~ ~ ~
Prologue
Buildings crashed to the ground in New York City, as an evil laugh filled the air. People were screaming and running as a gigantic iron robot smashed through the streets.
Its eyes shot lasers, cutting down lampposts and cracking monuments. Choppers filled the skies, and police cars dotted the city. “We need the heroes!” someone shrieked as their car got smashed with the robot’s foot.
The evil laugh sounded again, from inside the robot. “Nothing can stop the powerful Grenagade!” the voice sneered. “Gonna call on your puny heroes to save you?”
The robot’s head turned, laser eyes zapping the base of an apartment building that was in its way and making it tumble to the ground.
The robot halted in the middle of the street, and a door opened in its chest. A metal staircase unfolded, and someone walked out.
His red, laser-like eyes glinted from behind his black mask, and his torn cape billowed around him. He was dressed in all black, but gears ground where his chest should have been. He twisted his black beard as he looked around. “Behold, the mighty Grenagade,” he said, voice louder than it should have been. Pictures were snapped, and people were gathering. “I come to challenge any heroes to fight me.” He chuckled evilly, red eyes glowing. “If they are strong enough.” Then he raised his voice. “They have twenty-four hours, or they’ll see New York City destroyed!” He laughed maniacally and entered his robot again.
~ ~ ~
“There’s a new one up in New York,” Lu Turner said to her friend across the cafeteria table in her school. “Name’s Grenagade.” She looked at her phone, at the email she had gotten. Her friend’s face was surprisingly normal; he looked as if this wasn’t very interesting news.
Lu continued scrolling though the email. “Half robot, likes destroying stuff with a robot he calls “Crusher”… typical…” she looked up at him. “So, what do you say?”
“I’m not going all the way up to New York,” he said, leaning back on his chair. His food was cold however, so that meant that he was at least a little interested.
“Chris, come on,” she said, putting down her phone. Her electric blue eyes sparkled with excitement. “We haven’t had a nemesis in a long time!”
“I’m telling you, even if we drove the whole way there, we wouldn’t get there in twenty-four hours. It would be too late.”
“It’s never to late for heroes, Chris London. You should know that.”
He peered at her before saying, “Fine, whatever. But let’s hurry. I want to get back, just in case this is a distraction.”
So, they both went home after school. Excited, and a little worried. Their parents didn’t usually like them going off and saving the day… since they always wanted to do it themselves.
“Mom, I’m home!” Lu called when she got home, plopping her backpack next to her shoes. “I have to talk to you about something.”
“If it’s about Grenagade, you can’t go,” she called back from upstairs.
“But he looks fun!”
“Being a hero isn’t about having fun,” she said, walking down the stairs. Her pretty gray eyes sparkled, but Lu knew that you shouldn’t let that fool you. She could pack a lot of power in one of her tornadoes.
“Mom…” Lu sighed. “You’re planning to go defeat him yourself, aren’t you?”
“Well, maybe…”
“Why can’t you give me a turn?!” Lu yelled, exasperated. “I like helping you, Mom. A lot! Besides, Chris is already gonna go.”
She shrugged. “I’m sorry dear,” she said, “but he just looks a little to dangerous for you.”
“I’m going, Mom. I need to. It’s my job! I’m not a superhero just to stand around doing nothing. We have about twenty-two hours before he completely destroys New York City. Don’t you think you might need at least a little help?”
She bit her lip. “I’ll have to talk about it with your father,” she said.
“Fine, go ahead,” she grumbled. “I’ll be up in my room, planning for the battle.”
I never said you could…” her Mom started, but she had disappeared. “Lu, I told you not to do that when I’m talking to you!” she said. “Come back down here this instant.”
Lu was muttering to herself when she came back down the stairs. “I thought we were done talking,” she said.
“No, we weren’t,” Mrs. Turner said, sternly. Her hands were on her hips and her eyes were swirling with rainclouds. “I never said you could go. And I never said you were allowed to use your power.”
“It’s not a big deal, Mom, really!” she said. “I just…”
“Used your power. Running at the speed of light can be pretty conspicuous.”
