The Dominion Key (23 page)

“Engage Machine Guns of Animosity!” bellowed Vex.

A rapid-fire string of blasts echoed and the guns released a spray of glowing red bullets—holograms with the deadliness of real ammunition.

Horror clawed me from the inside out. Our classmates and teachers had come here to rescue us, but instead they were running full speed toward their death. And there was nothing any of us could do. I’d already watched Miranda come close to dying once. Now I had the very bad feeling that I was about to witness the real thing.

But Miranda had something else in mind. Before Vex had even begun firing his hologram machine gun, she motioned to a tall, older girl beside her.

“Brittany—NOW!” she commanded.

The girl stepped in front of the group. I’d seen her once or twice in the rec room back at Alabaster. Now she spread her arms and a pure white field of energy formed in front of her, a wall of illumination that spanned the width of the road and was several times her height.

“Get behind it!” Miranda called out.

The rest of the group obeyed her command, crowding together so the wall of light shielded them. It all went down with such speed—such precision—that it could’ve only been orchestrated by a Senser, someone who knows what’s going to happen moments before it takes place.

In other words, someone like Miranda.

I gasped. The spray of bullets hit the energy shield with a raucous clatter. But the wall of light stood. And everyone behind it was unharmed.

For the time being, at least. Unfortunately, Vex had a lot more deadly tricks up his bionic sleeves.

His next move was straight from my mom’s set of skills. All at once, the tall trees on either side of the road jolted forward and began plucking people from the ground with their leafy branches.

“SPEARS!” Miranda hollered, and about a dozen teachers on hover scooters veered close to the trees, slashing at the branches with glowing spears before anyone was lifted more than a few feet off the ground.

For every attack that Vex sent the group’s way, Miranda was waiting with a countermove. A gaping hole opened in the earth in front of them, but Miranda was already guiding everyone to one side. As they raced safely around the edge of the hole, Vex flung out his arms, sending a wave of ice crashing toward the group.

At the exact same moment, Miranda yelled, “Ronny, Johnny—GO!”

A pair of teenage twins emerged from the crowd, their eyes glowing green. For a moment, it looked like they were wearing radioactive contact lenses. And then a blast of green energy shot out of their eyes and collided with the tidal wave of ice, turning it into a giant slushie that rained down harmlessly over the students and teachers.

The group made steady progress, advancing closer and
closer to Vex between attacks. Miranda led the front line like a general.

When they were no more than twenty-five feet from Vex, Miranda brought the group to a halt. Raising one hand, she hollered, “Ready!”

The group prepared their weapons, raising plasma cannons and heaving rocket launchers onto their shoulders.

“Aim!”

Miranda’s voice echoed across the yard. The army of students and teachers waited for her signal. And then …

“Fire!”

The noise that followed was deafening. Fifty simultaneous blasts. Plasma beams and rockets hurtling forward. Glowing spears arching through the air. Baseball-sized explosives raining down. Those without weapons used their powers. A sonic shriek. Another round of green energy from the radioactive twins. And all of it—a massive storm of weaponry and superpowers, unleashed at the exact same moment—was aimed at a single target.

Vex.

His huge bionic form was consumed in a fiery cloud. The impact bloomed like an exploding star.

I staggered backward, shielding my eyes. A tremor shook the earth and a wave of heat washed over me.

Once the roar faded, I was left with a buzzing in my ears. I turned and squinted through the smoke. All that was left of the spot where Vex had been standing was a massive crater. Fires raged at the edges of the hole in the earth.

A twinge of hope flickered inside me. Nothing could’ve survived that kind of devastation.… Right?

Wrong
.

I was still peering through the wall of gray smoke and flaming ashes when something moved. A dark shape, rising from the crater.

Phineas Vex appeared from the smoke, propelled out of the hole in the earth by jet boosters that flamed from his hands and feet. Shock ran through every cell of my body. Vex had been bombarded with enough firepower to bring down a small army. But you’d never have known that by looking at him. His bionic suit was still in mint condition. There wasn’t a single dent in his armor. Not even a scratch.

Vex landed at the edge of the crater with a crashing
thud
. “Your puny weapons cannot stop me.” His voice thundered across the devastated landscape. “
Nothing
can stop me. And soon the world will cower under my control. But first, I must take what I came for.”

Vex turned and thrust out his armored hand. Energy rippled from his fingertips, and the wall of Dr. Fleming’s house disintegrated. Wood and plaster were transformed
into ash. Glass melted inside the window frame. A hole formed in the wall—a crumbled opening that looked out on the obliterated front yard. And Vex.

Now that there was nothing standing between us, my thoughts converged into a terrible realization: Vex was right. There
was
no stopping him. The students and teachers from Alabaster had unleashed all their ammunition, all their powers … yet he was still alive. Unharmed. And soon he would rule the earth.

But for some strange reason, my friends and family weren’t going down without a fight. Sophie stared at me, her blue-gray eyes peering from her glowing face. She put a hand on my shoulder.

“We won’t let him take you,” she whispered.

“Yeah.” Milton placed his hand on my other shoulder. I could see the fear in his face, but his voice was firm. “I don’t care how big he is; nobody messes with my best friend.”

