Chapter 2 ASSEMBLE!
Freddie quickly pulled his coat off and wrapped it round her. He then picked her up and carried her back towards the school. The rest of them looked at each other in silence for a minute before Ammar broke the silence and said "well… I'm going back to school. They all nodded and followed; no one in the whole school spoke about what had just transpired. They all walked back to their form classes without making a peep. Once sat down they looked at each other for another ten seconds before erupting in an explosion of excitement and chatter. Everyone seemed to want to talk and show off and everyone seemed to have gotten a power. Alice tried to restore order but none of her students would listen to her. She tried five times with her voice rising each time until finally she snapped and screamed "QUIET YOU HORRIBLE LOT!" at the top of her lungs.
The entire form class quietened and looked at Alice, surprised at how loud she had been. "Right" said Alice, cheeks red "Greg is coming to all the forms to talk to you guys about what just happened" she didn't sound so sure in Greg's ability to rectify the situation. They sat in silence for the next fifteen minutes before Greg finally arrived. He walked into the door and gave the whole class one look over before beginning his speech. "Ok boys and girls… as you know, we just had a fire drill and while said fire drill occurred we were hit by a storm… now… this storm gave many of us certain abilities. I myself am able to do this…" he snapped his fingers and the wall on the left turned purple, "wow you can change colours of things?" said Arthur
"No I can just turn things purple and back, now anyway… these abilities do not change school at all, you have exams soon and must concentrate. For those of you wondering how I shall enforce this, Mr Blake fortunately has been given the ability to remove powers and he will not hesitate to do so; he has already taken the abilities away from a girl in year nine who shall remain nameless."
With that he walked out and the class retuned to quiet. The rest of that day passed as a blur, not even the teachers really paid attention to what they were saying. It had become very hot and everybody only wanted to get home as soon as possible. Caludia and Freddie walked out of media together, gathered their belongings and walked out of school; they had found Claudia some spare clothes and gotten over the incident. They walked hand in hand towards the tube station but they stopped when they heard a voice shouting behind them "CLAUDIAAAAA, FREDDIEEEEE!" They turned around and saw Alice Kidney, another schoolmate of theirs running desperately to catch up with them, behind her was a small group of people from school, who were all looking confused. Alice ran past them and briefly stopped to garble instructions to follow her and kept running. Concerned for their schoolmate, Claudia and Freddie joined the others and ran after Alice. "What's up with her? Asked Freddie between breaths, he hated running. "no idea" said Bea "we were walking out of school together when she suddenly stopped, she didn't move for a few seconds and then there was no holding her back." They ran after Alice up Chiswick high road and onto another street.
When Alice finally stopped everyone except her collapsed in exhaustion. Slowly they all stood back up " what the hell Alice?" asked Claudia, gasping for breath. Alice Turned slowly and looked at everyone who had followed her. Bea, Claudia, Freddie, Ammar, Romeo, Ellie and Monique all stood up. Shakily Alice said "something bad is going to happen here" she was not her usual self at all "I don't know how I know but I do, please you have to believe me! We have to stop it!" her friends all looked around uneasily but nodded tentatively "alright Alice" said Monique "we believe you." The stood and waited nervously, seconds turned to minutes. "But I sensed it… I'm sure I did," said Alice meekly. Her unease grew as she looked around and nothing happened, "maybe" said Ammar "maybe the storm made you delusional." This earned him a punch on the arm from both Romeo and Monique "Ammar!" said Monique "what? All I'm saying is it's a possibili…" BOOM! A large explosion coming from the jewellery shop across the road interrupted Ammar.
The gang turned and saw five figures emerging from the flames. One was much larger than the rest and had wings on his back; another was making random things explode around him and hooting with laughter. The final two were a pair of twins that had more teeth and claws than one could count. The explosion man who seemed to be the leader bellowed "alright! We just made more money in ten minutes than those dicks at school ever dreamed of!" He had slight snort to his voice and gave the impression of having gone mad with power. A pedestrian who had been knocked over in the explosion suddenly made a dash of escape but he noticed this and detonated a mailbox next to her; the shards of metal killed the woman instantly.
Romeo ran forwards to confront the group of thugs; he narrowly avoided an exploding rock next to him and made for the leader. The winged brute however sent him flying back with one swipe of his coarse, grey-skinned arms. Romeo flew twenty meters and fell in a bruised, swearing heap on the ground next to his friends. The thugs turned to look and the gang. One of the twins smiled a smile filled with needle-like teeth and said is a slithery voice "lets have some fun with them… everyone always had fun with us." The thugs began to walk towards the gang, fear swelled in Bea's stomach, it escalated to terror and she stuck her hands out in a blind moment of panic.
