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  “Hey! I got this,” Mason pouted defensively.

  Ondrea just stepped back and put her hands up in a position of surrender. Mason stepped forward toward everyone and blew a mild, but effective blast of Wind down the hall. Everyone stopped running and began looking back to see who did it.

  Mason spoke. “LISTEN! ALL OF YOU ARE GOING TO DIE IF YOU DON’T HEAR WHAT I’M SAYING AND DO IT!” In others schools, that might make everyone panic more, but, not at this school. Everyone stopped and listened. Mason stayed quiet for a few seconds, smiling to himself at the complete and utter silence. Cool.

  “All right. There is a giant, Super-hunting beast called The Universe outside of these slowly burning walls! Since he hunts Supers, it’s our job to get you all as far away from here as possible! Now, in all of your squabbling, you may not have been able to notice the door that is not blocked by rubble!” Mason yelled.

  He began to see people getting ready to bolt out of it, so he continued. “If you do try to leave now, not only will you get eaten, squashed, or mutilated, but you will also die—which I guess is the same as all the others, but that’s not important! Well, it kind of is. You know what, never mind. Just don’t leave. My friends will begin to help you. I’m sure you know a few of them better than you know me, so please trust them. Will is going to start spraying this place down immediately after you exit the building.

  “Ondrea, Jess, Rachel, and Avery will lead you out! DO NOT SEPARATE! When you get outside, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ARE YOU TO USE YOUR POWERS OR MAKE ANY NOISE! When I say ‘now’ everyone spread out to one of the leaders I mentioned—and don’t get left behind.”

  There was some murmuring from the crowd as Mason carefully and very quickly cut out a portion of the titanium roof from right above him. When it was out, he threw it to the side.

  “NOW!” he called into the crowd.

  Immediately after, he leapt through the hole in the roof using his Wind jets and journeyed over to the edge of the cloud. Two minutes later, he spied Ondrea, Avery, Jessica, and Rachel leading groups over to him. Mason peered off the opposite edge of the school and caught a glimpse of Jason talking to Oliver. Jason also caught a glance of his brother and looked at Mason right in the eyes, suddenly silent. Mason turned away just before Oliver looked where Jason’s eyes were, only to see nothing. They went back to conversation.

  By then, Ondrea, Darla, Jessica, and Rachel had made it to Mason, each leading their groups. They said nothing.

  “Will?” Mason mouthed.

  Avery jerked her head toward the school where Will was coming out—sweaty, wet, and tired. He was taking forever to get to Mason, so Avery gave a silent sigh and ran to Will just to run him back to the group. Will opened his mouth to speak, but Darla flicked his ear and put a finger over her mouth, hoping to get the message through to Will. Will closed his mouth and bowed his head.

  Mason walked around tapping everyone on the shoulder and pointing to himself, telling them that it’s time to watch. Once he had everyone’s attention, he gestured to everyone as a group and picked up a rock he had left in his pocket. He then made a walking man with his two fingers and gestured walking onto the rock.

  “I have to be quick about this, or else The Universe will sense it and have enough time to attack us,” Mason thought. He forced an even portion of his Power into the Earth below and pulled up a giant slab of the ground, nearly big enough to fit the school on. Mason smiled as he saw people’s reactions.

  “Benefit of being one of the Twins of Legend,” he thought. “Not like they know that, though.”

  Ondrea, who was smarter than people gave her credit for, raised her hand until everyone was looking at her to get their attention. She gave Mason a tentative and slightly questioning glance as she inched forward to step on the giant rock. Mason nodded and Ondrea stepped forward. The platform didn’t dip even a millimeter. Everyone else followed her.

  Mason was the last to get on, but now The Universe had sensed his Power and had turned to face him.

  “YOLO!” Will shouted. He began to freeze The Universe, coating its fur with ice. When he was finished, The Universe looked like a solid block of ice. Mason quickly hopped onto the rock and began to move it forward at a good speed, slowly gaining more, but keeping it consistent.

  “That was too easy. It won’t hold, I know it. I had to get us out of there,” Mason said to no one in particular. Everyone just nodded. They were all shocked at what was happening—except for Will, Avery, Rachel, Ondrea, and Jessica.