Beside him, Cassie and my parents stepped forward. Their hands came to rest on my shoulders as well.

“We love you, Son,” Dad said.

“We’re here for you,” Mom said.

“All the way,” Cassie added.

My voice rose in sudden desperation. “You can’t do this. It’s me he wants. Not you. There’s still time. Run. Get as far from here as possible. Please.” I tried to say more, but my throat went dry and my voice cracked.

Not that my words did any good. No matter how hopeless the situation seemed, my friends and family were sticking by me.

There in Dr. Fleming’s living room, we lined up side by side. The ground shook with Vex’s approach. More sections of the wall crumbled around us. With each step Vex took in our direction, his demented grin widened.

He was less than twenty feet away when something flickered through the smoke behind him. A blur. There and then gone. I was just beginning to convince myself it was nothing when I saw the movement again. A human form weaving through the air on a hover scooter. As the figure got closer, I saw it more clearly.

Principal Alabaster had separated from the group and was speeding toward Vex. Not that Vex noticed. All his twisted attention was on me. Which meant he was unaware when Alabaster came to a halt a few feet behind him and brought his hands together … unaware when the principal pulled his hands apart, creating an opening in the universe … unaware when Alabaster navigated his scooter up, then down, then side to side, so that the rip in space grew taller and wider … unaware that behind him was a portal to another place entirely.

It looked sort of like Principal Alabaster had pulled apart a curtain behind Vex, revealing a view of endless white and cloudless sky—right in the middle of the smoke and ash of Fleming’s yard.

The opening was bigger than what I’d seen Principal Alabaster create back at school. Much bigger. Maybe even big enough to transport one humongous bionic supervillain …

And that was when I knew what needed to be done.

I stepped forward, clenching my hands into fists. Spontaneous combustion crackled in my veins. But I was going to need more than spontaneous combustion this time. I was going to need a power that I’d never harnessed before. At least, not intentionally.

Summoning all my concentration, I thrust my arms forward, as if I were shoving an invisible force in front of me. Energy throbbed in my chest, swirling across my arms and legs. And …

Nothing happened.

Dr. Fleming had said that spontaneous combustion came with the ability to freeze time and space. Temporary Particle Immobilization Syndrome, he’d called it. His words scrolled across my mind.
Usually accompanied by an illuminated string of pure energy capable of destruction on a massive scale
.

If there was ever a time when a little Temporary Particle Immobilization Syndrome would come in handy, this was it. But who was I kidding? The power had only popped up on a few rare occasions in my life, and never when I’d actually seen it coming. So what made me think I could just whip it up now?

My hands sank to my sides. Vex obviously knew what I’d tried—and failed—to do. He narrowed his one good eye at me.

“Give it up, Joshua Dread,” he boomed. “The power you seek is not yours to command. The truth is, you need me just as much as I need you. The Device will grant you the full extent of your abilities.”

Behind him, the portal shimmered. He was still unaware that he was standing in front of a window to another place. Not that it mattered, since there was no way of getting him through it.

“Face it, Dread.” His amplified voice made my stomach curl. “Without my help, without The Device, you’ll always be the one who makes things blow up. A nice party trick, perhaps. But you can be so much more.”

I couldn’t bear to listen to another word. A flurry of rage and horror and hatred blocked out everything but the sight of Vex. Without even my realizing it, my arms were suddenly in front of me again—every muscle tensed, every tendon straining. A rush of energy surged through me. The air around me shook with pure power.

For the flash of a moment, I saw Vex’s expression change. From sadistic glee to something else …

Fear
.

It was a look you don’t get from Vex too often. Which made it even more incredible when his face froze that way. Every feature locked into place. And his body too. His armor-plated arms and legs, his bionic suit—all suspended, unmoving, perfectly still.

The world around him had also come to a stop. Behind Vex, Principal Alabaster was perched motionless on his hover scooter. In the background, I caught sight of the others from Alabaster. Miranda was positioned in front of her army of students and teachers, all as still as figures in the most amazing wax museum on earth.

The only movement came from a ribbon of light that
stretched out from my hands, across the yard, past frozen clouds of smoke and unmoving scraps of ash. Closer and closer to Vex.

When the string of illumination made contact with Vex’s heavily armored chest, it was like someone had pressed the play button on a remote. The world clicked into motion again.

Vex exploded backward, his massive arms and legs flailing. At the same time, a force pulled me in the opposite direction, as if I’d been hooked to a bungee cord that yanked my feet off the ground.

A vision flashed in front of my eyes: Phineas Vex flying through the portal that Principal Alabaster had created, vanishing into another place entirely. Endless white and cloudless sky.

“Nooo!”
Vex’s shriek came through the opening.

In a flash, Alabaster pulled the seam in the universe closed. The portal was gone. And so was Vex.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really get much of a chance to enjoy the moment. Because the force that had knocked me off my feet threw me across Fleming’s living room.

A jolt of pain shot through me. And then I collided with something that turned my world to black.

It was all a dream
.

The attack at the food court, the sudden move to Alabaster, the face-off with Phineas Vex … it was all so bizarre and disturbing. There was no other explanation. I was asleep right now, snoozing peacefully, and none of the things that had gone down over the past week had really happened.