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  “Oh, nothing. What are you planning, conspiring with the enemy?” The Boss asked angrily.

  “Dad! They’re not bad! I used to know one of them!” Spencer yelled. Spencer covered his mouth once more.

  “You . . . what?” The Boss whispered dangerously. “You used to know one of them?”

  “Yeah, Nick,” he sighed. “From the war you sent me to so you could ‘toughen me up.’ Why did you pull me out so abruptly? Nick thought I had died!”

  “It got too dangerous. Plus, in my line of work, you’d have to go into hiding anyway,” The Boss exclaimed.

  “Well, that’s stupid! I bet you don’t even care about me! I bet you just took me out, so you could get me started on my Powers, so I could hurt people like you do. I am tired of you doing things just to benefit you! You don’t love me. You wouldn’t do anything for me!” Spencer yelled. He stormed away, leaving The Boss speechless and angry.

  Once everyone was ready to go, Oliver gathered them and stood at the front.

  “Guys, it’s time to fight monsters! I assume we’ll need to split up and go to different areas. They couldn’t have gotten far, but we still need to split up just in case,” he announced. “I will pair you all up strategically. Nick with Darla. Mason and Avery. Jessica and Ondrea. Rachel and Spencer. Teddy and Will.

  “Jason will need to get to the school because that’s where we’re going to meet. Damian and I will be going together. The Boss will be left to his own devices.”

  “What! No!” The Boss yelled, flying toward Oliver. “I can’t do this on my own! It’s why I asked for help!”

  Oliver took a few steps back as The Boss got closer. Spencer grabbed The Boss’s arm and stopped him.

  “All right, look,” Oliver said. “You can take my phone. Just call anyone of them if you need help, and NO WALKING US INTO TRAPS!”

  “Fine,” The Boss said with a huff, accepting the phone.

  “Good. Now, any objections? There shouldn’t be, because I paired you appropriately,” Oliver said. No one objected. “All right guys, let’s talk direction!”

  Oliver turned to face the entrance of the dome. “Darla and Nick, Mason and Avery, you guys will go northwest of where I am facing and check for monsters. Jessica and Ondrea, Rachel and Spencer, you guys will head right in front of me and continue that way. Teddy and Will, Damian and I, we will go northeast. Jason will need to get to the school, which is a couple miles straight ahead. We will look for five hours, then everyone heads back to the school.”

  “Wait, why does this boy have to go to the school?” The Boss questioned, pointing to Jason.

  “Plagued with Dark Magic,” Jason answered sadly.

  “I can fix that,” The Boss replied. Suddenly, The Boss shot black lighting out of his hands and sent electricity through Jason.

  “Whoa!” Mason yelled, sprinting to help his brother.

  Spencer held him back. “Relax, he knows what he’s doing,” Spencer assured him.

  The lightning stopped, and Jason smiled. He felt better than he had ever felt. He gave a little laugh. “It’s gone!” he laughed happily. “Thank you!”

  “You sure?” Mason asked, a smile forming on his face.

  Jason stuck out his finger, spraying Mason in the face with a light jet stream of cold water. He waited a second. Nothing. “Yep, it is most definitely gone,” he said, smiling very smugly.

  “Thank goodness!” Darla exclaimed. “Now you can finally pitch in a little,” Darla smiled jokingly. Spencer began to get impatient. Oliver saw this.

  “All right, Jason, go with Mason and Avery. We’ve got to hurry! Let’s go!” Oliver urged. Everyone went their different ways.

  TWENTY-NINE

  In Which The Gang Comes Back Together

  After a long time of Mason using his Wind Power to fly, Avery Flying, Jason using his Fire as jets, Darla using her Fire as jets, and Nick being carried by Avery, the gang finally saw their first monster.

  They stopped and landed, just in case it had amazing vision. It looked as if it had two heads and small spikes all over its body.

  “We need to think about this logically,” Nick said. “This is a creature of Dark Magic. It could have some long-lasting effects on us, like Luke’s Magic had on Jason.”

  “That had better not be the case,” Darla said with a sigh. “I really don’t want anyone going through that again.”

  “I’m not worried. We’re a pretty good group, you know,” Mason said, smiling.

  “I am really eager to whip out my Powers again,” Jason added.

