The Superhero's Son Omnibus Volume 2

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Robert looked crazy. He was not wearing any clothes, except for some swim trunks, but that hardly made him look weak. His muscles seem to have grown exponentially, because he looked strong enough to shatter steel with his pinkie finger. He didn't have any breathing equipment on him, not even an air tank, which made me wonder how he was breathing underwater without drowning or being crushed by the water pressure outside.

But Robert was only visible for a moment. When I blinked again, he was gone, leaving behind only a trail of bubbles going in the direction in which he had swam.

Then there was another boom and the ship shook so hard that I fell on my behind, while Mom leaned against the cage for support. Graleex, however, just said, “What the hell was that? Was that a human?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding as I stood up, using the pilot's seat for support. I glanced at the monitors but didn't see Robert again. “He's the one who stole my powers, actually, and it looks like he must have stolen someone else's powers because he couldn't breathe underwater when I saw him last time.”

“Why is he attacking my ship?” said Graleex, twisting his head this way and that, like he was trying to figure out where Robert was attacking from. “What have I done against him?”

“Nothing,” I said. I jerked a thumb at myself. “Robert wants to kill me and my mom. He probably doesn't even know you exist.”

Graleex growled something that sounded like a swear word, but it was in the Pokacu language. “Yet another superhero. I thought you humans were land-dwelling creatures.”

“We are, but I guess Robert decided to go for a swim,” I said. “Anyway, we need to get out of here before he breaks open the ship and gets us.”

“You mean he wants to destroy my ship?” said Graleex in horror. “Why?”

“Because he wants to get to me,” I said, rolling my eyes. “How many times do I have to say that?”

Graleex looked like he was at a loss for words now, probably because he was starting to realize that if Robert got in, then he would never return to the Mother World. But I didn't really care about whatever existential problems Graleex was having, because at that moment, there was another boom and the ship actually tilted slightly to the left this time.

“Okay, Val,” I said, turning to face the controls again. “What buttons do I need to press to make this thing work?”

“Work?” Valerie repeated. “What do you mean?”

“I mean get it flying,” I said. “Or swimming or whatever it does. We can't beat Robert in a fight, especially underwater. So we need to flee and maybe use the ship's weapons to keep him from getting too close.”

“Unfortunately, Bolt, I am unable to understand or control the ship's weapon systems,” said Valerie. “As I said, my control of the ship is very incomplete, so I do not know how to use it to fight Robert.”

I slammed my fists down on the control panel and said, “Damn it. What are we supposed to do, then? Let Robert destroy us?”

“I could help,” said Graleex, causing me to look over my shoulder at him. “I know how to activate the ship and use its weapon systems. If you would just free me, I will be more than happy to hurt you. I mean help you.”

I wasn't sure if that was just another example of Graleex's lack of fluency in the English language or if he had accidentally expressed what he really wanted to do to me and Mom.

So I said, “How do we know you'll really help us? What if you just want to kill us?”

“I would like to kill you, but at the moment I care more about saving my ship and my own life than in taking yours,” said Graleex. “If you don't free me, then it will only be a matter of time before that other human destroys this ship and kills us all. Bur I presume you are fine with that, since you humans are clearly much more intelligent than us Pokacu.”

I was about to flatly reject his offer, but then I remembered that we didn't know how to control the ship, nor did I have my powers which I could have used to fight Robert. And he was right that it was only a matter of time before Robert destroyed the ship and killed us, as much as I didn’t want to admit it.

Reluctantly, then, I said, “Okay. We'll let you go. But if you try to kill us—”

“I won't,” Graleex interrupted me. “Perhaps you don't believe it, but if saving your life means saving my own, then I won't even think about killing you.”

I didn't believe a word Graleex said, but I supposed that I didn't have the luxury of disbelieving him, because the ship suddenly shook again from another blow from Robert on the outside and it felt worse than the others.

In seconds, I used the red liquid to free Graleex. When Graleex fell to the floor and stood up to his full height again, I thought he was just going to kill me here and now, but instead he brushed past me over to the controls.

“All right, how are we going to stop him?” I said as I followed Graleex over to the controls, while my Mom stayed near the cage where she watched the Pokacu with anxious eyes. “Are you going to blast Robert into pieces?”

Graleex stopped in front of the controls and began tapping screens, pressing buttons, and pulling levers. “We are going to try to lose him.”

