King Of Bad [Super Villian Academy Book 1] (12 page)

“She gave me defense.” Jeff
blushed.

“What? Made it stronger you mean?
Why would you take a chance like that, Polar?”

“Um, no, I didn’t have defense.”
Jeff couldn’t meet Oceanus’ blazing gaze. He hated having to admit such a huge
weakness.

“None?”

“Uh huh.”

“But you do now?”

Jeff gnawed on his lip. “Well,
supposedly, but I haven’t tried it.”

Seeing Love Bug, Jeff stalked over
to her. “Hey, do your psych thing on me.”

“We aren’t supposed to,” Love Bug
said.

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Give me a
break. We’re practicing.”

Love Bug leered at him. The
expression accented all the unfortunate features of her face. Her forehead
jutted out too far, sharp-angled cheekbones and a hawk-like nose. She waggled
her eyebrows and grinned. Jeff grimaced when she thrust her chest forward. What
little there was of
it.
Yet she remained an
unattractive, stick figured girl.

Jeff felt a strange nudging sensation
in his head. It was as if someone or something were pushing on the outside trying
to get in.

“Is that you?” Jeff asked. “Trying
to get past my defenses?”

Love Bug scowled. “Are you just
trying to make a fool of me or something?”

“You don’t need my help for that.”
He flashed his most charming grin at her and returned to Oceanus. “Yep, it
worked.”

Oceanus shook her head. “I don’t
get it. Why would Mystic want to do that for you?”

“Maybe she’s nice?” Jeff said.

“S.V.’s aren’t nice.
Certainly not to other S.V.’s.
We are like each others’
competition,” Oceanus said. She stared across the room at Mystic. Based on his
dreamy expression, Mystic appeared to be
suaving
Source big time. Oceanus curled her lip. “Ugh.”

“You were nice to me. My first day
when you put me out,” Jeff reminded her.

“I wasn’t being nice to you.” Red
blossomed on her cheeks, making Jeff’s grin crook. “I was defending our school
from your lack of control. Anyway, I don’t trust her.”

“What? You…”

An alarm blasted, startling the
occupants of the room into silence. The double doors burst open, slamming
against the walls with an alarming crack. A swarm of people, clad in black from
head to toe, poured through the door. Blue flames erupted from those on the
outer edge of the group. The flames weren’t directed at the kids in the room,
but acted more like a battering ram to clear the way.

“Blue flame?”
Oceanus whispered.

Jeff stepped between her and the
melee. He saw a panicked look on Source’s face and wished the intruders didn’t
separate them. Jeff knew Source’s lack of skill left him vulnerable.

Oceanus stepped around Jeff. “What
do you think you’re doing?”

With her eyes sparking, Oceanus
didn’t look as helpless as Jeff would like to think she was. Regardless, the
need to protect her was strong and he again stepped in front of her. Hoping to
distract her, he said, “Uh…you’re more experienced than me and you can help me
fight if we need to. Stay back.”

Oceanus glared at him.

“Uh…for now.”
He nodded to give his feeble statement strength.

“But I want to see.” Oceanus
stepped sideways. “I’ve never seen blue fire before, Polar. What is it?”

“I don’t know, but it looks like
they have more tricks up their sleeve.”

The tight knot advanced militarily
to the center of the room. Then they unfurled like a flower bud, revealing a
deadly stamen. A small woman, with ebony skin and violet eyes, stood in the
center, seeming seven feet tall with the importance she emanated.

She spoke in a smoky, low voice to a ferret-like kid.
“
¿
Dónde
está
, el?”

The ferret pointed and she raised
her long nailed hands above her head. Nets, conjured from thin air, shot up and
sailed across the room landing over her surprised target.

“No!” Jeff yelled. He lunged
forward, his hands instantly aflame, but when he tried to shoot his fire it balled
back on him, burning his own hands. He blew ice onto his hands to squelch the
burn. Seeing the frost gave him a thought.
“
Oci
, water!”

He pointed to the floor and
indicated that he wanted it to snake across the room.