  Ondrea felt bad for all these kids because, as far as the gang knew, they had never experienced anything like this before and were probably a little more freaked out by all of it. She sensed someone watching her. It wasn’t Super Sense, it was more like she just felt someone staring right at her. She turned around and saw Jessica quickly turn away. Ondrea smiled to herself. She waited a minute, then thought, “Dusting up on the Mind Reading, are we Jess?” Ondrea turned back around and saw Jessica smiling at her, looking sort of embarrassed.

  “Hey guys,” Jessica began, addressing everyone in the crowd, “I’d like to say that this situation definitely is scary for some, if not all of you. I’d like for you guys to know that as long as we all stick together and keep moving, everything will be okay. I know I sound like one of those cliché movies, but the message isn’t wrong. Keep your heads up, and I promise we will ALL make it through this.”

  Everyone went back to their business, but a little more relaxed now. Jessica and Ondrea stood near the edge of the rock staring at the passing blurs down below them. Will walked over. “Hey, Jess, that was nice. You know, your speech,” he commented.

  “Thanks. It’s all thanks to Ondrea though,” she exclaimed sincerely.

  Will looked at Ondrea with an eyebrows raised.

  “She read my mind,” Ondrea sighed.

  Will laughed.

  “Well, what? I haven’t heard anyone else’s thoughts in so long! I’ve been so wrapped up in my own!” Jessica cried.

  Avery walked over to Jessica and put a supportive arm around her. “We’re all in this together, so unless we all die in the next few hours, we will be fine,” Avery added.

  “Well, technically, if we all die, we will be fine because we’ll be dead and we won’t be able to feel anything and . . . ” Will droned on.

  “Will! Stop!” Jessica hissed, rolling her eyes.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. Suddenly, Ondrea burst out laughing.

  “What the . . . ” Will murmured.

  “It’s just funny because Will takes everything so literally and jokes about it at the worst times which . . . which is what makes it so funny!” Ondrea laughed, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.

  Will, also, began to laugh really hard. He knew his laugh sounded pretty funny, so, being innovative, he decided to put it to good use.

  “Everyone needs to lighten up. Let’s have a laugh fest!” Will thought.

  Jessica smiled now to see everyone having fun. The rock they stood on had been moving for about two hours by that time, and she was glad everyone could still laugh this off. She reached over and slugged Will as hard as she could in the arm, and Avery lost it. She started laughing as hard as she could. Jessica began to chuckle at the sight of all her friends laughing, including Will rolling on the floor.

  In cat form, Rachel bounded over and leapt into Ondrea’s arms, or at least she tried. Rachel missed and belly flopped onto Ondrea’s unsuspecting face. Rachel then fell down and turned back into human form. She began apologizing profusely.

  By that point, the chuckling people were laughing hard, and the laughing people were crying from laughter. Rachel sat, clueless as to what was going on. Finally, the laughter died down, and everyone remained together, sitting on the edge of the rock and looking down.

  Later, when it was dark, most of the kids fell asleep on patches of dirt that Mason conjured up. But someone shook the gang awake. Will sleepily looked at his digital watch, which read 3:47 in the morning.

/>   “What is it?” he asked drowsily.

  Everyone else rubbed their eyes and woke up. “Yeah what’s going on?” Ondrea asked.

  “Why’d you wake us up?” Avery hissed.

  As the gang’s eyes adjusted, they realized they knew the person who had woken them up.

  “Francis?” Rachel wondered. “For the first time ever, it’s nice to see you.”

  “Look, guys I woke you up because there’s something wrong,” Francis said quickly and nervously.

  Avery and Rachel jumped to alert.

  “What is it?” they both yelled, cringing from how loud they both sounded.

  “There’s something wrong with Mason. I think he’s fading.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  In Which Will Yells And Oliver Excels

  Teddy, Oliver, Jason, and Darla had just begun watching Mason rip up more Earth, when Will, from high above, screamed “YOLO!” and froze The Universe.

  “Oh no,” Teddy muttered.