  “I’m a dragon. I’m pretty sure I can take it,” Avery said, laughing wickedly.

  “Since this is our first monster, we need to take it carefully,” Nick demanded sternly.

  “I have Invisibility in case you knuckleheads have forgotten, so maybe I can walk up there and get a closer look,” Darla reminded them, already heading toward the monster.

  “Maybe you can, but you need to be careful. For all we know, this thing is heat resistant,” Nick warned, voice slowly getting louder.

  As Darla got closer, she began to see shiny flakes covering its exposed skin. She wondered if it were a shield of some kind. She got a little closer, her breath shaking slightly. Then, with one misstep, she put her weight on a twig. It cracked. The beast turned its head quickly in Darla’s direction.

  Nick and the others saw it happen from where they were sitting. Nick’s heart skipped a beat. The beast walked over to the twig and towered directly over Darla. She kept perfectly still. The creature opened its large mouth to reveal sharp teeth as big as Darla’s head. Jason, from behind the tree a few meters away, shot a firm and perfectly aimed jet of water at the monster’s torso. The monster looked up, its mouth still open—and that’s when Darla struck. She used her Super Heat Power to blast purple fire into its mouth, scorching it.

  The monster began to cry and whine, not being able to shut its mouth. Nick felt bad for it. Mason blew a subtle Wind across the beast, calming it. Jason used his Water Element to spray the mouth of the beast to ease its pain.

  “I don’t know what to do!” Nick yelled. “We can’t kill it! Something might happen. The only thing I can do is kill it. The only thing . . . I can do is . . . kill.”

  “And Heal!” Darla added in quickly.

  “Maybe you can try to modify your Energizer and Power Steal,” Jason suggested.

  “Maybe,” Nick mumbled.

  “Guys, this monster isn’t going to be calm for much longer!” Darla yelled.

  “LIGHT BULB!” Mason screeched happily.

  “Mason! What? What is it?” Jason questioned, annoyed.

  “Come here, dude!”

  Jason walked over, and Mason began whispering his plan into Jason’s ear.

  “That is perfect,” Jason said with a nod.

  Jason spread his arms out and spread his fingers open. Water spewed out of him and fell over the creature. Mason sent a freezing cold Wind toward the water and instantly froze the water around the creature.

  “Preserving it. Nice!” Darla called from her spot.

  Jason and Mason both stumbled, but Nick was already there. He caught their arms and pulled them up.

  “That was clever and smart. I’ll help you guys work on energy-saving techniques when this is all done. My dad taught me about a month ago,” Nick said, flowing energy into the twins.

  They both felt reenergized within seconds. “Thanks,” they both muttered.

  “It’s been an hour!” Darla exclaimed. “We need to kick more butt!”

  “All right, but let’s also start making our way back,” Nick said.

  29.2

  Jess, Ondrea, Rachel, and Spencer all went north, just like Oliver had instructed them. Within the first hour, they had already fought eighteen tiny monsters and three big ones. Or, as Spencer explained, eighteen Disparagasauruses, and three Consternateus lizards. Rachel Morphed into huge beasts and fought until the monsters collapsed from exhaustion, then transported them bac
k to the dome.

  The Boss had reinstalled the doors and had begun to survey the perimeter of the dome for any small creatures. They had started heading back: Spencer flying using Dark Magic jets, Rachel Morphing into her phoenix form, Jessica carried by Rachel, and Ondrea Levitating far below them.

  Suddenly, Ondrea screamed. Spencer had been so focused on getting back, that he was startled when a huge dinosaur stepped in front of him, almost squashing Ondrea. Rachel bit his arm, which snapped him back into reality and caused him to stop—just two seconds away from flying into the mouth of a dinosaur. Another one. Then another.

  Spencer freaked out, causing his jets of Dark Magic to stop, and he began falling to the ground. The dinosaur couldn’t see him and almost stepped on him. But Ondrea used her Molecular Kinesis to stop the dinosaur’s foot.

  “Move, stupid!” she yelled at Spencer, straining to hold the monster’s foot. Spencer scrambled up and limped very slightly to catch his breath behind a tree. He didn’t need Super Sense to know that was going to hurt for a while.