Oceanus pulled water from the overhead
sprinklers and dropped it onto the floor. Jeff drew a deep, deep breath and
breathed across the surface of the water. It iced over, immediately sending
half the blue flame people to the floor. Jeff blew again, refreezing the water
over their hands and trapping them.

“It won’t last forever, let’s
move.” He grabbed Oceanus’ arm and they ran. They were halfway across the room
when roots burst through the floor and wrapped around their ankles. They
sprawled face first on the floor. Another kid fell, knee first, onto Jeff’s
back, knocking the wind out of him. Jeff squirmed around until he sat up and
grew a small controlled fire in his palm. He showered sparks onto the roots
that had snaked up around his calves. The roots shrank away from the fire,
loosening their hold and Jeff tore free of their
viney
grip. He did the same for Oceanus and they scrambled to their feet again.

The intruders hefted their
squirming captive toward the door.

Jeff anchored his feet firmly on
the ground and gathered all the gravity he could feel around him. As quickly as
he could, he bound the feet of those carrying the hostage.

“See if water will work on that
blue fire,
Oci
.
Before they get to
us.”

Oceanus swung around and saw four
of the blue flames approaching. She pulled water from the drinking fountains
and doused the flames. But instead of putting it out it seemed to increase it.
“No good. I think it’s feeding on it!”

Jeff felt light headed from having
to split the gravity in so many directions. He imagined his feet were buried in
the ground, giving him a deeper contact with the source, and his head cleared a
bit.

“Can you smother it somehow?” Jeff
yelled.

“No, I don’t have anything. And
the others are getting free.”

Sure enough the blue flamers who’d
been temporarily frozen were up and re-igniting their fire.

One of the intruders with the blue fire yelled,
“¡
Detenganlo
!”
and
pointed toward Jeff.

Teachers had joined the fight. In
the midst of pelting milk cartons, lightning strikes, and lashing ropes, Jeff
was struck by one strange fact. His fellow students seemed to be fighting for
the sake of fighting. No one appeared intent on retrieving the hostage. As a
matter of fact, Jeff watched a kid blast one of the captors and turn away from
the hostage.

Jeff roared. He had to get over
there, but if he moved, he’d release the gravitational hold he had on the
captors. Experimentally, he slid a foot forward without lifting it from the
ground. He felt the hold weaken, but it didn’t break. Concentrating all his
efforts on maintaining
contol
, Jeff slid his feet
across the floor. The going was agonizingly slow. He felt some of the captors
struggle against the gravity that locked them in place, hoping to break free.
Someone’s psych ability nudged around his head looking for a way
in.
With all his efforts focused, he continued to slide across the room.

A blast of steam and heat hit
Jeff, knocking him sideways. He slid a couple of feet across the ground and
came to a rest in a heap. Dazed, he shook his head and sat up. Then he
remembered what he’d been doing. He leapt to his feet and searched the room for
the group of captors.
Too late.
The doors swung closed
behind them. Source was gone.

Chapter 16

“What are you going to do to get
Source back?” Jeff bellowed at Tubs.

Tubs scowled at Jeff and then
returned his attention to the paperwork on his desk. “First we have to figure
out who took him.”

Tubs didn’t even seem concerned.
It was as if Source was being slotted in the “things to do” column of Tubs’ upcoming
week.

“How do you plan to do that?” Jeff
spit the phrase out and Tubs scowled again before wiping his paper off.

“Well, they left a pretty big
calling card. No one has seen the blue fire before. If we can figure out which
academy has developed it, we’ll know who took Source.” Tubs eyed Jeff. “Why do
you care?”

Jeff blinked at him. “What do you
mean?”

Tubs’ eyes narrowed. “I’d think
the question is quite clear. Why do you care what happens to Source?”

Something in Tubs’ expression
unsettled Jeff’s nerves. He stepped back from Tubs’ desk. Was Tubs doing a mind
psych on him? Could he get past Jeff’s new defense? Jeff whispered, “Source is
my friend. Why else would I care?”

Tubs’ lip curled like a growling
Doberman’s.
“Your friend.”

The disdain in Tubs’ voice made
Jeff back all the way to the door. Maybe Tubs was unstable. Probably shouldn’t
be working with kids. Jeff turned the knob on the door then stopped. “Why do
you think it is another academy?”

