sounds like Leni…” Hayden mumbled.
“It was. He remained with the League for nine years, but they never saw eye to eye on what the real function of their organization was. Leni wanted to take preemptive action: he wanted to crush dictatorships, punish war criminals with death, and destroy corporations that took advantage of the poor. You see, his intentions were good, but the League did not believe in directly interfering with global politics. Leni was too radical. Eventually, Courage expelled Leni and banned him from using his powers. This was the chance I’d been waiting for.
“I proposed a new venue for his talents, a new goal. Overthrow the weak, corrupt League, take power, and enforce our will on this planet.
“Leni joined immediately, and everything changed. He was the force that I had needed, and we began preparations for war. But we were still greatly outnumbered and outmatched, and time passed again while we waited for the ideal opportunity.
“It was four more years until the pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place. We found three new recruits over that time. Twenty-two years ago, I discovered the first one, the Torturer. He was a mere sixteen-year-old hiding in the woods. His name then was Evan Port.”
James recognized that name, but he couldn’t place it.
“At fourteen, Evan managed to gain his incredible size and strength through a highly dangerous mix of compounds he stole from his father, an environmental scientist. Why? Because a hated school bully, Jay Junkit, discovered he could fly right in the middle of class. Evan couldn’t stand the sight of him taking off through the window as the other kids cheered, not after all the terrible things Junkit had done to him. He swore that he would have powers of his own.”
“Jay Junkit? You mean the Sparrow?” James asked, frowning. “But he came from my high school. He’s the most famous product of Cambilsford. How could that…” James suddenly realized why the Torturer had chosen him: his mentor was from the same high school.
The Baron continued his story. “Evan’s dream was to join the League of Heroes, but he wanted to taste popularity first. He joined the football team and became a school hero, winning both the state and national championships that year.
“His radical transformation soon came to the ears of the League, and one day, Thunderbolt appeared at his front door. Evan was thrilled: he’d had his fun at school, and now he would be admitted to the League. But when Thunderbolt discovered that Evan’s powers had resulted from illegal experiments, he refused to admit him and even banned Evan from the competitive sports that had made him a school hero. All his awards were stripped.”
James remembered where he’d heard the name. His father had once told him a story about the best linebacker in school history, who mysteriously disappeared after one season.
“Evan was furious, and he ran away from home. He came to my attention, and the rest of the world’s, when he famously robbed a bank in Portersfield by smashing the entire building to pieces. It was the first recorded case of a superpowered criminal. When Firefly foolishly came alone to arrest him, he quickly learned that he was no match for the Torturer, and he was killed in the ensuing battle, along with four police officers. Knowing the League would come after him, Evan fled into the wilderness, and it was there that Leni and I found him.”
James was completely blown away. He couldn’t believe that someone from his high school was behind the Portersfield Incident. James now understood his mentor’s hatred of Thunderbolt: he had essentially ruined Evan’s life. But Thunderbolt is the good guy, James reminded himself.
“We found the second recruit a year later,” the Baron continued, “Rono, unique in that he has no powers other than an unmatched intellect. He was an advanced technology scientist and created weapons and ships the likes of which had never been seen. Twenty years ago, he offered his services to the League. They took his designs without question and still use them to this day. But, of course, they wouldn’t let him join. He had no powers, they said, therefore he had no right. When he demanded his designs be returned, they refused. Rono was furious, and once again, I was there. Our little society was growing.”
“That’s why he hates them,” Emily said quietly.
“Indeed,” the Baron replied. “But the League’s darkest secret is centered around a man named Derias Tepper, also known as Nimian, the only recorded shape-shifter in history. You probably haven’t heard of him; his name has been wiped from the League’s records. But he was a powerful man, just as brilliant as Rono. He served the League for many years and probably still would if not for one thing: his wife. Nimian would have done anything for her, but she only wanted one thing—the thing he was forbidden to give. She wanted superpowers.
“For years she asked him, begged him, until finally, he relented. Nimian was perhaps the world’s foremost expert on power transformations; the League had him study the process to see if it could be reversed. They always feared that the technology would become widespread. With the League’s endless resources at his disposal, Nimian managed in a few months what had taken me twenty years. Like I had, he constructed a chamber that used waves of coded radiation to rebuild the genetic strands of the person inside. Using this technology, he could give his wife unmatched strength and agility. But for all his concealment, all his secrecy, his designs did not go unnoticed.