A brilliant flash of white light that forced the gang to shut their eyes engulfed the thugs. It disappeared as quickly as it came, revealing the thugs blinded and stumbling about. "That won't last long," said Bea "we have to run!" Romeo stood up and stopped her "No! Don't you see? This is what Alice was talking about; we have to stop them. But we need a plan; who has a power here?" everyone except Monique raised their hands "I can move through things" said Freddie "and you know that" he added. "I'm immortal," said Claudia. "Yes that's right and Ellie you can change your size… Ammar what's your power exactly?" asked Monique. "Well it's kinda hard to describe, I think it's like… I can use anything I touch as if it were part of me" Monique nodded in understanding and Romeo interjected "Okay Bea what about you? What was that flash about?" Bea thought about it and said "it's weird it's almost like I can control light… I know that sounds strange but it's not just flashes, before I made everything go dark, then I created a laser pointer with my finger" Romeo smiled and said "perfect. Okay here's what we're gonna do, there are probably people trapped in that shop and the fire is spreading, Ellie, Claudia, Ammar see if you can get them to safety" Claudia glared and said "who put you in charge Romeo?"
"No one" he replied "but I have a plan of action so please just listen. Now while you guys are getting the people, Freddie and I will draw their attention, Bea" he looked at his friend" think you can generate a really big, burning blast of light?" Bea thought for a second then nodded slightly "maybe."
A large chunk of road flew past them and destroyed the shop behind them " MONIQUE! ALICE! HIDE! EVERYBODY ELSE GO!" yelled Romeo and they were off. "HEY DOUCHEBAGS!" yelled Freddie "kiss my ass I'm invincible" he stuck his rear in their direction and slapped it tauntingly. The twins grinned and leapt at him; he luckily noticed in time and managed to become intangible just before their claws reached him. They flew through him and fell on the ground. The other two however turned and began to walk towards Romeo "shit!" he thought "Freddie's occupied with the demon twins and I got these guys, damn it how do I power up again? In this state I'm as good as dead." the leader raised his hand and objects started exploding around Romeo, he began darting about trying to stay out of reach of the detonations and out of reach of the brutish gargoyle-man.
Monique and Alice watched as Romeo and Freddie went toe to toe with (or rather ran away from whilst distracting) the four thugs, giving Claudia and Ellie the chance to rescue the trapped people. Bea went off to a corner and started charging the beam of light that was key to their plan. Monique remembered during lunch when she had seen Bea melt a plastic cup with a charged beam but as to whether she could create large, lethal bolts of energy remained to be seen. Monique looked at Romeo and Freddie and they barely avoided the barrage of attacks thrown at them, Freddie was phasing through his attackers repeatedly but Romeo showed no signs of powers, from what Yasmin had told her, Romeo had had super strength during the church fire "he probably hasn't figured out how it works yet" she said quietly to herself. She then noticed something about Romeo's opponents; quickly she pulled her cell phone out and dialled the number. She waited, unsure if it would work but sure enough she saw Romeo pull his phone out and answer, "Monique you better be sick or dying I shit you not!" he answered rudely. "Shut up meathead!" she retorted, "I'm trying to help you! Now listen, did you once see the explosive guy use his power on a person?"
"Umm no" he answered "which means?" she pressed the issue on. "Which means he can't blow people up because otherwise I'd be already dead, Monique you're a geniu…" he did no finish his last sentence however because the gargoyle-man finally managed to clip his head and he fell to the ground, with no signs of life.
"NOOOOOOO" screamed Bea and fired the charged beam early, it hit the gargoyle in the back and he fell to the ground onto his friend, howling in pain as his skin blistered and fried. The celebration was short-lived however as the two rose again and turned towards Bea, murder in their eyes. The gargoyle picked up a large rock and threw it at Bea, she screamed as the stone missile closed in on her. A second, smaller rock flew seemingly from nowhere and collided with the first rock, knocking it just enough off course to miss Bea. Monique, Alice and Bea turned and saw Romeo on one knee; his body powered up and blood caking the left side of his head; one muscled arm extended in a throwing position. "Romeo you saved me" said Bea "saved is sort of subjective here" he replied having noted their situation.