“Because of the
number of people who showed up.”

“Why do they want Source?” Jeff
asked.

Tubs shrugged. “Think about it,
kid. Why would anyone bother to snatch someone from an academy? They want his
talent.”

Jeff’s stomach dropped as if he’d
just gone over the top of the large hill on a roller coaster. Source would
never be able to resist them. He’d help willingly. But would they return Source
unharmed when they were done with him? Jeff highly doubted it.

Jeff let himself out of the room
without any sort of reassurance from Tubs. No “We’ll keep you posted, kid,” or
“You can join the extraction party when we’re ready to go get him.” He doubted
they would even attempt to retrieve Source and suspected they just wanted to
know more about the blue fire. He considered telling Tubs what Oceanus had
discovered about it, but Tubs didn’t deserve to know.

It was late, so the halls were
deserted and the lights dimmed. Jeff plodded back to his room. At least he had
some abilities to fight back with, but Source never had developed any of his
own. He’d been too busy helping everyone else
develop
theirs, mostly Jeff.

* * * *

Jeff sat alone at lunch the next
day until Oceanus plopped her lunch tray down on the table next to him.

“That was crazy last night,” she
said. She slid onto a chair and took a big gulp from her orange juice bottle.

Jeff watched her graceful
porcelain neck convulse as she swallowed. His fingers tingled with fire and he
looked down at them with panic. Could she really make him lose control from
desire?
Pathetic.
He shook his head.

“Oh, you didn’t think it was?
Just another day in the life of an S.V.?”

“No, no, I was…um…thinking about
something else, sorry. Yeah, last night was crazy. Thanks for your help trying
to get Source back. I appreciate it.”

Oceanus stared at him. “Is that
what you were doing?”

“Of course, what did you think?”

“I thought we were just fighting
bad guys.” Oceanus shrugged.

“I noticed that was a common theme
around the room last night. Why didn’t anyone else try to save Source?” Jeff
ran his hand through his hair, but it fell back in front of his eyes.

Oceanus cocked her head and examined
Jeff’s face. “Why would they?”

Jeff’s eyebrows shot upward. “Why?
Are you serious?”

Oceanus laughed nervously. “I’m
wondering the same about you.”

She sighed, scooted her chair
sideways so that she was closer and then whispered, “Polar, people already talk
about your
manners
. If they knew you were trying to save Source…”

Jeff was completely confused. He
rubbed his tired eyes with his knuckles. “Why is it wrong of me to try to help
my friend?”

Oceanus’ mouth dropped open.
“
Friend
?”

A warning bell rang in Jeff’s
head. “Friend” seemed to be a four-letter word around here. He leaned forward
and whispered in Oceanus’ ear, “Aren’t we friends?”

She jumped away from him. “No!”

Jeff sat back in his chair and
gawked. “Then what the hell are we?”

Mystic chose that moment to sit on
Jeff’s other side. Her warm intoxicating voice soothed the situation. “What’s
the trouble here?”

The look of panic on Oceanus’ face
told Jeff he needed to keep the details out of it. “
Oci
and I were just having a disagreement.”

Jeff saw a small, pleased smile
flit across Oceanus’ face at the nickname he’d used. Then he rounded on Mystic.
“You!
I have a bone to pick with you. If you hadn’t
been
suaving
Source, he’d have been able to react to
the intrusion faster. And why didn’t you protect him better?”

“She had her hands full. Didn’t
you see?” Oceanus answered.

Jeff looked between Oceanus and
Mystic.

Mystic nodded glumly. “Those
bastards came after me immediately. I thought they’d come for me. It took four
of them, shocking me, rooting me—I hate those roots—and finally melding me to
drag me away. All they wanted was to get me away from Source, but I thought
they were trying to take me.”

Oceanus looked around Jeff at
Mystic. “Who do you think that chick was?
The net girl?”

“Her name is Detainee. She’s got
more than nets in those nails of hers,” Mystic said.

“Then you must know where they
were from? Tubs said they needed to figure out what academy they came from.”
Jeff grabbed her hand and rose from his chair. “Come on, let’s go.”