Star League 8 (4 page)

Leaving Jay behind, the rest of us race after our slimy Shadow Six counterparts. Greta summons a shadow portal and plunges through it, but I'm not far behind.

The next thing I know, Doppelganger's tower has disappeared and I'm standing in the middle of a rocky plain. I look around and I can see smoke pouring from a huge volcano nearby.

‘What's the matter, afraid of a little molten lava?'

I spin around to face the troll girl. ‘Give me your Shadow Shard, Greta!'

She glances down at the crystal hanging around her neck. ‘You expect me to just hand over the thing that gave me my wonderful powers? I don't think so!'

‘Then you leave me no choice,' I snarl. I quickly transform into werewolf form, grinning at how good it feels to have my powers back.

Greta dives into the solid rock beneath her feet as though it's water. A shower of pebbles sprays up behind her as she disappears beneath the rocky surface.

I glance around me. Everything seems calm. It reminds me of looking for a shark in a glassy ocean. And then …

‘RAAAAHHH!' Greta springs from the ground beneath my feet, completely taking me by surprise.

‘Oof!' I'm knocked to the ground and my head swims. I struggle to get up, but Greta pins me down with her long talons and brings her face right up to mine.

‘Trolls are known for their odours,' she says. ‘But that's just a myth. We actually have poison breath, as you're about to discover.' She opens her mouth and burps out a cloud of thick green gas.

I try to hold my breath but eventually I get a whiff of the putrid gas. I feel myself grow faint and I know I'm about to pass out. I can't believe I'm about to be taken down by a burp! I get so angry that Greta is going to win I feel my fingers start to tingle. I raise my hands towards her and something strange happens.

She starts to rise into the air.

‘Wha … what's happening?' she shrieks. I concentrate on the tingling in my hands and she floats even higher. I have no idea how I'm doing this, but these new powers could just save me from death by burp. I flick my hands and she spins in the air, whizzing around like a fan. The movement drives the gas away and I gulp in some clean air. My head starts to clear and I get to my feet.

I drop my hands and Greta crashes to the ground in a heap. She drags herself up, clearly dazed.

‘You're going to pay for that, Wolf-boy,' she
snarls, but I can tell she's afraid.

I lift my hands and blast her back. She tries to burrow under the rocky ground again, but I reach out with my levitation powers and pull her above the surface. As she floats in mid-air I pluck the Shadow Shard from around her neck.

I can't risk her coming back to fight us again, and now that I have a Shadow Shard I can put an end to her once and for all. I point the Shadow Shard at Greta and yell, ‘Absorb powers!'

A thin tendril of green light rises from Greta as her troll powers are sucked back into the Shadow Shard. With her powers gone, Greta has transformed back into a relatively normal-looking girl, though one with a nasty scowl on her face.

‘Didn't you know the only thing that can defeat a fairytale troll is the big bad wolf?' I ask. I look down at my hands, which are still tingling with their newfound power. I wonder if it has anything to do with being around the Shadow Shards?

 

Maybe the others have started developing different powers too!

I shake my head. Right now all I need to worry about is getting this shard back together with the others, then using it to destroy Doppelganger. I create a portal back to Doppelganger's tower, leaving Greta behind to think about a thing or two.

I plunge through the portal after Vlad, not knowing what to expect. My mind is filled with one thing – getting the vampire's Shadow Shard.

I emerge somewhere dark, but as my eyes adjust I can make out shapes in the gloom. It looks like I'm in some kind of spooky old mansion.

‘Lights!' commands a voice from the darkness. Candles in the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling burst into flames, lighting up the figure of Vlad standing nearby.

‘I'm here for your Shadow Shard,' I say, pointing to the dark crystal clasp on his cape. ‘Give it to me or I'll hurt you. Lots.'

Vlad frowns. ‘Mind your manners! You're a
guest in my home. Though an uninvited guest, I might add.'

‘Sorry to gatecrash your party, but I've had enough of you and your evil schemes!' I lunge at Vlad, taking him by surprise.

I manage a quick strike to his chest with my elbow, but by the time I ready my second attack he's already disappeared in a cloud of smoke and reappeared halfway across the room.

‘That was very sneaky of you, Asuka,' he tuts.

‘Sneaking is what ninjas do best.'

‘I'd like to see you sneak past this!' He raises his hands and a chest of drawers fly towards me. At the last second I leap over the drawers and they smash into a wall.

I whip out a couple of shuriken and send the first one whizzing towards him. He teleports out of the way, but I already expected that. My eyes flicker to where the smoke starts to materialise, and I throw the other shuriken towards it.

