The Superhero's Summit

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

I shook Strike's hand—who had a surprisingly strong grip—and said, “The New Heroes? I've never heard of you before.”

“I have,” said Treehugger, though it was a little too quickly for my tastes. She was looking at Strike like she was almost afraid of him, which seemed strange because he seemed friendly enough to me. “They're the young neohero team for the Independent Neoheroes for Justice.”

“Right,” said Strike. “We're not as famous as you guys, but we've got more than a few accomplishments under our belt.”

“A few?” said Treehugger. She sounded almost like a fan girl now. “You guys beat Tsunami. Even Omega Man had trouble against him.”

Strike shrugged. “What can I say? It was a tough battle, but we won through ingenuity, teamwork, and science.”

I didn't know the details about this battle with Tsunami (a name I was only vaguely familiar with, though I knew he was a supervillain with water powers and not much else), so I just said, “Well, thanks for saving us anyway. We were having a lot of trouble against Enor.”

“Yeah, size-changers are always hard,” said Strike. “Reminds me of the team we fought the Ants, a team of supervillains who could shrink. A lot more annoying than it sounds.”

“Right,” I said. “But what are you doing here in New York? The INJ is based on California. That's the other other side of the country.”

“We wanted to meet you in person, of course,” said Strike, nodding at me. “We've heard all about how you beat Master Chaos and exposed Vision, so we just wanted to meet the man Bolt himself.”

Although Strike spoke in a friendly voice, I could tell that he had another reason for being here but for some reason wasn't saying it. I figured that Treehugger's presence was what was keeping him from being entirely honest, so I looked at Treehugger and said, “Treehugger, can you go and round up the others? Now that Enor is down, we'll need to return to the House soon.”

Treehugger—who seemed mesmerized by Strike's good looks—suddenly shook her head and said, “Oh, yeah. Sure thing, Bolt. Be back in a bit!”

Treehugger dashed off, though not without looking at Strike one last time over her shoulder. I watched her go for a moment before looking at Strike again. “Okay, so what's your real reason for being here? I know you didn't come all the way from California just to meet me.”

Strike looked taken aback by my questions, which made me think that I might have overstepped, but before Strike could answer, the blob that had caught Enor rolled over to us. It smelled awful, like sewage water, forcing me to cover my nose before it stopped a few feet from us and started to change shape.

In a second, the blob had been replaced by a teenaged kid, probably about fifteen or so, who had sickly green skin and wore a black uniform just like Strike's, except without the cape or goggles. He was slouching slightly and his skin seemed to be constantly generating that slime, which made me step away from him involuntarily.

“Hey, Strike,” said the green-skinned teenager, who I remembered was called Slime. He sounded bored. “We beat the giant. Are we going home now?” He shivered. “New York's too cold for me.”

“Not yet, Slime,” said Strike. Then he looked at me again. “Bolt, this is Slime, my second-in-command and a member of the New Heroes. And Slime, this is Bolt.”

“Bolt?” Slime repeated. He looked at me curiously. He held out a hand that was dripping slime. “Nice to meet you. I saw the video where you and your dad fought Master Chaos. It was cool.”

I didn't want to shake Slime's hand, mostly because I wasn't sure how healthy his slime was, but I also didn't want to offend him unnecessarily, so I took his very slippery and disgusting hand and shook it as I said, as politely as I could, “Thanks. Yeah, it was cool, but hard, too. Master Chaos definitely lived up to his reputation.”

I quickly stopped shaking hands with Slime. Now goop was dripping off my own hand. It didn't seem toxic or anything, but I did feel ill just looking at it.

“You can wipe it off if you want,” said Slime. “I won't be offended.”

“Uh, thanks,” I said, though I wasn't sure if I wanted to get it on my suit, so I just shook as much of it off my hand as possible. “So you have slime powers, then.”

“Yeah,” said Slime, nodding. He didn't sound embarrassed about it at all. He gestured at his body. “My entire body is made of this stuff. I can change into almost any shape I want. I can also stick to surfaces, catch criminals, and carry things in side me. See?”

