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  “GUYS!” Nick screamed.

  “Dude, what is it?” Avery asked wearily.

  “The big ball of wind is expanding really fast!” he warned.

  Everyone looked over at the ball as it expanded further and further outward, growing two inches per second. Teddy grabbed Avery and Super-Sped away, Ondrea grabbed Jason and Will and fled the scene, and Jessica grabbed Darla and Super-Sped toward the playground. Nick had just begun running toward the playground when the wind started pulling him in.

  “Dang it, dang it, dang it,” he muttered. “Aw shoot.” The wind ball sucked him in.

  20.3

  Mason had made it to the center and was horribly worn out when he felt someone grab his arm and almost pull him out of the center. He looked over and was surprised to see a very cut-up-looking Oliver. Mason felt Oliver’s grip slipping, so he slapped his hand over Oliver’s and pulled him into the center.

  Mason then felt someone grab his right shoulder. The hand was slipping, but Mason whipped his arm back and caught it. He pulled the person into the center with him and looked to his right to see Nick. Nick’s face was red, and the wind was suffocating him. Quickly, Mason bent the air around Nick’s mouth to clear an area for him to breath. He took a breath and began to speak.

  “I thought you had died!” Nick exclaimed.

  “You really think I would jump into this ball of wind without a plan?” Mason asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m actually really dizzy and suddenly kind of tired,” he responded.

  “Yeah, yeah. All you need to do is breathe, Nick,” Mason advised.

  “Are you planning on stopping this thing?” Nick asked worriedly.

  “Yeah,” he responded excitedly.

  “Oh, boy. You need to do it fast, because when I got sucked into this thing, it was expanding like two inches every second!” Nick yelled.

  All the adrenaline Nick had been feeling caused his Power to spike. His energy left him and transferred into Mason, who was weak with exhaustion. Mason felt the huge rush of Power. His entire body went numb, and all he could feel was the Power flowing through him. Oliver’s cuts were glowing, and his eyes were wide.

  “I need to stop this thing!” Mason whispered. Oliver squeezed his hand really hard in an attempt to get Mason’s attention. Oliver then gestured over to the right of Mason where a nearly unconscious Nick was slipping from his grip. Mason tightened his grip on both Oliver and Nick, then focused his new strength on dissipating the wind around them. He was careful to start from the outside going in. Oliver began to help because he knew that holding so much of Nick’s energy was bad for his Power structure.

  After three minutes the wind was gone, causing Mason, Oliver, Nick, and everyone else to tumble to the Earth below; the wind ball had almost completely destroyed the ground underneath the school.

  Using quick thinking, Oliver grabbed Mason and Nick by their arms and flew up. Mason, still on an adrenaline rush, used his quick thinking to pull soft grassy earth from below to catch everyone before they hit the ground. Oliver flew Nick and Mason up to the nearest undamaged ground, which was the side of the school, and dropped them off. Oliver then softly landed beside the two.

  “Well, thanks,” Mason said, his adrenaline beginning to wear off.

  Nick shook as he began to stand. He had barely taken one step before he fell to the ground once more. Mason and Oliver walked over to him and helped him get back to the playground with the others.

  20.4

  Jessica and the others had been on the playground for about five minutes before Jason noticed something concerning.

  “Guys, where is that Nick kid?” he asked nervously.

  Everyone looked around. “No, not him too,” Ondrea sighed.

  “Wherever he is, I’m sure he will be okay. Oliver and Mason are alive. I’m sure Nick is too,” Jessica assured them.

  Time passed. “I’m beginning to get worried,” Will stated.

  “Beginning! You’ve been panicking this whole freaking time,” Darla snapped.

  Teddy came running up to the group. “Guys! The wind ball is gone. Someone got rid of it!” he panted. “Someone said all the people who were inside fell to the Earth, but apparently got caught by this soft, green patch of grass. It’s crazy. They saw three people fly around to the side of the school.”

  “Mason!” Jason yelled.

  “Oliver, Nick!” Jessica exclaimed.

  “Let’s go to the side of the school!” Ondrea called from the playground entrance. Everyone followed. Minutes later, however, they caught sight of three people huddled together walking really slowly.