“Lose him?” I said in disappointment. “You mean you aren't going to blow him to pieces?”

“He is too small and moves too fast for me to hit him,” said Graleex. “Besides, most of the ship's exterior cannons are out of order. The best we can do is try to escape him, since some of the ship’s engines still work.”

“Okay, but you'd better be quick about it,” I said, glancing at the ceiling, where I expected to see Robert burst through at any moment. “How long will it take for you to get the ship started?”

“Should be any second now,” said Graleex. “It has been a while since I last piloted the ship, but it should still be operational.”

Just as Graleex said that, the ship suddenly lurched to the side. I staggered to the side, just barely catching myself before I fell over face first into the floor, while Mom clung to the bars of the cage even more tightly than before. As for Graleex, he grabbed onto the controls for balance, muttering something in Pokacu under his breath that might have been a swear word.

“You'd better activate it quick,” I said, glancing at the monitors displaying the ocean outside, which did not show Robert anywhere. “Because I don't know how much time we've got before Robert succeeds in punching a hole in this thing.”

“Just a second,” Graleex snapped as he resumed messing with the controls. “I'm almost—there!”

All of a sudden, I heard a loud roaring sound all around us and then felt the ship starting to move. The exterior monitors showed the nearby seaweed and fish starting to move past us, but it was very slow moving.

“The engines are active,” said Graleex. He smiled. “I knew this ship still had it in her.”

“But it's moving so slowly,” I said, gesturing at the monitors. “Robert will still be able to—”

All of a sudden, I heard a loud boom—this one much louder than the booms caused by Robert—from the rear of the ship and the ship suddenly took off. It went so fast that I staggered into the controls. Looking up at the monitors, I saw the dark ocean water flying past us so fast that it was almost impossible to see the details of the outside.

“There,” said Graleex. He threw a smirk in my direction, or as much a smirk as his alien face could permit. “Now, what were you saying about my ship being so slow, human? Back on the Mother World, I was known as the best racer in the planet. We’ll outrun this other human with ease.”

“Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Do you think Robert will be able to keep up with us?”

“I highly doubt it,” said Graleex, slapping the controls of his ship. “Even aged, damaged Pokacu ships like my own are fast enough to outrace speeding rallgak.”

“Speeding what?” I said.

“Do you humans not have rallgaks on your world?” said Graleex in surprise. “You are lucky.”

Before I could ask him what the heck a rallgak was, Mom suddenly gasped and pointed at one of the exterior monitors. “Look!”

Graleex and I looked up at the monitor Mom was pointing at. It displayed Robert swimming beside the ship, moving as quickly and swiftly through the water as if it wasn't there at all. His legs and arms were spinning through the water fast, which made him look kind of like a drill.

“Impossible,” said Graleex, staring at the monitor in disbelief. “How can he possibly be keeping up with us?”

“Well, he does have my super speed,” I said. “So he's probably combining it with his ability to breathe underwater to keep up with us.”

“Bah, it doesn't matter,” said Graleex. “I'll shoot him out of the water with one of the cannons that still functions.”

Graleex tapped on one of the cracked touch screens, which glowed green and suddenly showed another view of Robert, except from a different angle. Graleex grabbed a control stick and started aiming the cannon at Robert, who was still swimming at the ship's side at a ridiculous speed.

“Okay,” said Graleex, staring at the touch screen intensely. “I just need to lock onto his form and—”

All of a sudden, Robert suddenly spun in the water toward the ship. A second later, Robert slammed into the side of the ship and the ship went spinning out of control in a random direction. Graleex and I clung to the controls, screaming, as the ship spun around crazily, while Mom looked like she was about to throw up. Graleex was trying to regain control of the ship, but Robert must have hit it too hard, because we just kept spinning and spinning endlessly.

Then, without warning, the ship crashed into something. Mom, Graleex, and I were all knocked off our feet, with me landing on my head. The sudden impact also caused most of the lights to blink on and off rapidly before returning to normal strength, but a few of the lights had been turned off entirely, leaving the ship's interior much darker than it had been mere minutes before.

Dazed by the impact of the crash, I rubbed my head, which felt like it had been cracked open like an egg, even though I couldn't feel any blood leaking out from it.

Sitting up, I shook my head and looked up at the monitors displaying the outside. Surprisingly, most of them were still active and showed that there was nothing outside the ship. I didn't see Robert on any of the monitors, which made me hope that he might have run away or maybe thought that the crash had killed me and so was just going to leave the ship alone.