  Ondrea followed him to the tree but stopped as she spotted Jessica and Rachel swerving to avoid the giant dinosaur’s flailing head. Spencer saw this, too. He conjured up a harmless cloud of Dark Magic and moved it in front of the dinosaur’s eyes. With the dinosaur’s vision temporarily paralyzed, Rachel saw her chance and flew down. Jessica hopped off the giant phoenix before Rachel Morphed back.

  “Do you want me to take these dinosaurs?” Rachel asked, breathing hard.

  “No, you’ve been Morphing way too much. You’re exhausted. We need to take these two on our own,” Spencer said, nodding to the others.

  “Yeah, we can do that,” Jessica muttered.

  “We can,” Ondrea repeated firmly.

  “We should hurry while they are still blinded,” Jessica said smartly.

  “Yeah, of course,” Spencer agreed.

  But Spencer was really unsure of what to do. He couldn’t come up with anything.

  “It’s like Super’s block!” he thought. “What do I do? How do we defeat these stupid things without Rachel?”

  He turned to ask the rest of the team. “All right, guys. Any ideas?”

  “We could just fly up, kick its butt, then kick the other one’s butt,” Ondrea suggested.

  “I can’t fly without using my Dark Magic—but I’ll need that when I’m in the air for fighting. Ondrea, you don’t have the Power of Flight, and Jess, neither do you,” Spencer sighed.

  “Ondrea has Super Speed. Maybe she can make a vortex around the dinosaurs and confuse them,” Jessica offered.

  “Yes, but then what will we do with them?” Spencer asked.

  Suddenly, Spencer felt something in the very back of his mind. His head snapped toward the beasts, and he realized the clouds were disappearing. Both dinosaurs shook their heads, and the last of the clouds disappeared. The eyes of both were blood red and enraged.

  “Laser Dinos! That’s what they’re called!” Spencer realized just as Lasers shot from their eyes, burning a hole through his shoe. He grimaced in pain, refusing to call out. He knew it had been a misfire.

  “Guys. Stay calm. They use their hearing to detect a threat. They’re blind,” he whispered, now realizing that trying to blind them with Dark Magic had actually been useless.

  Jessica was now at his side. Spencer smelled something alarming and looked down toward the smell. Red fluid was flowing out of the burnt hole in his shoe. Blood. I can’t do blood.

  “No!” He yelled, feeling light-headed. Four lasers shot toward his head, and he closed his eyes. Spencer heard the lasers hit their target, but he was still alive. He opened his eyes to see Jessica shielding him with her Force Field.

  “Can you blind them again?” Ondrea called from behind the Force Field.

  “No! They’re already blind. Plus, once they get enraged and their eyes go red, they Power up!” Spencer yelled.

  “We could really use some help right about now!” Jessica screamed, hoping to activate Oliver’s Super Sense.

  Instead, different help came. Fire shot out of nowhere, right at the head of one of the dinosaurs. A rock smashed into the other’s.

  “Here come the Super twins!” Mason shouted, Wind-jetting in.

  “Hey what about us?” Avery called, swooping in with Nick hanging onto her hands.

  “Yeah, and me!” Darla yelled, Fire-jetting in.

  Spencer gave a little smile before he limped shakily towards the tree Rachel was hiding behind. Rachel stared at him questioningly and was about to ask him what he was doing when she saw his shoe, now stained with blood. After Spencer sat down and put his face in his hands and his hands on his knees, Rachel bent down and attempted to take his shoe off. Everyone else was really busy taking out the giant dinosaurs. Spencer flinched involuntarily and slowly lifted his head.

  “I’m trying to take off your shoe. Could you stop being a big baby and let me?” she demanded.

  “Be my guest,” he mumbled, barely audible.

  Rachel carefully slipped off his shoe—and then cringed. There was a small, but deep hole that appeared burned around the edges. Blood was flowing freely from the hole. She almost puked when she saw that his shoe was a swimming pool of blood.

  “He might need that shoe back,” she thought. “But he’s not getting it. It’s gone.”

  She looked toward the others for help, but they were busy—and things were getting heated in the dinosaur battle. One dinosaur had Nick tangled up in its mighty claws, and Nick was narrowly avoiding being skewered by three feet of razor-sharp metal. Jessica was trapped under the other dinosaur, shielding Darla and Jason. Mason was yelling at both of the dinosaurs and occasionally chucking boulders at their heads, using his Earth Power. Avery was flying around the dinosaurs, creating a wall of flames around them, and Ondrea was screaming at her to stop, fearing she might burn everyone else.

