The Dominion Key (15 page)

I climbed to my feet and peered through the curtain of smoke and ash. The explosion had obliterated the classroom wall and turned the gang of Cyclaurs into a gruesome junk heap. Bionic body parts were scattered among twisted scraps of metal—half a tire, detached handlebars, an impaled engine.

At least my friends seemed to be okay. Sophie rose, her skin glowing from all the action. Milton and Miranda were wiping dust off their clothes. Dr. Fleming groaned as Cassie helped him up.

“You saved him.” Her voice shook with emotion. “Thank you.”

Dr. Fleming attempted a weak smile. “Happy to help.”

Miranda tilted her head, concentrating. “More bad guys are on their way. We’d better take cover.”

“I’m on it.” Cassie hurriedly led us back to the suit of armor. She twisted the hilt of the sword and yanked the door open. All of us tumbled through it. Just as she pulled the door closed, I heard two sets of footsteps moving in our direction. One set was small and quick. The other sounded like a cement truck with legs.
BOOM! CRACK! FWUMP!

Then I heard a familiar voice.

“What the heck happened here?” Grifter asked.

The last time I’d heard her voice, she and her evil friends had been attacking us in the food court. And if she was
here, the massive footsteps must’ve belonged to her concrete pal. Sure enough, a moment later, Lunk spoke in his gravelly drawl.

“Looks like an explosion,” he said.

“No duh, rock brains,” Grifter spat. “Whoever caused it couldn’t have gone far. Come on!”

The two took off running down the hall. Once the sounds had faded, Cassie flipped on her flashlight and turned to face me and my friends. “Okay, seriously? What’s going on? Who were those jerks?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” Milton said.

“Go ahead.” Cassie shrugged. “Unless you’ve got someplace you’d rather be.”

An explosion echoed somewhere in the distance. I looked at Sophie, Milton, and Miranda. And in the span of a split second, we came to an unspoken agreement: now that we’d all shared a near-death experience, we might as well tell the truth.

I turned to Cassie and Dr. Fleming. “We’re not who we say we are.”

I started from the beginning, telling them about how my parents were actually the supervillain team the Dread Duo and Sophie’s dad was Captain Justice. And about how Phineas Vex had once abducted my parents and tried to kill Sophie’s dad. When I got to the part about being mysteriously recruited to join a superhero group, Cassie interrupted me in a voice that squeaked with excitement.

“You four were in the Alliance of the Impossible!”

“That’s right!” Milton said, puffing out his chest proudly.

Cassie beamed at us like she was going to start asking for autographs any second. Dr. Fleming looked less impressed.

“Who—or
what
—was the Alliance of the Impossible?” he asked.

“A team of tween and teen superheroes!” Cassie explained like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Dr. Fleming rolled his eyes. Not that Cassie noticed. She was too swept up in her enthusiasm.

“They were huge for like five minutes during the summer. Fought Multiplier and his clones in Times Square. Appeared in an episode of
Hangin’ with Justice
.”

Dr. Fleming only stared at her with a blank look.

Cassie let out an exasperated sigh. Her silver hair whipped around as she turned to face us. “Which one of you was Supersonic?”

Milton’s eyes lit up. “That was me!”

Cassie jumped with such excitement that she nearly banged her head on the tunnel’s low ceiling. “
OMG!
You were my
favorite
!”

“Really? Me?”

“Definitely! Those rocket shoes! And all the cool gadgets you kept in your utility belt! You were so much cooler than the Nameless Hero.”

I should’ve felt offended to hear the Nameless Hero getting insulted right in front of me. But the weird thing was—I didn’t care. My brief stint as a celebrity superhero
now seemed like a bizarre dream, like it had all happened to someone else.

Meanwhile, Milton couldn’t stop smiling. The whole time we’d been in the Alliance of the Impossible, the Nameless Hero had overshadowed Supersonic. Now it was the other way around. And he clearly liked it.

Sophie, on the other hand, looked offended on my behalf. “You
do
realize that the Nameless Hero is next to you, right?” She pointed at me.