“No one can see me when I do it,” she said. “Besides, we’re inside. It’s not like anyone’s peering through our windows.”
“I never said you were going to go,” Mrs. Turner repeated.
“Fine, I heard you the first time.” She ran so fast up the stairs she was only a blur, and Mrs. Turner sighed. Then she turned and walked into the kitchen, picking up the phone and dialing Mr. Turner’s number.
Upstairs, Lu had dialed on her phone Chris’ number.
“Yo,” he answered.
“Hey, Chris? I need a favor.”
“What is it?”
“Can you hitch me a ride? Say, in a couple hours?”
Chapter One
“This is a bad idea,” Chris groaned as he started his parent’s car. “I’m driving without a license.”
The crickets chirped loudly and the moon was bright. It was around ten o’clock, and their parents were asleep.
“That’s what’s dangerous about this plan?” Lu asked him, incredulous.
“Dur, maybe,” he replied sarcastically. “Which one is the acceleration again?”
“Chris!”
“Geez, I’m joking...” he began muttering to himself as he pulled out of the driveway.
He drove nervously, humming to himself and tapping the wheel. Pathetically they inched down the street. Slowly, they began to drive more smoothly, and Chris leaned back.
“Chris, you aren’t holding the wheel!” Lu exclaimed.
He laughed a little, then pointed to the wheel that was moving on its own. “I can make unliving things alive, remember?”
She crossed her arms. “You made the car have a brain?” she asked disbelievingly.
“Hey, at least he knows where we want to go,” he said, reclining his seat and closing his eyes.
“He?” Lu asked him. “How do you know which gender it is? Can it talk to you?”
“I dunno, it just sounds right.”
Lu shook her head and turned to look out of the window. Lights streaked across the blackened scene.
“How long till we get to New York City?” she asked after a while.
“We’re kind of close,” he said. “I think I’m naming him Julian.”
“What, the car?” she asked. “Pfft, whatever. Stay focused, Chris. Do you have your suit?”
“I’m wearing it right now,” he said.
“I’m wearing mine too.We never know what to expect, right?” She glanced at him. “How many hours do we have?”
“About... like, fifteen?”
“Okay, well, I guess that’s enough,” she murmured.
“Honestly, this Grenagade sounds a little lame...”
“Gigantic rampaging robots with laser eyes? Guy with a bunch of gears instead of a heart and lungs?””
Chris bit his lip, brown hair getting into his eyes like it usually did. He looked up at the ceiling of the car while Julian nearly crashed the car into the back of another one, before swerving to an empty lane. “Okay, so the guy has a couple weird problems, but like, he doesn’t sound too bad. Remember, that one villain? The guy with the spiky hair and the Italian accent and the––”
“Okay, yeah, I thought you promised not to bring that guy up,” Lu said.
“Oops, sorry...”
~ ~ ~
It wasn’t that hard to locate Grenagade and Crusher because of the collapsing buildings and the screaming people. Sirens wailed as they got out of the car and looked up at the big black robot moving through the city. They shut the doors, still staring up at Crusher.
“Let’s do this,” Lu said.
He nodded. They had taken off the clothes they were wearing over their suits in the car. Chris was now dressed in a bright cherry red outfit with yellow lightning bolts all over it. He slipped on a black mask and looked over at Lu, who was outfitted in a electric blue suit with a flames running down her legs.
“Okay, so here’s the plan,” he said. “I fly up to Crusher’s head and make a bunch of lampposts start attacking him. You do... something.”
“Yeah, great plan, can’t wait to get killed,” she groaned, but let Chris use his rocket-boots to fly up towards the robot.
He landed on its head, stomping. “Hey, rust-bucket, got a brain in there?” he called, then after he had gotten Crusher’s attention, he pointed at a lamppost with a black-gloved hand. “Animan-Zap!” He yelled, and a bolt of light shot from his pointer. It hit the lamppost and slowly the lamppost rose out of the ground on two legs. Arms sprouted out of the sides, and it charged towards the robot.
