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  But that was only if I could get Agent Loren and the rest of the U.S. government on my side.

  The Lion’s Den

  Mom squeezed me tight, not wanting to let me go. “Please, Kane, please be safe,” she whispered into my ear.

  I squeezed her back. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m pretty tough.”

  She chuckled and then released me from her hug.

  I turned to Dad, and his face was filled with pride for me. I smiled at him and gave him a hug. I don’t know why it felt as if we were saying goodbye. I had every intention of returning home to them. I guessed that being surrounded by death for so long had made me a little bit more thankful, made me cherish every moment.

  I pushed away from Dad. “Alright,” I began. “I gotta go. Keep an eye on the news,” I said with a smile. “You just might see me.”

  “Your father and I are so proud of you,” Mom said, her face glowing.

  I didn’t know why, but I wanted to cry. I held back the tears, though. This wasn’t the time for tears. It was time for me to be Tempest, not Kane.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll see you later, I guess.”

  “See you later,” Dad said.

  I turned and walked out the door. I pulled the headpiece of my Tempest suit over my face, and made my eyes glow. I fought the urge to turn around and take one last glance at Mom and Dad.

  You can see them when you come home, I told myself.

  I rocketed into the air and began flying to Ebon Middle School. It was time for me to pay Agent Loren and Homeland Security a visit.

  I HOVERED ABOVE THE middle school. I looked down upon it and took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. There was no time to stand—or float—around, though, so I descended to the ground. It was now or never.

  My feet touched the ground, and I began walking to the gym. I focused my glowing eyes on the twin gymnasium doors.

  The five soldiers guarding the doors noticed me approaching and scrambled to get their guns ready and aimed at me.

  “Freeze!” one of them shouted.

  I ignored his orders and continued walking toward the door. I was thirty feet away, and my heart was beating fast.

  “Don’t you move!” they shouted again.

  One of the others began whispering something into his radio.

  Suddenly, when I was only fifteen feet away, the doors burst open, and out came Agent York, the guy who’d interrogated me in the classroom.

  I stopped when I saw him.

  “Tempest,” he said. “What brings you around here?” His charm and charisma were distracting. I could tell why he was the one they’d chosen to be the fake leader of this operation.

  “I’m here to speak to the one in charge,” I said. I altered my voice by vibrating my vocal cords, a trick I’d learned after the situation in Texas.

  York raised his hands and smiled. “You’re looking at him.”

  I scoffed. “I’m sorry, I should say that I would like to speak to the woman in charge. Agent Loren, I believe?”

  Shock crossed all of the soldiers’ faces, but no one looked more shocked than Agent York. After all, his job was to keep Agent Loren a secret.

  “I-uh-I,” he stammered, unable to find the words.

  “Go get her for me, please,” I said, interrupting him.

  Agent York shut his mouth and walked back inside, clearly embarrassed.

  Nobody said a word while we waited for Agent York to return, with Agent Loren hopefully in tow. I watched the door while the soldiers watched me, guns aimed and ready to fire.

  After a few more moments, the door opened and out walked Agent Loren, with York following close behind. He looked as if he were a puppy that had just been kicked. She looked very upset.

  “Hello, Agent Loren,” I said when she walked out.

  “Tempest,” she said. “How do you know who I am?”

  “Agent York is a good actor, but he comes off a little green. It was a bit obvious.”

  “That still doesn’t explain how you know my name, or Agent York’s for that matter,” she said, insistent.

  “That’s not relevant,” I said. “I’ve come to have a discussion with you.”

  “Unless you’ve come to turn yourself in, I’m not interested in a discussion,” she said.

  “I think you’ll want to hear my proposition. That is, unless you want to continue to allow Richter to terrorize the world.”

  Now she looked intrigued. She crossed her arms and nodded. “I’m listening.”

  I smiled. It was going better than I’d expected so far. “I’ve tried on a few occasions to defeat Richter myself.”

  “I’m aware,” Loren said. She gestured her head toward the high school across the street. “I’ve seen the results myself.”

  I pushed down the anger and frustration that rose up inside of me. To this woman, I was still the enemy. I needed to remind myself of that, and do what I could to show her I was not. “Yes, my attempts have been less than successful. However, I’m the only one who’s ever been able to do any kind of damage to Richter.” I paused for a moment, to let that fact sink in. “You want Richter gone, as do I. We share those goals. But you cannot take him on your own, and neither can I. However, if we work together, I believe we can take him down. And hopefully, eventually, things will return to normal.”

  Agent Loren mulled over what I’d said for a moment before speaking. “How can I trust you, Tempest? How do I know you’re not trying to spy on us? Taking us down from the inside?”

  “Agent Loren, if I wanted to take you down, I would’ve done so the minute your trucks pulled up here. And I wouldn’t have to do it from the inside. I could kill all of you here in the blink of an eye if I wanted to. But I don’t. All I want to do is see Richter ended. Eventually, I’ll probably be able to do that on my own, without you. But that will take a while, and a lot of lives will be lost in the meantime. I’m giving you the chance to end this, and end this now, before anyone else has to die.” I let her process what I was saying. “With or without you,” I said after a few moments. “I will take Richter down. I can just do it a lot sooner if I have you and your people on my side.”

  Agent Loren sighed. “What other choice do we have?” she asked. “It’s clear we were wrong about possibly being able to take you into custody ourselves.”

  “You’re right about that. But, hey, I understand. You were desperate. But now you don’t have to be.” I walked over to her, the soldiers tensing up as I did so, but she waved her hand and they relaxed. I extended my hand. “Truce?”

  She looked at my hand for a moment, thinking about it. Finally, she grabbed it in a firm grasp and shook. “Truce.”