“His wife was in the chamber when Courage and the Champion arrived at Nimian’s door to arrest him. But Nimian did not go easily. While fighting with those so-called heroes, he was murdered by Courage.
“As Courage stood over his dead body, Nimian’s wife burst from the chamber. When she saw what had happened, she killed the Champion in a fit of rage. Courage barely escaped with his l
ife. She fled, and using my growing intelligence network, I found her a few weeks later, plotting her vengeance in a run-down apartment. When I told her we shared a similar goal, she joined this society without hesitation. She was guilt-stricken and vengeful: because of her desire for power, her true love was killed.”
“Avaria,” Lana whispered.
“Yes. She brought a new passion to this group, and a new motivation. The League, the good and just League, had murdered her husband. After Avaria joined, our war against the League took on a new face. We became a shadow force, the Vindico, killing League members and trying to overthrow their corrupt regime. It was never our intention to hurt civilians. We only wanted the League.
“Eventually, Courage retired, citing old age, but we knew it was fear: fear that Avaria would find him. He disappeared, and she still tracks him to this day. We’ve brought in three more members over the past fifteen years. Two have since been killed, but the youngest, Sliver, remains. Leni found him in British Columbia before the League could, living in a Whistler mansion that he’d coerced some wealthy family into giving him.
“As you know, the war reached its pinnacle two years ago with the murder of Phoenix. That particular act,” he said, his voice low, “was not my order. I never wanted her to die.”
He sat down again, suddenly looking tired.
“Leni thought her death would finally destroy the League, but in fact, it just enraged them. They unified like never before and began to track us down. We were forced into hiding, where we’ve been these last two years. We were still terribly outnumbered, and as we aged, our chances of victory were ever dwindling.” He gestured to them. “Which is where you come in.”
“Why don’t you have powers?” James asked.
“The most common types of naturally occurring powers, superstrength and agility, are in turn the only ones that can be artificially granted. The League has five members with these types of abilities. Elemental powers, as well as flight, are still beyond the reach of science. And in fact, the capacity for MPA is a natural gift, meaning that Hayden and Sam were actually eligible to join the League, as were Leni and Sliver.”
“What?” Hayden said.
The Baron ignored him. “I don’t possess the capacity for MPA, so strength and agility were my only options. But by the time I built another chamber, my body was too old to facilitate the change.”
He sighed, and James saw the longing pass over his face.
“We are giving you a gift. Everyone deserves the opportunity to have superpowers, a chance to do something great with their lives, to be just as useful to the world as those ‘chosen by fate.’ We know we can control you here, but when the time comes for your re-entry into society, you will have to choose your own path. And now that you know the truth, I give you a choice. Give us two more weeks to prove that you should remain here. At that point you can all leave, if you wish.”
“You would just let us leave?” Lana asked suspiciously.
“Yes. You may choose to live out there with the rest of a selfish, grasping world, or in here, where gifts are being given for free and where all your ambitions will be made to come within your reach. It is your choice, and yours alone. Choose wisely. We’ll spend a bit more time on the three theories today: you need to understand them fully.”
When the lesson was finished, the Baron sent the protégés back to their common room.
“I can’t believe I could have been in the League!” Hayden said as they walked down the hallway.
Lana shook her head. “We can’t just believe everything he says. He’s the bad guy, remember?”
“I don’t know,” Emily said. “He just looked sad to me. James, you seem to know a lot about the League’s history. What do you think?”
“Honestly, I don’t know anymore,” he admitted. “The Baron could definitely be twisting the truth. Then again, it seems like the League could be doing the same thing. Either way, I guess we have at least two more weeks to figure it all out.”
James’s plan had been to help the League capture the Vindico and then join them, just like he’d dreamed of his entire life. But if the League really wouldn’t let him be a member, then he had to rethink everything. To be this close to actually having superpowers, just to have it all taken away; well, that seemed like a cruel “choice of fate” to him.
23
AFTER THE BARON’S LESSON, THE DAYS CONTINUED TO PASS SO quickly that the protégés could barely distinguish one from the next. It was always the same routine: they ate breakfast, went to a morning group session, ate lunch, spent the afternoon training with their individual mentors, ate dinner, worked out, and then went to bed. But while the days themselves were difficult to pick apart, there was no doubt of the changes from the first to the last. The protégés had entered into more advanced training, and the effects were dramatic.