  “Guys?” Darla shouted. The three figures looked up and one of them broke loose, causing the other one to drop whomever they were holding and sit on the ground.

  20.5

  “Mason! I know you’re excited to see them, but you just dropped Nick!” Oliver shouted.

  “No! You did!” he called back, laughing joyously.

  “Jess!” Oliver yelled from his place sitting on the ground.

  “What happened?” she asked as she was running over to greet her brother and cousin.

  “A lot,” Nick whispered.

  Jessica knelt down beside Nick and reached for Oliver’s hand. Once she took it, she put her other hand on Nick’s shoulder and closed her eyes. A few seconds later, she opened them.

  “I see what you two have been through and . . . wow!” Jessica said loudly. Everyone else, along with Mason and Jason, had come running over to see what was going on. Mason crouched beside Nick and helped him into a sitting position against the wall of the school.

  “Guys what happened here?” Will questioned.

  “I think Nick had a random energy burst,” Oliver explained.

  “An energy burst?” Mason asked, “More like an energy drain.”

  “His adrenaline got the better of him and sparked his Energy Transference Power,” Jessica said.

  “Whoa! How did you know that?” Mason wondered.

  “It’s one of her newly developed Powers, Scar Reading. It’s a weird thing and I don’t think anyone else has it, either,” Teddy exclaimed.

  “Great, another cool person with another rare Power. Then there’s me,” Darla whined.

  “Why does this always happen?” Will sighed.

  “Why does what always happen?” Ondrea asked.

  “When something serious is happening, and we go off topic,” he answered.

  “I don’t know why that happens, but you’re right,” Rachel piped up, walking up to everyone.

  “I thought you and Avery were never going to be done Transporting all those people back up here,” Jason grumbled.

  “Why are you still upset, bro?” Mason questioned.

  Jason gestured to Nick who was trying to get up again.

  “Oh, no, buddy, you stay down,” Mason stated.

  “I’ve rested. I’ll be fine,” Nick insisted. Nick pushed himself up slowly, clearly still tired, and leaned up against the wall with his hands in his pockets. “Rachel, where’s Avery?” he asked.

  “Here,” Avery whispered from beside him with her dragon wings extended.

  Nick jumped in surprise, his weakened legs causing him to stumble. “Be careful!” Avery demanded.

  “Gee, thanks,” he retorted.

  Just then, an announcement rang out: “IT’S TIME TO GO HOME. HALF THE SCHOOL IS TOTALLY ANNIHILATED. NO CLASSES WILL BE HELD. THANK YOU.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  In Which A Dare Is Made That Saves Lives

  I can’t believe it’s only been two days since that whole wind ball thing.” Mason exclaimed, talking to Jason at their home. “How are you recovering?” Jason questioned, sitting on his bed, reading a book.

  “I’m actually doing fine. Nick’s huge energy burst really helped me out. I called Oliver and asked how he, Jess, and Nick are doing. Oliver said Nick is still asleep, but he and Jess are doing fine,” Mason explained. “How about you?”

  “Well, I h
ave had enough action for about a week. I told you we could be battling untold evils!” Jason yelled.

  “Yeah, yeah. Is that why you’re still reading books instead of testing your Power for real?” Mason teased. “You know, our new friends probably think you’re lame like everyone else.”

  Jason closed his book, not even marking the page, and looked at Mason right in the eyes. “Do you?” he asked. “Do you think I’m lame?”

  “I mean, sometimes. Like right now, sitting there and reading a book,” Mason said.

  “It is called book learning,” Jason stated simply.

  “It’s called boring,” Mason countered.

  “You know what? If you’ll try reading a book, I’ll go out and actually use my Powers,” Jason challenged.

  “Fine! What book do I read?” Mason asked. He always loved a challenge and couldn’t resist the urge to accept.

  “Read this one: The Benefits of a Cool Power,” Jason suggested, throwing it at him.

  Jason then hopped off his bed and walked to the door. Mason sighed and began reading the book.

  21.2

  Jason had only activated his Power once, and that was on his tenth birthday. It had gone out of control, and from that day on, he had never used it again until now. He began reading about how to control it, but he never got the muscle memory down.