Lu laughed to see Chris flying ahead of an army of lampposts. “You look so heroic!” She called.
“Shut up!” he called back. “I’m in the middle of saving the day!”
Just then all the speakers dotting the streets shrieked, and a evil voice said, “Oh, look! It’s the lamppost brigade!”
“Grenagade,” Lu hissed, walking towards the robot.
“Oh, you’re here too, Streak!” Grenagade taunted. “Too scared to stay apart from your boyfriend?”
“Loser,” Chris muttered as he ordered the lampposts to halt and joined up with Lu. “Hey, we’re gonna defeat you!” he called. “Thought I might give you a heads-up, before you, you know, go crying to mommy and all.”
“Ooh, I’m so scared,” Grenagade jeered.
Lu’s belt flashed to existence on her waist. It had two glowing red knives, about a foot long, in them. She drew them, one for each hand, then the next thing she knew they had passed clean through the robots legs, and she was on the other side to catch them. Then she appeared next to Chris again.
The robot twisted, then the whole thing dropped down to its knees. The legs were immobilized. Lu felt like Grenagade wasn’t even trying.
“I’m not finished with you,” Grenagade announced, and the whole robot sprouted spider legs and a spider jaw. The legs folded into its body, along with the arms, and an abdomen grew out of the iron. Its eight eyes shot lasers at the two heroes, but Lu grabbed Chris and ran out of the way.
Crusher scuttled around, legs making holes in the pavement. It shot lasers again, but Chris’ lamppost friends threw the spider off balance by ramming into each of its legs, and the lasers crisped a mailbox behind them.
“What do we do now?” Chris asked, sounding breathless.
“What about we run!?” she said, grabbing him and running. Chris used his rockets to stay off the ground, so they she could pull him along. They streaked down one street and swerved around a corner with the sound like a race car.
“I just got an idea,” he said as they ducked behind a trashcan. They heard Grenagade laugh something about fleeing from far away, and the spider’s scuttling could be detected from within the noise of sirens and choppers.
“What is it, then?” she asked.
“How about I make a whole building come alive?”
“No thanks. Unless it’s a bank. Then we could say the economy was turning against us, or something witty like that.”
“That would be really funny.”
“I was just joking,” Lu said, starting to get annoyed. “So, what are we going to do? You know you don’t have enough Animan-Zap for something big like that after that thing with the lampposts.”
He shrugged. “It was just an idea, you know. Do you have anything better?”
“We need more supers.”
“Where are we gonna get more? You’re the only super I know.”
“Well, let’s just hope some more come.”
As if on cue, a blast of pink light lit up the sky and came hurtling down towards the ground like a comet and she heard someone yell, “Slash attack!”
A ninja warrior, or something, shot down from the sky and landed on the spiders head, spinning a double-edge sword. Her eyes were glowing white, without irises, behind her black mask. Her whole suit was pink, and she had short pink boots and gloves. She was slender and graceful as she did flips down Crusher’s body.
“Let’s go help her!” Chris said, then he flew up towards the robot. Lu sighed and raced after him.
Grenagade was cursing his robot into the speakers as Crusher turned aimlessly around and around, trying to find the intruder. The pink girl stabbed into the metal with her sword, twisting it and making a grinding sound. She turned her head towards Chris and Lu. “Slash attack!” she yelled, white eyes glowing. She continued flipping and stabbing, seemingly knowing where Crusher was most vulnerable.
Chris and Lu exchanged glances. “Are you a hero?”
The girl turned towards them, curling her lip and revealing surprisingly long and sharp teeth. “Yes. Slash.”
“I’m assuming her name is Slash,” Chris murmured to Lu out of the side of his mouth.
“Yeah, me too.” Lu drew her knives quickly as the robot jolted beneath her feet. Chris was hovering and didn’t move, but he looked startled. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Robot failing!” Slash exclaimed. “System shutting down! Yarrr!” She jumped nimbly off to the roof of a building as the whole robot twisted sideways and collapsed. People started to gather around the fallen robot.