Under his regimen of Genome AP, James had become abnormally strong: two days earlier, he’d almost broken Hayden’s wrist in an arm wrestle. Meanwhile, Lana had been undergoing constant sessions in Avaria’s chamber, and her muscles were becoming lean and hard. When Hayden finally recovered from his arm wrestle with James, Lana swiftly beat him as well.
And while James and Lana were changing physically, Sam and Emily were developing other talents. Sam had begun to display the unnerving ability of being to able to read thoughts and emotions, sometimes replying to things before they were actually said. Emily was becoming an expert marksman, often destroying all of the targets in Rono’s group sessions before the other protégés even got a chance to shoot.
They were so busy with training that no one even mentioned the Baron’s deadline.
Hayden watched as Leni repositioned the black stones between them. They were in Leni’s training room, practicing energy projection, and Hayden knew he should be focused. These battles were fast, chaotic, and dangerous. But despite that, his mind kept drifting to Lana.
He had been spending a lot of time with her, sometimes talking for hours after everyone else was asleep. She was unlike any girl he’d ever met. She didn’t laugh unless he actually said something funny, and she had no patience for compliments or flirty remarks. Lana kept him on his toes, and he liked it.
Without warning, Leni flicked his right hand in Hayden’s direction. A wave of energy leapt toward him, made visible only by the black sand and rocks that were swept along with it.
Hayden quickly raised his hands and used his mental energy to make a shield. Leni’s wave suddenly buckled against an invisible sphere, and the sand and rocks sprayed around Hayden like flowing water.
Grinning, Hayden launched the sphere at Leni. His mentor deflected the attack, and it slammed into the wall with the force of a truck, shaking the entire room. Leni charged at Hayden, his cape flapping behind him, and he waved his hand again.
This time, the air distorted into an arrow point, and it flew right at Hayden’s chest. He managed to partially deflect it, but the edge still hit his arm. He spun onto his back, winded.
Move! he told himself urgently.
Hayden rolled and stuck his hand out in the same motion, catching Leni off guard with a burst of energy. Leni flew backward, and Hayden jumped to his feet, ready to celebrate the victory.
He should have known better.
Leni landed in a crouch, and when his mentor looked up, Hayden knew that he was in trouble. The rocks floated into the air, and at the same time, the sand billowed into two deadly spears. Everything flew at him at once.
Hayden created another shield, and the air around him became a swirling, distorted mass.
“Energy projection is a game of strategy,” Leni said, walking toward him. “It drains us faster than thought commands, and as such, it must be wielded more carefully. When fighting others like ourselves, we must be careful we don’t lose focus.”
Hayden’s arms flew to his sides, pulled against him as if bound by rope.
“If you lose focus,” Leni continued, “you leave yourself open to the commands of others
.” He smiled. “When that happens, there is little you can do.”
He waved his hand, and Hayden went flying through the air. He landed on his stomach almost thirty feet away.
“And then you die,” Leni said calmly, heading into the hallway. “Get up. That’s enough for today.”
Grumbling, Hayden climbed to his feet. He was sick of losing. But as he started toward the door, he noticed that Leni’s black computer was humming in the corner. There was a folder open on the screen.
Curious, Hayden took a quick look at the door and then hurried over to the computer. It showed the left wing basement of the mansion, where a circular room was highlighted in red. Beneath it, a blown-up layout of the room showed a small, adjoining chamber at the far end, with a narrow tunnel that ran out the side. As he read over the blueprint, Hayden realized it was some sort of trap.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Hayden whirled around and saw Leni standing in the doorway. “Just checking if you had Internet—”
He was cut off as an invisible force pulled him across the room. Hayden stopped right in front of Leni, hanging in midair. His mentor didn’t look happy.
“Never touch my personal belongings,” Leni said. His eyes went to the computer screen. “What did you see?”
“Nothing,” Hayden replied quickly.
“Don’t let it happen again, or you will be punished,” he snarled. “Get back to your quarters.”
Hayden hurried back to the common room, throwing anxious looks over his shoulder as he ran. He’d never seen Leni so mad, and that was saying something. Obviously, he wasn’t supposed to see those designs. But why? Who was that trap for?
“Activate shoulder mount,” Emily said, and she heard whirring from the smooth, metallic attachment covering her left shoulder. Two small panels on the front of the mount slid open, revealing fixed plasma weapons, as did another panel on top of the shoulder mount, from which a sleek black missile launcher emerged.