  Jason watched Mason soar off and immediately began to have doubts. Oliver was thinking about what would happen when The Universe unfroze. Darla was just thinking of ways to kill The Universe. Jason watched the rock slowly disappear into the distance, but looked away and toward The Universe, whose Ice was beginning to crack.

  Oliver began seeing strange shapes wherever he looked—light blue outlines around objects. He turned his eyes to The Universe and saw the blue lines glow into the cracks forming in the ice around the monster. The blue outlines then lifted a few feet above the ice and began to form blue cracks. They shattered and went everywhere. One flew at Oliver. He jumped back, but not in time. When the shard hit him, it went right through his body.

  Oliver didn’t feel any impact—not even the feeling that something was going right through him. Then, he began to see numbers.

  “Is this my Power of Analytical and Processing Intelligence? My Super Intelligence?” he wondered.The same thing happened when Oliver looked back toward The Universe, but the blue outline’s cracks began forming on the actual Universe in the exact same pattern. Oliver saw what would happen next, and he suddenly got it.

  “Guys, follow me now!” he yelled quickly.

  Teddy yanked on Darla’s arm and pulled her up to follow Oliver, and Jason followed close behind. Oliver took them behind a wide tree, just in time before the ice shattered into a million pieces, going everywhere. Everyone took a deep breath and stayed behind the tree.

  “New Power, Oliver?” Jason questioned, his eyebrows raised.

  “No. I think it’s my Super Intelligence, but in a whole new way. How’d you know?” Oliver asked.

  “I guess I examined the way you were looking at The Universe and I saw the faces you were making. I had to infer, of course,” Jason explained.

  “What does that even mean?” Darla snapped.

  Jason replied, “I have Super Intelligence, but I don’t really count it as a Power, so I’ve never told anyone. I have a different type of Intelligence. I can recognize facial expressions and emotions only if I’ve seen them before. I can basically read your feelings and expressions. I am also like a super human lie detector, plus I can find out more about something just by looking at it.

  “Anyway, Oliver’s Power is Analytical and Processing Intelligence,” Jason continued. “He can see things that involve post-college math, even math techniques not yet known to humankind, and infer an outcome—like he did with the ice. I assume he saw the ice cracks and began seeing a mathematical pattern to the breakage. That allowed him to determine how the pattern would continue, all the way to its eventual outcome. With that, his brain calculated the movement inside the ice with the tightly packed particles very slowly expanding due to the force trying to break out, and he was able to see what would happen to the ice and where it would go—before it happened,” Jason concluded, smiling. “Man, I have not gone on a mathematical rant like that in years. That felt great.”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly,” Oliver said simply. Teddy was nodding slowly, clearly getting it. Meanwhile Darla looked more confused than ever. Oliver saw this and decided to help. “I’ve actually had this Power before, but it’s never worked like that.”

  “What he basically said is that I saw the pattern of cracks in the ice and was able to tell where it would continue to crack. Also, considering that there’s a giant monster in the ice that’s cracking, you’d think he would be pushing his way out, right? Well, that’s the reason the ice was expanding and, because the ice was expanding, when the ice broke, it would go flying everywhere—just like it did,” Oliver explained.

  “That is correct,” Jason confirmed.

  “Wait, Jason, if you’re more of an emotion-reading type of guy, why aren’t you as social as Mason?” Teddy wondered.

  “Guys! Are you forgetting there’s a giant Universe monster on the other side of this tree that we need to figure out?” Darla hissed sarcastically.

  “Right!” Oliver exclaimed, turning around quickly.

  “And it’s like five times bigger thanks to that stunt Will pulled,” Teddy growled.

  “Look, at least they got away,” Oliver said. “Hey, speaking of ‘got away’, where are Damian and Nick?”

  “None of us really know. But I’m sure they’ll show up soon,” Jason said hopefully.

  “I hope so. We all do, right?” Teddy asked.

  “Of course, I do! Why do you think I said that hopefully?”

  “Never mind.”

  Jason stepped out from behind the tree and took a good, long look at The Universe. Everyone else stepped out.