I looked at Graleex and Mom. Graleex lay slumped against the controls, looking unconscious, while Mom still clung to the bars of the cage. But I noticed a little bit of blood running down the side of her head, like she had banged her head against the cage.

“Mom?” I said. I spoke in a whisper, even though there wasn't any reason to. “Are you okay?”

Mom nodded shakily. “I-I'm fine, Kevin. I think I just need to lie down and rest for a while.”

Then I heard a loud crunch above and looked at the ceiling. A tiny drop of water fell from the ceiling and landed on my forehead, which I didn't understand until I heard another crunch and realized the truth: Robert was on top of the ship trying to tear it open and water was starting to leak through. Based on Mom's horrified expression, I could see that she had already come to the same conclusion as me.

Rising to my feet, I started shaking Graleex, saying, “Hey, Graleex, wake up! Robert's going to tear apart the ship and none of us will survive if you don't stop him.”

Graleex moaned and then his eyes flickered open. He looked at me with dazed eyes. “What happened?”

“We crashed,” I said. I cringed when I heard another crunch, followed by more water dripping through the ceiling. “Now Robert is on top of the ship and he is trying to tear it open so he can get at us.”

Graleex's eyes widened and he pushed himself up. He immediately started pressing buttons, but then some kind of weird nebula-shaped symbol appeared on the touch screen and Graleex suddenly let loose a string of what I could only assume were Pokacu curses, because I didn't understand a word he said.

“What's the matter?” I said. “What happened?”

“All weapons systems are off mine, I mean offline,” said Graleex. “The crash must have knocked out what few in tact weapons we had.”

I gulped. “So are you saying we can't blast Robert off the ship with one of your lasers?”

Graleex nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. It would appear that we are all going to die today.”

Another crunch—this one louder and closer than the last—made me snap, “But we can't die. There has to be something we can do.”

Graleex shrugged. “What is there to do? I cannot breathe in your water, nor do the weapons work. And you have already mentioned several times that you do not have your powers anymore, so we could not send you out there to beat him even if I gave you my suit.”

“Suit?” I repeated as more water leaked through the ceiling. “What suit?”

“I have an underwater suit,” said Graleex. “You might have seen it in the lab. It should give you enough air to breathe by and let you survive in the sea's pressure and cold temperature.”

“You mean it will fit me?” I said in surprise.

“It may, since human and Pokacu body structures are oddly similar, although I doubt it would be very comfortable for you,” said Graleex. He sighed and looked at the touch screen longingly. “It appears that I will never get to see the Mother World again. Perhaps I should just kill myself now, which would be more honorable than drowning to death or being killed by a dirty human.”

I had to admit that I shared some of Graleex's negativity. Our situation seemed hopeless. It wouldn't be long, I bet, before Robert smashed through the ceiling and drowned all of us. And once we were dead, I didn't know if there was anyone on the planet strong enough to stop Robert.

But then an idea occurred to me. I found it hard to accept, because if I did it, I would almost certainly die, though Mom and Graleex might survive. On the other hand, if I didn't go through with it, I would almost certainly die here and so would Mom and Graleex.

So I said to Graleex, “Graleex, give me your underwater suit.”

“Why?” said Graleex, looking at me like I was crazy.

“Because Robert is after me,” I said. “If I leave the ship and lure Robert away from it, he'll stop trying to destroy you as well. Trust me, Robert is very single-minded, so as soon as he sees me leaving your ship, he'll forget all about you and come after me.”

“But Kevin, if you do that, Robert will kill you,” said Mom. “Even if you have that suit, you'll still be mostly powerless and defenseless. I doubt you'll last more than two seconds out in that environment against him.”

“I know, Mom, but the only other alternative is to let him break open the ship and kill us all,” I said. “At least if I draw him away from the ship, then you will survive so that Dad can find you again.”

“I know, honey, but—”

“Mom, don't worry about me,” I said. “I think you should worry more about yourself, anyway. This is my decision and my decision alone and if it will keep Robert away from you, then it will be worth it even if he kills me.”

I thought Mom was just going to keep arguing with me, but then to my surprise she nodded shakily and said, “Okay, Kevin. I understand. But please be careful. You know how powerful and ruthless Robert is.”

“I know,” I said. I looked at Graleex. “Take me to the lab. We don't have any time to waste.”