"WHAM!" the gargoyle was football-kicked by a seven story Ellie who had finished rescuing the trapped people and had joined the fight along with Claudia. The gargoyle extended his wings and with several giant wing beats managed to stabilized and fly at Ellie. An iron chain lashed out from Ellie's shoulder and whipped the gargoyle across the face. It was then that they saw Ammar sitting on Ellie's shoulder, holding the chain. "Freddie!" yelled Claudia "catch!" she threw a broom handle with nails that she had improvised from the ruin of the hardware shop next to the jewellery shop. Freddie exited his intangible state for just long enough to catch the makeshift weapon. "Ok" Claudia ordered "Romeo! Freddie and I can handle the twins, and Ellie and Ammar have the brute covered. You and Bea deal with the explosion guy." With that she threw him a fire axe and went to join her boyfriend.
The twins were surprised when she attacked them with a crowbar but they quickly regained their composure and one of them slashed her across the stomach with a claw. The gash opened wide and deep, spilling her guts out but they quickly retracted back in and the wound resealed itself. Claudia smiled and smashed the crowbar into his head, knocking him unconscious. Freddie phased through his foe for the umpteenth time but this time he turned around and struck the nail bat into his foe's back, he dropped next to his brother, breathing shallowly.
Romeo ran at the explosion guy as fast as he could, he could feel his body powering up and running faster. He had finally figured out when he saved Bea that he needed rage to fuel his powers, but he needed focus, not just blind rage, with a face of absolute concentration he charged. The explosion guy detonated several objects in an effort to halt him but now Romeo was faster, now he was stronger, now he had the upper hand. A surprise explosion caught him off guard however and he only avoided it by throwing himself to the ground and rolling. When he stopped he looked up and saw the explosion guy upon him "don't move" he said menacingly "or I'll kill you and your friend," he gestured to Bea who was surrounded by car parts, debris and many other things that would make for lethal bombs. "Why are you doing this?" asked Romeo "if it was for money you wouldn't have dropped the bag of jewels you were carrying." The explosion guy laughed "how astute of you! We'll since you're about to die I'll fill you in, my name is Robert but you will call me Captain Boom my friends and I get a lot of shit from people like you at school, and this is payback, we're in charge now!" he then attempted a maniacal laugh but failed due to Monique appearing out of nowhere and performing a full body flip and a series of kung fu moves that combined with a well aimed blast from Bea left Captain Boom floored and unconscious. "Holy crap Monique where'd you learn that?" asked Romeo to which she replied, "I had a book on it that I read today."
"Before or after the storm?" said Romeo. Monique thought for a second then smiled as she realized what had just happened, "congratulations" said Romeo "you can learn anything you read instantly."
"How do you know so much about this?" asked Monique "Monique please… your talking to a nerd" said Romeo over his shoulder.
With the twins and Captain Boom gone Claudia, Freddie, Romeo, Bea and Monique looked towards the final battle. The gargoyle was failing fast, while Ammar's chain kept him at bay, Ellie would swat him like a bug. He noticed his friends had fallen and realizing victory was impossible for him he made a hasty retreat and flew off.
"ELLIE!" screamed Romeo, running towards her and picking up the fire axe "THROW ME BASEBALL STYLE!" Ellie did not need to be told twice, she quickly scooped Romeo up, raised him to shoulder level and hurled him with all her strength. Almost immediately Romeo could see that she hadn't thrown him straight, he was going to curve too much and miss the gargoyle. He had a few seconds to decide what to do, he felt his senses sharpen even further and his eyes focused on the gargoyle.
As he flew past the gargoyle he threw the axe with all his strength in his direction. It spun through the air with the speed of a bullet and sliced the gargoyle's right wing clean off. He roared in agony and plummeted to the hard ground, landing with one loud thump and not rising. Romeo on the other hand whistled through the air a further 50 meters and landed heavily, losing consciousness in the process.
When he came to he found himself on a gurney with a paramedic stitching a large laceration in his chest. "Look he's waking up," said a voice to his left who turned out to be Freddie. They all looked at Romeo with worry but relaxed when the paramedic said there was no serious damage and he could leave. Romeo stood up gingerly and joined his friend in watching the four thugs being carried off in heavy restraints, captain boom still unconscious. A policeman came up to them and said "you kids did a fine job here, who knows how much damage they would have caused" and walked off.
The gang grinned at each other "I think this could be the start of something interesting" said Bea gleefully, imagine us as actual superheroes, especially when we get other people from school with powers involved." Everyone sounded excited with the prospect, even Alice couldn't help but smile broadly. "We'd need names though" said Ammar "and costumes."
"Oh I've got some ideas," said Romeo and they all smiled at each other once again as they shared this moment of triumph.