“Hey, thanks for helping us,” Chris said. “We couldn’t have done it alone.”
“Slash hate robot!” she shrieked.
“She meant ‘you’re welcome’,” Lu assured her friend, who just shrugged.
Just then the loud speakers flared again. “ARGH!” Grenagade yelled. “I will be back, super-losers! And when I do, you cannot stop me!” The head opened up and a small spaceship flew out, into the sky.
“He’s getting away!” Chris yelled, starting to fly up to chase him, but Lu pulled him gently down. “Give it a rest,” she said. “It’s too late to go after him.”
Sighing, Chris flew both of them down to the ground, where people were clapping and cheering, and Slash just jumped and alighted as lightly as a cat onto the pavement. They signed a couple autographs, until they made it back to their car, which was shocking one of the few things in the square that was still intact. Remains of buildings laid everywhere and they had to go around some pieces to get to it. Julian whirred happily when they approached, making the wheels turn sideways.
Lu turned to Chris. “Ready to go?”
“Yup. Is it okay if… Slash comes with us?”
“Sure, I guess. Where is she?”
“Right here!” Slash yelled, voice coming from the top of the car. “Yarrr! Me hate robot! Me hate robot!”
“Come on, Slash, get into the car,” Chris called. She swung around the top of the car through the open door and slid gracefully into the seat. She shut the door, laying her double-edges sword on her lap. Her hot pink outfit glowed slightly. Her white eyes glowed even more. To Lu, she was kind of creepy.
As they drove away, they took off their masks. “That was fun, I guess,” Lu sighed as she leaned back on her seat.
“Seriously? We hardly did anything,” Chris said. “Slash did everything.”
A unfamiliar voice said from the back, “no, I think you helped weaken him.”
They both looked, startled, into the back seat, and saw Slash had changed from a crazed, white-eyed superhero into a regular, blonde-haired girl in a pink suit. Her eyes still glowed pure white, Lu noticed. “What is it? Do I have my shirt on backwards?” she asked, sounding defensive.
“...Nothing,” Lu said, a little weirded out, but trying not to show it. “So… Slash. Where ya from?”
“Lexitron,” she said matter-of-factly. “My planet is not far from Earth, actually. But it is a dangerous place. I came to Earth when I was just a little kid.”
“Oh, so, you’re like an alien?” Chris asked slowly.
“Yes.” Slash sounded offended.
“It’s fine,” he said quickly. “I’m just trying to clarify the facts… and stuff.”
“My name is Faye Spentan,” she said. “That is my cover-up name, anyway. And you are?”
“I’m Lu Turner,” Lu explained. “This is Chris London. His real name is Christopher, but he doesn’t really like it all that much.”
“Yeah, Chris works for me,” he said.
“We’re heading home. I’m sure my mom will let you stay at my house, or something,” Lu said. “Just do me a favor and don’t say anything about fighting Grenagade and all. We weren’t really, ya know, supposed to be doing it.”
Faye nodded. “I won’t say a word.”
“Where do you live?” Chris asked, sounding curious.
“Nowhere,” she replied. “I just wander… I don’t really live anywhere.”
“What about Lexitron?”
“I don’t go there anymore,” she said quickly. “No one should go there. The danger there is….” she shuddered.
Lu was a little speechless by her reply, then she said, “Oh… uh, okay. Sorry, I was just wondering.”
“It’s fine,” Faye said quietly.
They were silent the rest of the way home, and Chris quietly pulled up in front of Lu’s house. The sky was lightening, and Lu knew she would have to hurry just in case her parents woke up, or something like that.
“Bye, Chris,” she whispered. “Oh, and… Julian.”
Julian honked a little, then Chris drove down the street and out of sight. Faye casually twirled her sword. “This is where you live?”
“Yup. Come on, and be quiet,” Lu replied, and they both tiptoed to the porch.
The Turners were asleep when they both got in Lu’s bed and went to sleep, so Lu knew that they would never know that she had been out.
But she was wrong.