A smartphone pushed out of Slime's hands for a moment before going back in. I wondered how he could possibly use a smartphone, considering how slimy his hands were, but I decided not to ask that question.

“And don't worry,” said Strike, patting Slime on the shoulder, “his goop isn't poisonous or toxic, though you should avoid eating the stuff if you don't want to lose all your teeth.”

I was about to ask how they knew that would happen when I smelled ozone in the air. The next second, three flashes of light shot down from the rooftop of the nearest building and landed beside us. I raised my hand to protect my eyes from the flashes until they faded.

When I lowered my hand, I saw three kids standing there. They looked like triplets, with identical faces, hair, and heights, though each one had their hair done in a different style. Their uniforms, although similar in style to Strike's, were yellow, purple, and white, which reminded me of lightning. They couldn't have been older than fourteen at most and they seemed to be brothers.

“Hello,” said one of the triplets, waving at me so fast that his hand was a blur. He spoke fast, too, almost too fast for me to follow. “You are Bolt, yes? We are the Lightning Triplets, Volt, Watt, and Lumen. I know we all look very similar, but I can assure you that we are indeed triplets and not clones, as so many people seem to think we are. Our powers stretch across the electrical spectrum, so we can do things like control electricity-powered devices, shoot lightning, and even control thunderstorms sometimes, but that last is hard because when it is raining and windy that makes it hard to concentrate. Still, we always do our best and have helped the New Heroes win many battles. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Volt said all of that in less than a second. At least that was what it seemed like, because he spoke so fast that I could barely keep up.

But I nodded anyway and said, “Hey, I've heard of you guys before. I thought you weren't part of a superhero team, though.”

Volt opened his mouth, probably to give me another long but quick explanation, but Strike held up a hand and said, “They joined a few months back. Right, guys?”

“Correct, Strike,” said Volt, who I could tell was going to give another lengthy speech. “The circumstances under which we joined the New Heroes was—”

“We can talk about that later,” said a feminine voice from nearby. “Or Bolt can just look up your history on Neo Ranks, since you can find out everything about us there.”

I looked over in the direction that the voice had come. The girl I noticed earlier, the one who had caused Enor to become confused, was walking toward us. With that weird helmet on her head, it was impossible to see what her face looked like.

“What's your name?” I said as the girl approached.

“Call me Dizzy,” said the girl, before Strike or the others could respond. She didn't hold out a hand to shake. “You're Bolt, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “What kind of powers do you have?”

“I can make people disoriented,” said Dizzy. She gestured at Enor, who still lay on the street unconscious. “It isn't the flashiest ability, but it's useful in combat, as you just saw.”

“Is this the whole team?” I said, looking at the assembled New Heroes. “Or is there someone else missing?”

“This is it,” said Strike. He folded his arms over his chest, taking up a pose that, to me, look quite practiced. “We're a six-man team, just like you guys. By the way, where is the rest of the team?”

I looked over my shoulder. Treehugger and Talon were trying to help free Blizzard, who was still frozen to that person's car (and now the car's owner was standing nearby, ranting about how they were going to have to pay for the damage done to his car by Blizzard's ice). Stinger was nowhere to be seen and Shell was still on his back and unable to get up.

I looked back at Strike and the New Heroes. “Er, they're a bit busy recovering from the fight.” I tried not to look embarrassed when I said that.

Strike, thankfully, seemed to catch my drift, because he said, “Okay. Well, I wanted to talk with you before we left.”

“Talk about what?” I said.

“About teaming up,” said Strike. “Like, forming an alliance between the Young Neos and the New Heroes.”

“An alliance?” I said. I looked at Strike suspiciously. “Why?”

Strike didn't seem to notice my suspicious tone, because he just said, “Because I've been meaning to extend this offer to the Young Neos for a while now, but Incantation was a bit of a … well, you know, and that was before I found out she was a member of Vision.”