“Oh!” Cassie’s eyes widened. “Sorry!”

“No big deal,” I said. “Really.”

“It was just—the Nameless Hero always seemed so … overhyped.”

I shrugged. “Can’t disagree with you.”

“You were, like, really famous for a little while. Then you disappeared.” Her forehead wrinkled. “What happened?”

I told Cassie and Dr. Fleming about how nFinity betrayed us and Vex returned from the grave strapped into a ten-foot-tall bionic suit that made him virtually invincible.

“After that, we had to hang up our uniforms,” I said. “We went back to our normal lives. And then—just a few days ago—nFinity and a couple of his goons came after us. We had to go into hiding.”

“And so we adopted fake identities and came here,” Sophie finished. “My dad thought this would be a safe place to hide. Obviously, he was wrong.”

“But what are they doing here?” Cassie asked.

“They’re here for me.” With a heavy sigh, Dr. Fleming told Cassie about the Dominion Key.

“You said you hid the Dominion Key,” Sophie pointed out. “So where is it?”

Dr. Fleming considered this question. “You kids told me your secret. The least I can do is return the courtesy.”

He reached into his pocket and removed the photo he’d taken with him. The beam of Cassie’s flashlight lit up the picture of a log cabin in the woods.

“When I realized the global threat posed by my invention, I resolved to keep it in a safe house. So I built one. All registered under a false name, of course. Completely untraceable.” Dr. Fleming ran his thumb across the photo. “I know it may look a little backwoodsy, but on the inside, it’s actually quite modern.”

“You may think it’s safe, but it’s not,” I said. “Phineas Vex won’t stop until he’s tracked it down.”

“You have to destroy the Dominion Key,” Miranda pleaded.

“I know.” The flashlight cast deep shadows under Dr. Fleming’s eyes, making him look tired and old. “And that’s precisely what I intend to do. I just need to find a way to get to it.”

“How’re you gonna do that?” I asked. “The school is swarming with bad guys.”

“And without the ferry, there’s no way off this island,” Milton pointed out.

All of a sudden, Dr. Fleming’s eyes lit up.

“There
is
one other way off …,” he said.

When I heard this, it sparked a brief flicker of hope. Maybe we weren’t doomed after all. But once Dr. Fleming told us what he had in mind, I felt even worse than before.

There was just one little problem with his plan. It was absolutely nuts.

We needed to get up to the roof.

Cassie led us along winding turns and through narrow gaps until she reached her destination: a steel hatch built into the wall. She silenced us with a finger to her lips and listened for Cyclaurs outside. Their engines were barely more than a distant buzz. It sounded like the coast was clear.

“Time to go,” Cassie said.

“Thanks for all your help,” I said. “We couldn’t have made it this far without you. Hopefully, we’ll see you again sometime.”

I held out my hand for her to shake. Cassie looked down at it like I had string cheese for fingers.

“Save your goodbyes,” she snapped. “I’m coming with you.”

Now it was my turn to give her a weird look. “The bad
guys are after us. Not you. If you come along, you’ll just put yourself in danger.”

Cassie’s determined expression only sharpened. “I’ve lived my entire life at Alabaster. Do you have any idea what it’s like growing up in a school? Stuck on this little island where it never stops raining? Constantly getting teased by the other kids for having generations of principals in the family? Believe me, it gets old.”

Cassie’s gray eyes moved across the floor of the tunnel.

“With a dad who can transport his family anywhere he wants, you’d think I’d be a world traveler by now, but Dad says Alabaster Academy is a part of who I am. He thinks that if I just spend enough time here, I’ll eventually want to follow in his footsteps. But all I’ve ever wanted was a chance to see the world outside Alabaster. No way I’m passing that up.”

I still didn’t think it was a good idea. But the sound of Cyclaurs was getting louder and we didn’t have time for a debate.

“Fine,” I said. “If you really want to skip school that badly.”