  Now, he wanted to use a concentrated beam of lava to burn a hole in a tree, so he focused on an image of a pencil in his head. That’s how thin he wanted the beam to be. Then he focused on the sun and its temperature. Jason pointed his finger at the tree and fired. A bright blue beam of what looked like pure light shot out of his finger, and an instant later, there was a smoking hole in the tree.

  “Whoa,” he whispered.

  Suddenly, the upstairs window opened.

  “Dude! That was so bright! And this is SO boring!” Mason yelled.

  “Yeah, well get over it, would you?” Jason shouted back. He was about to tell Mason to bug off when he noticed something strange and alarming. The front door was open.

  “Hey, Mason, the door is open!” Jason called, eyeing the door. His eyes flickered toward the window and saw Mason wasn’t there. “Oh, no,” Jason murmured.

  Jason was thinking about all the things that might have gone wrong as he sprinted through the door and into the house. Then something caught his eye—flash powder. When someone ignites this powder, it emits a blinding, soundless flash.

  “So that wasn’t my Power,” he thought. Jason continued racing toward their room noting dents in the wooden stairs that were oddly foot-shaped. He got to the door and yanked on it, but it was locked. Jason heard a muffled voice, so he put his head up to the door to listen better.

  “This is for being such a weakling a few days ago!” a voice taunted.

  “What makes you think I’m a weakling?” Mason responded, almost sounding offended.

  “The way that I broke your stupid leg and you never even put up a fight!” the voice said again.

  Oh, no—it was Luke, Jason realized, suddenly furious. There was a pause in the dialogue between the two, as Mason realized Luke thought he was Jason.

  “The Boss wants you alive, but he didn’t say anything about unharmed,” Luke growled. There was a loud bang on the wall beside the door, and Jason assumed Luke had thrown Mason against the wall.

  “What does The Boss want from Jason?” Mason questioned.

  “What? You refer to yourself in third person, dork?” Luke laughed. “What The Boss wants from you is for us both to find out. I’m taking you—willingly or not.”

  “Yes, I, Jason, refer to myself as in third person, but Jason is not going with you willingly. You’ll have to fight him,” Mason stated awkwardly. The real Jason face-palmed outside the door.

  “Gladly, weirdo,” Luke hissed.

  Jason couldn’t take the fear, anger, and worry anymore. He had to get in, but the door was locked.

  “Okay,” Jason thought. “I could either burn down the door quickly and burn down the house in the process, or I could get in slowly and risk burning . . . wait. Never mind. I have an idea!”

  Jason put his finger on the lock of the door and concentrated on an oven that was getting hotter and hotter. After several seconds, he realized no matter how hot the lock got, for some reason, it wouldn’t melt. “Wait a minute,” he thought, “I’ll add science into the equation.”

  With the lock at molten temperature, Jason focused on Arctic waters and pencils again. A stream of ice-cold water shot out of his finger and hit the lock creating a loud shrieking sound followed by the sound of the lock shattering from the sudden change in temperature.

  Jason kicked the door down and saw that Luke was about to stick something on Mason’s unconscious body. He leapt forward and tackled Luke to the ground.

  “I am Jason!” he yelled, “Leave my twin alone!”

  Mason’s eyes shot open.

  “Of course, you’re not the weakling I remember, but whatever you say, ‘Jason The Twin,’” Luke stated slyly. He smiled and as he slapped a device on the side of Jason’s neck, a dark cloud surrounded the room. The last thing Jason heard before the cloud cleared was, “Have fun putting this out, loser.”

  Then the dark cloud disappeared, and Luke was gone. Jason yelped in pain as the device sunk through his skin and into the flesh of his neck. Mason woke up suddenly due to twin-sense.

  “Dude! That hurt. What did he do to you?” he asked, fully alert.

  “You felt that?” Jason asked weakly.

  “Of course, I did. I’m your twin, idiot,” he replied, crawling over to his brother.

  “I really don’t think it’s important. What’s really important is that the yard is on fire!” Jason stated as smoke trailed into the house from the open window.

  Mason ran to the window and gasped at the sight of black and gray fire coming from the green grass of their yard. He coughed violently and staggered back.