I nodded. Incantation had been the previous leader of the Young Neos. She had also been a disciple of the Vision cult and had tried to murder me when I refused to join it. Her current whereabouts were unknown, but I was just glad she hadn't tried to kill me recently. I didn't exactly have very fond memories of her, to put it lightly.

“So I was hoping that we could form an alliance between our teams,” said Strike. “For mutual aid. So if, for example, you guys needed help against some powerful villain, you could call us over to help, and vice versa.”

I glanced at Enor. “You mean like we did just now?”

“Yeah,” said Strike. “But don't worry. I wouldn't, you know, boss you around or anything. We'd be equals.”

Strike seemed sincere, but I was a little annoyed at how easily the New Heroes had taken out Enor. Yeah, it was nice that they defeated him before he could cause too much damage, but I was starting to notice people on the streets and in the buildings looking at us, which meant that people had seen us get beaten by Enor. It made me feel embarrassed and pathetic, mostly because I figured there were going to be a million pictures and videos about this all over the Internet soon, if there weren't already.

And if forming an alliance with the New Heroes would result in more embarrassing saves like this, then I wasn't so sure I wanted it. But I didn't say that aloud because I knew it would look like sour grapes if I did.

Instead, I said, “How can we work together if you guys work under the INJ and we work under the NHA? It's not like we're part of the same organization, after all.”

“The Midnight Menace already gave us permission to speak with you about this,” said Strike. “Of course, it won't be official until the NHA approves. And that won't be until the Neohero Summit, which is about a month away now.”

I nodded again. The Neohero Summit was a yearly event in New York that drew neoheroes from all over the country and world together to talk about recent developments in the word that affected the neohero community, among other things. This year's Summit would be my first, since it was going to take place on Hero Island, which was the headquarters of the Neohero Alliance and the Young Neos.

Still, that didn't change how I felt about what Strike just did. Strike just felt a little too perfect to me. I doubted he was really a supervillain in disguise or anything, but there was something about his hair and his smile that put me off. Maybe it was the fact that he hung out with a literal blob monster or maybe it was just how he and his team beat Enor so easily.

“But you could talk to the NHA leadership about this,” said Strike. “I know that the NHA and the INJ don't exactly have a stellar history together, but this could be a way for the two organizations to put aside our differences and work for greater justice.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

Strike leaned closer to me, like he was telling me a secret. “Think about it. We're the next generation of heroes. The relationships we form now will define our futures. I imagine that you and I, in particular, will end up in important positions in our respective organizations when we're older.”

I had never thought about that. Yes, I had planned to join the NHA once I turned eighteen, but I wasn't thinking about becoming leader or anything like that. But when I thought about it, I found that I liked the idea of being a member of the Leadership Council. Not only that, but I had also been told that most Young Neo leaders usually went on to play important roles in the NHA, so there was a good chance I might get on the Leadership Council as long as I stayed in the Young Neos.

But I just didn't like Strike. He seemed too perfect, too nice, too … well, you know. I didn't suffer from low self-esteem, but I had to admit that his very presence made me feel inadequate. I couldn't explain it.

So I said, “I guess that's not a bad idea, but I'm not sure about it yet. We just met, after all, and I need to run this idea by the Leadership Council anyway, since they'd have to approve of it before we did anything.”

Strike looked disappointed for a second before smiling and saying, “Oh, I understand. Like I said, nothing official will happen until the Summit. That's when our leaders will determine whether or not our organizations will work together. That's plenty of time to think about it.”

Strike sounded optimistic that we'd be working together at some point, which kind of annoyed me.

But I nodded anyway and said, “Sure, yeah, I get it. Working together is often better than working separately, after all.”

“Glad you agree,” said Strike, flashing another white-toothed grin at me. “Now, if you'll excuse us, we have to leave. We've got some other business here in New York to deal with before we head back to California. See you at the Summit.”

With that, the New Heroes started to leave. The Lightning Triplets turned into lightning and zapped away, while Dizzy got on Strike's metal board and flew off with him. As for Slime, he just turned into a blob and sank into the cracks in the street, leaving me standing here all alone as I watched Strike and Dizzy fly away.