A smile passed across Cassie’s lips. She opened the hatch and cast a glance into the hallway. All clear. She pushed the hatch the rest of the way open and everyone climbed through. Then she closed the door—a framed painting of a silver-haired lady named Alberta Alabaster—and we hurried across the hall.

“The stairs are on the other side of the library.” Cassie pointed to a tall wooden door. “This way.”

The library had definitely seen better days. Books were strewn everywhere. Skid marks crisscrossed the floors. A wall had been reduced to a smoldering crater.

We’d nearly reached the other end of the library when the door flew open and one of our classmates stepped out.

Winston.

“Goin’ somewhere?” He raised his furry eyebrows.

“Out of the way, Winston,” Cassie said.

Winston smiled. His fangs glistened.

“I overheard those motorcycle guys sayin’ we’ve got some imposters at Alabaster. Some newbies who showed up a few days ago, lyin’ about who they really are.” Winston’s eyes narrowed as he scanned me and my friends. “And I got a feelin’ they’re talkin’ about you.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I bluffed. “Or maybe your conspiracy theory is just as lousy as your dodgeball skills.”

“We’ll see.”

“Why don’t you mind your own business?” Miranda said.

But Winston wasn’t budging. He leaned against the doorframe, examining his nails as they slowly grew into claws.

“Teachers are always tellin’ me I gotta think about my future.” His words came out in something between a normal kid’s voice and a growl. “I’m not really the college type. Not even sure I’m cut out for high school. But there’s one thing I’ve always wanted to be when I grow up—”

“Dog food salesman?” Milton guessed.

“Supervillain.” Hair was sprouting beneath Winston’s
collar. He was becoming a wolf before our eyes. “And if I help out these motorcycle guys, their boss might see my … uh—whaddaya call it?—my …”

“Potential?” Dr. Fleming said.

“Exactly. My potential as a future supervillain.”

“Now, listen here, Winston.” Dr. Fleming marched forward. “I insist that you step aside right this—”

“RAAARGH!”

With the kind of quickness you usually only see on the Discovery Channel, Winston swung at Dr. Fleming. His claws ripped at the teacher’s shoulder and straight down his chest. Dr. Fleming crumpled to the floor, blood spilling from his wounds.

Winston’s mouth foamed—if you could even call it a mouth at this point. Hair sprang up across his face. His nose was elongating into a whiskered snout and his eyes had turned an eerie yellow. Leaping on top of Dr. Fleming, Winston raised his claws to strike again.

It had all happened so quickly. I was still stunned, watching the attack go down like it was a TV show. Milton reacted much more quickly. He surged forward and tackled Winston.

“Get away from him!” Milton screamed.

The two tumbled to the ground. By the time they’d separated, the transformation was complete. There was nothing human about Winston any longer. He’d gone into full wolf mode.

His clothes were lying in a torn heap on the floor. Gray hair stood up along his back. His long, slobbery tongue
ran across a row of sharp fangs. With a horrible snarl, the wolf leaped into the air, claws and teeth poised to rip into Milton.

There was no time to think—only to react. Throwing out my hands, I felt a wave of energy ripple across my body. My heart shook. Electrical storms raged through my bloodstream. I flexed my fingers, and all my power channeled down my arms, through my hands …

And just like that, everything came to a stop.

Winston froze in midair, inches from Milton. A horror movie on pause.

And he wasn’t the only thing stuck in place. Everyone around me was frozen. Dr. Fleming, clinging to his wounded chest. A glowing Sophie in mid-stride, joining the fight. Cassie and Miranda, screaming. All perfectly still.

Even I was unable to move. And yet I could feel the power working inside me, buzzing from my core to the tips of my fingers, where a light had begun to radiate. A shining orb of energy that stretched forward like an illuminated string.

The light snaked toward Winston. Memories flashed through my brain. This wasn’t the first time my Gyft had gone haywire. Something like this had happened twice before. Once in Phineas Vex’s lair, and again when I was forced to fight a GLOM, a gelatinous green replica of myself (don’t ask). Both times had been the same. Time stopped. A string of light. The feeling that I no longer controlled my power, but that my power controlled me.