  “I’ve got it!” Jason whispered triumphantly. “Okay, so, The Universe is attracted to magic while the magic is being used. But if you were to manipulate air or water and leave it, the magic would fade and the product would stay the same. Maybe we can capture The Universe for good. Being hit by magic makes him grow, but it weakens him too, so imagine locking The Universe up around magic, but not attacking him with it? He would not grow because he wouldn’t be getting attacked, but he would weaken!”

  “Good plan!” Darla exclaimed, excited.

  “Yes, but there are a few systematic problems,” Oliver pointed out. “See, how would we be able to conjure up this cage using magic if this thing eats magic for breakfast?”

  “Well, I thought about that. You guys would be way on the other side firing off magic like no one’s business, while I build the cage. Hopefully he would be more attracted to you guys than he would to me,” Jason said.

  “Man, you’re one of the Twins of Legend! I don’t think all of us combined are enough to Out-Power you!” Teddy exclaimed.

  “So, now this is a question of Power?” Oliver wondered.

  “Yes! His!” Teddy replied, pointing to Jason.

  “All right, I guess we need to plan this out,” Darla said quickly.

  It was night by the time they had finished planning. Darla and Teddy were very tired and bored by that point, while Oliver and Jason were still spouting out ideas. Suddenly, Darla had an idea.

  “If we knew where Nick and Damian were—and now that I think about it, Spencer, too—then we would have enough Power for a diversion,” she interrupted.

  “You know what? I have a sneaking suspicion of where they could be,” Oliver said.

  “Yes, and if that suspicion is true, everyone will be all right.” Jason added.

  31.2

  Nick freaked out as The Universe slammed its mighty paw into Spencer and sent him rocketing away. He went around the back of the group and bounded in the direction Spencer had flown. Damian caught a glimpse of something in his peripheral vision and realized it was Nick leaping with his Super Strength toward wherever Spencer was.

  Damian crept away and followed him. In order to stay invisible, he shifted his molecules as they interacted with light. He suddenly heard a loud shout coming from in front of him. Damian sped up and when he finally saw Nick, he gasped. Nick was swerving left and right in order to avoid getting hit by Dark Magic.
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br />   “Don’t you hurt my son, freak!” Damian thought. He directed that thought toward whomever was attacking Nick, as he kept on running forward. The attacker stopped and turned to stare in Damian’s direction, distracting Nick. He, too, turned to stare. Damian made direct eye contact with Nick and yelled. A bolt of electricity threw Nick back into a tree.

  “No!” Damian called. In a blind rage, he blasted bolts of Dark Magic toward the man who literally ate it while accidentally revealing himself. Damian was surprised but kept rushing the man. As he got closer, he noticed the man had a small blonde mustache, a rounded face, spiky blond hair, a skinny structure, and wore black clothes.

  “Ha!” laughed the strange man. “You’re all weak! You will never defeat our organization!”

  Before the man disappeared into thin air, he scanned both Damian and Nick for later. Damian raced over to his son and gently shook him. He whispered his name a few times. Nick stirred very slightly, then Damian shouted his name.

  “What’s going on?” Nick yelped, sitting up rapidly.

  “Try to relax. You were just struck by lightning!” Damian exclaimed, obviously concerned.

  “I’ve had my fair share of that,” Nick said wearily. “Wait a minute! Spencer! I was going to find him.”

  He jumped up and used his Super Strength to leap in the same direction. Damian looked back in the direction of The Universe but shrugged his shoulders. Then he, too, used his Magic to jet off after Nick.

  It was nearly night by the time Nick spotted Spencer. His unconscious body was hanging off a tree, a tree branch pressing against his stomach. Nick had been so eager to find Spencer, he hadn’t noticed that he was getting low on energy, which had rarely ever happened. As he stood in place for a second, he felt it—the severe lack of energy and a throbbing sensation in his feet. Nick felt himself sway. He took a few steps back and nearly fell on his back, but Damian had spotted him and came to his rescue.

  “You’re low on energy, aren’t you?” Damian asked knowingly.

  “Just a little bit,” Nick said softly.

  “You have to take care of yourself. Just because you have never run low on energy before, doesn’t mean you won’t now,” Damian scolded him.