Vlad sees the shuriken and tries to dodge it, but the spinning blades nick his cheek. He reaches up to touch the thin red line that pools there.

‘Blood,' he mutters. His face twists into something I've only ever seen in nightmares. His eyes turn red and he bares his fangs. He screeches and throws himself towards me so quickly I barely have time to react. Luckily my instincts kick in and I reach for the wooden bo on my back, holding it out to shield myself.

Vlad smashes into me and knocks me off my feet. My bo splinters with a loud crack and falls to the ground in two pieces. He grins, revealing those horrible pointy fangs.

‘Your weapon is destroyed, ninja. You have been defeated!'

He stands over me, ready to strike. I know I won't be able to go for another one of my weapons before he attacks.

Adrenalin rushes through my body, but it's
mixed with another feeling, a strange kind of tingling.

Vlad gasps. ‘Hey! Where'd you go?'

I look up at him and wonder if he's gone blind. After all, I'm right in front of him and there's no way he could miss me. Unless …

I wave my hand slowly in front of me. I can feel my hand, but there's nothing there. I'm invisible!

I kick out at Vlad's leg. He doesn't see it coming, of course, and falls over. I jump to my feet and grab one half of my broken bo. The end is jagged and pointy – exactly what I need to defeat a vampire.

Before Vlad can get to his feet I raise the jagged end of the bo and point it at his chest. He can't see me, but I know he can see my brand new wooden stake hovering in front of him.

‘Give me the Shadow Shard or prepare to bite the dust!' I say.

Vlad's eyes narrow, but he slowly reaches up to
pull the Shadow Shard from his cape. I grab it with my invisible hand and point it towards him.

‘Absorb powers!'

As I plunge through a portal after Zeke I double-check my objectives:

• Retrieve Shadow Shard

• Kick some Shadow Six butt

Though not necessarily in that order.

When I arrive on the other side I scan the terrain. I'm at the peak of one of the highest mountains in the world and a wild storm is raging all around me. Streaks of lightning spark across the sky, and Zeke shrieks with laughter. Fear floods my system as I realise something – I'm made of metal, and if one of those lightning bolts hits me, I'm done for!

‘What's the matter, robot, afraid you might get your circuits scrambled?'

I glare at Zeke. ‘Give me your Shadow Shard and I will let you walk away unharmed!'

He reaches up to touch the Shadow Shard in his metal helmet. ‘You think you can harm me?' He lifts his hands and a huge lightning bolt crashes down from the sky. I leap to one side just as the bolt crashes into the ground. The spot where I was standing a second ago is nothing more than a smoking crater in the ground. I need to think of some kind of plan, and fast, or my circuits are going to be fried!

I look around for a weapon but there's nothing on the mountaintop except a lot of snow, and I do not think a snowball is a suitable weapon.

Zeke sends more lightning bolts crashing down around my ears. I scan my databases and find that lightning travels at around a hundred and twenty kilometres per second, which is a lot faster than me! I won't be able to keep this up for much longer.

The next lightning bolt strikes the ground next
to me and sends me flying. I land with a splash into a puddle. The incredibly hot lightning bolts must be melting the snow. I start to get an idea but I'm distracted by a strange kind of tickling in my circuits.

‘Oh great,' I mutter. I wonder if it's a virus? That's the last thing I need! I quickly run a diagnostic scan.

‘Alert!' says my internal virus monitor. ‘New power found! Hyper Celeritas detected!'

New power? It confuses me at first, but then I realise that being close to the Shadow Shards must have magnified my powers. And as for Hyper Celeritas, well that means …

‘I'm getting bored, robot!' yells Zeke. ‘Time to finish you off!' He sends a lightning bolt arcing towards me, just as I activate my new power.

‘Super speed.' I glance above my head where the lightning bolt is slowly making its way through the air. It's like I'm watching the whole thing in
slow motion. Zeke is practically motionless. I run over and grab him, dragging him towards a pool of melted snow. I've got plenty of time to get out of the way of the lightning bolt's path before I deactivate my new power.

As the world speeds up again, the lightning hits the edge of the puddle. But rather than disappearing into the ground, the lightning crackles along the surface of the water.

‘Huh?' Zeke glances down at the puddle around his feet. Before he can get away the lightning streaks through the water and blows him off his feet.

I race over to him and check his vital signs. Thanks to his lightning powers the blast didn't turn him to ashes like it would have most people, but he's not going to be waking up in a hurry. Just to be on the safe side, I take Zeke's crystal shard and hold it to his chest.

‘Absorb powers!' I shout.