  Rachel couldn’t take it much longer. Absent-mindedly, she took off one of her socks and wrapped it around the foot of a groaning Spencer, then changed form. She Morphed into a creature she had never turned into before.

  “Listen, you filthy, awful, and horrible little beasts!” she roared at the monsters. “You will stop hurting my friends and let us do what’s best for you, before I tear off your limbs and feed them to you. Besides, you would probably like that!”

  The monsters looked at her with fear and anger. Soon, their fear overcame the anger and they dropped Nick while he was nearly a hundred feet from the ground. Nick didn’t know what to do, so he began screaming. He was about twenty feet from splatting onto the ground when someone caught him and put him down gently.

  “Gottcha, cuz’!” Oliver shouted, happy to have gotten there on time.

  Nick happily threw his arms around Oliver. “How did you know?” Nick asked, his voice shaking.

  “Jess decided to turn up the Super Sense,” Oliver responded. “Speaking of, where is she?”

  Oliver was gawking at all the chaos around him when Nick pointed to the now cracked Force Field.

  “Oh man!” Oliver zoomed over to give her a hand.

  Nick looked around. Now, everyone was here. Teddy, Will, and Damian had joined the fight. He looked around once more and ran through everyone’s names in his head: Oliver, Jess, Darla, Ondrea, Will, Teddy, Damian, Jason, Mason, Avery, and the giant thing that is Rachel. But wait, where was Spencer?

  Nick began to panic and worry for his friend. He looked around for a third time, but much more thoroughly than before. At last he saw Spencer’s platinum blond hair poking out from behind a tall tree. He bounded over to him, using his own Super Strength to Power his jumps. An instant later, he was there. Nick gasped when he saw the blood trickling from Spencer’s foot. Nick cringed. He yelled for Jason, who was waiting for Mason to quit taunting the dinosaurs. Jason shrugged and jetted toward Nick using his Water Power. When Jason saw the blood trickling out from behind the tree, he stopped short.

  “Keep on coming,” Nick called impatiently.
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  Jason reluctantly released his Water jets and cautiously began walking forward. On his way, he washed the blood from the ground.

  “I need you to carefully spray Spencer’s foot with your Water stream,” Nick commanded.

  Jason held out a finger and gently sprayed the wound. The blood began trickling out again, but the wound was cleaner and more visible.

  “Oh! Ow. Laser burn,” Jason observed, swallowing.

  “Yeah. I’m trying out a new technique of Healing. Want to see it?” Nick wondered, really excited.

  “Uh, sure,” Jason responded.

  Nick put his finger on the edge of the open wound and slowly moved his finger in a spiral around the hole until he reached the middle. New skin reappeared, following his finger.

  “That was very . . . interesting and cool,” Jason commented.

  “I’m just glad it worked. That would have been embarrassing,” Nick sighed.

  Jason turned around to see Rachel shooting sunset-colored flames at the dinosaurs, keeping them at bay. Everyone else was off to the side, looking for ways to help.

  “At least Mason quit yelling at them,” Jason thought. He looked along the line of people. But wait, where was Mason? He swiftly walked out from behind the tree and over to his friends.

  “Guys, where is my brother?” Jason asked. Teddy glanced around. Darla was about to begin calling out for him when Damian stopped her. He gestured to the horribly enraged creatures Rachel was keeping at bay, and then he noticed. Jason saw Damian face-palm and shake his head. Teddy, Will, Darla, and Jessica noticed this action as they were the closest to him and looked in the direction of Rachel. Their eyes widened. Jason decided he’d had enough and walked up to Will.

  “What is going on?” Jason asked.

  “You’re looking for Mason, yeah? Well, look at Rachel,” Will responded, whispering.

  He turned toward Rachel and found himself staring at Mason riding on Rachel’s back while she was in her beastly form. Oh no.

  “If he makes a sound . . . ” Avery whispered.

  “Yeah, it’s over,” Darla finished.

  “Hey, don’t say that. I’m sure he’s smart enough to not make a sound,” Teddy added.