  “That’s bad!” Mason yelled, “We need to get that out before the neighbors see, man!”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got it,” Jason said.

  He walked over to the window and started blasting the yard with crystal-blue ice water, which was doing nothing to put out the fire, when Jason felt a sharp pain followed by an instant sick feeling. Jason keeled over and put his hands behind his neck.

  “Close . . . the . . . window,” he croaked. Although Jason was suddenly in immeasurable pain, he was wary of all the black smoke entering the house and needed Mason to close the window.

  With one flick of his finger, Mason pushed the smoke out of the house and flicked the window shut. A second later, he was at Jason’s side. Some smoke still lingered by the window, so Mason grabbed Jason’s sides and pulled him to the wall at the other side of the room.

  “What happened to you? I wasn’t able to feel it. I felt a tiny pulse in my neck, but that’s it,” Mason blurted out.

  “It felt like a needle pricking me, then I just felt sick all over. It’s getting worse . . . like poison,” Jason muttered, coughing.

  “I know what we have to do,” Mason whispered to himself.

  21.3

  Earlier the same morning . . .

  “OLIVER!” Jessica screamed. “WAKE. UP.” It was two o’clock in the morning.

  “Jess, what is it?” Oliver growled, slowly opening his eyes. Although Oliver was quite groggy, his eyes snapped open when he saw Nick sitting at the edge of his bed.

  “Yo, man! You’re finally awake!” Oliver shouted happily, smiling at Nick.

  The noise brought Mrs. Fletcher to the room. “What’s going on? Do you know what time it is, Oliver? Jess, do you?” Mrs. Fletcher hissed, rubbing her eyes.

  “Yeah, mom,” Oliver answered, “It’s about time . . . time that Nick woke up!”

  “Oh, that’s great dear,” she stated, yawning. Mrs. Fletcher then walked out the door and went back to bed. As soon as she was gone, Nick, Jessica, and Oliver began to snicker.

  “Man, that mu
st’ve been one good Power up I gave you two. I can’t believe it happened yesterday,” Nick sighed.

  “Uh, yesterday? Nick, it’s been two days,” Jessica whispered, trying to hold in a smile.

  “Wow . . . I always have been a heavy sleeper!” Nick exclaimed.

  “Yeah, listen, you two. Nick, I’m happy you’re up and all, but please, Jess, Nick, go back to bed! It’s two in the morning!” Oliver whined, suddenly getting tired again.

  “Fine,” Jessica pouted.

  “Well, I’ll try,” Nick agreed. They left without another word and Oliver fell back to sleep.

  The next day, Nick woke up at half past seven in the morning, so Oliver had nothing to do but hang out with Nick to avoid accidentally waking up Jessica. She just loved sleeping in on days when the school was utterly destroyed and repairing itself slowly.

  Nick really wanted to do something, but Oliver still felt tired from the wind-ball incident. Nick had calmed down some, and at about a quarter past eight said, “You still look pretty tired, Oliver. I want to do something, and it’s clear you still need to sleep. So, do you want to sleep all day while I do something, or what?”

  “Well, I really want to sleep, but it depends on what the ‘something’ you want to do is,” Oliver droned wearily.

  “I was thinking of helping out Mrs. Macintosh or maybe Mrs. Kendal down at the beaten-up school. I know Mrs. Macintosh is still cleaning up the classrooms and she hasn’t gone home since the school was destroyed, but I’m not so sure about Mrs. Kendal. She might be home with Avery and Ondrea. I was thinking maybe I could help out,” Nick explained.

  “That sounds great. Mrs. Macintosh probably needs the help, too. Go ahead, I’ll tell Jessica where you’re going and your plan. Then, I’ll go back to sleep,” Oliver agreed.

  “Sweet! I’ve got to catch the volunteer bus up there, so I’d better change and get going. I’ll shower later,” Nick stated happily, already rushing to his room.

  “Bye!” Oliver called after him.

  Oliver grabbed a sheet of paper, a pen, and wrote: Nick went to the school to help out. I’ve gone back to sleep. Do whatever when you wake up, but nothing important without me! —Oliver.

  Oliver headed back to sleep.