  A Plan

  “Given the information provided to us by Tempest regarding his regenerative powers, we think we may have a way to stop Richter,” Dr. Reynolds, the lead scientist of the mission, said.

  Agent Loren, Agent York, Dr. Reynolds, and I were packed into one of the small administrative offices.

  “Well, then, please continue,” Agent Loren said.

  Dr. Reynolds cleared his throat. “From what Tempest has said, whenever he is injured, he still feels the pain. His bones still break, his skin still melts, his flesh is still torn, et cetera. His body then very, very quickly begins to heal itself. Regrowing skin, reattaching bones, you get the idea.” Reynolds paused to collect his thoughts before continuing. “So, if we can somehow hit Richter with a large amount of heat and energy, we can cause his body to be totally destroyed before it has the chance to heal itself.”

  “You mean like hitting him with an explosive, like a missile?” Agent York asked.

  Dr. Reynolds snapped his fingers in excitement. “Yes! Exactly.”

  York laughed and shook his head. “Have you done any research at all? We’ve tried hitting him with a missile. He either catches it, or it hits him and he walks it off.”

  “Yes, of course. But that’s before we had Tempest,” Reynolds said, giving a look of approval to me.


  “What’s your plan, exactly?” Agent Loren asked, clearly beginning to get perturbed with Reynolds.

  “My plan,” Reynolds began, “is that Tempest draws Richter out. The two of them fight, and Tempest leads Richter to a location far off in the desert. Tempest will keep Richter distracted and hopefully weaken him a bit. Then we launch a nuke at him. Tempest gets out of there right before it hits; Richter won’t know what’s coming, so he won’t have time to deflect.” Dr. Reynolds made the sound of an explosion, and a large gesture with his hands. “Boom. No more Richter. He’s disintegrated, and his body has no chance of healing.”

  All of us mulled over Dr. Reynolds’s plan. It sounded like it would work to me, although I was nervous about having to get Richter in the exact right spot for the nuke to hit him. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it, though.

  “It sounds simple enough,” Agent Loren said. “I like it.”

  Agent York nodded. “I agree. Sometimes the simplest plans are the best.”

  “Yeah, kinda amazing how you didn’t think of this before.”

  “Oh, we did,” Dr. Reynolds said. “But with every missile we sent his way, he would always deflect it before it got to him. We couldn’t risk him catching it in the air and sending it toward an occupied city. Especially one in another country. Even if it was Richter’s fault, it would most likely still cause an international incident and might lead to war, especially if he sent it to Pyongyang. We were hoping for a more elegant solution, but I believe this one will be the most successful. With you distracting him, he won’t see the nuke coming at all.”

  I didn’t like being reduced to bait, but I guessed it was, in a way, what I’d always thought they were using me for to begin with. Besides, if it led to the defeat of Richter, I was down for pretty much anything.

  “It sounds to me like we have a plan,” Agent York said.

  Agent Loren nodded. “Indeed. I’ll go make the necessary calls to get the warheads ready.”

  They were about to leave the room, but I stopped them. “What should I do?”

  Dr. Reynolds replied, “We’ll send a message to Richter. A message he can’t refuse.”

  I STOOD IN THE PARKING lot of the middle school, with the destroyed gym of the high school in the background. A man who worked for Homeland Security stood a few feet away from me, holding a large news camera. Another stood next to him, pointing a microphone at me.

  Everything felt so weird. I felt as if I was about to give a report on the weather, not like I was about to challenge a supervillain to a fight that would end in a nuclear explosion.

  “We’re ready whenever you are,” the cameraman said.

  I took a deep breath and looked into the camera, my eyes glowing bright. “Richter,” I began in my altered voice. It sounded deeper than my normal voice, and slightly robotic. “I’ll play your game. Let’s begin round one on the mountaintop.”

  I stopped and said no more. That was all I needed. Richter needed no convincing for a fight. He would know what I meant by the mountaintop. Yes, it was in Washington, far away from the Arizona desert where the nuke would go off, but I had to pick a location that wasn’t suspicious. If I said, Hey, meet me in the desert where they used to test nukes all the time, he’d probably realize something was up. There was no doubt in my mind that we would be able to fight our way to Arizona, where, hopefully, I’d help to end the greatest threat the world had ever faced.

  The Fight Begins

  Standing on the destroyed mountaintop next to the giant hole in the ground caused by yours truly, I scanned the sky, searching for any sign of Richter. So far, nothing. I wasn’t worried, though. It would only be a matter of time before Richter showed up, and our plan would begin to play out.

  The trees far beneath me waved back and forth in the wind, and I could see the trench in the ground caused by my punching Richter as hard as I could last time we were up here. I smiled, remembering how good that had felt. I eagerly awaited the moment when I’d be able to do that again.

  “Any sign of him?” I asked.

  “Nothing yet,” the voice of Agent York crackled through the earpiece I wore.

  I sighed in frustration. This was taking longer than it should have.

  Then someone slammed to the ground in front of me, sending cracks shooting across the earth where he’d landed. It was Richter, and he was ready to play.

  “Got tired of playing hero, did ya?” Richter said with a smile. “Wanna see how the gods play?”

  “Not quite, Richter.”

  Before he had a chance to respond, I uppercut him at super-speed, sending him flying into the air. I jumped up and grabbed him, then changed course and flew straight down the hole in the mountain. I slammed him into the ground, causing cracks to web out from the impact site and up the walls. Our glowing eyes illuminated the area, and I could see small rocks begin to fall. The mountain began to moan, and the hole began to collapse.

  I threw Richter up as hard as I could out of the hole, and I flew out after him, the hole collapsing beneath me.

  Once we were back out, I grabbed Richter and threw him down onto the mountain. I flew down to him, and was ready to continue my beating, but he’d recovered from the sudden surprise and subsequent beating. He was ready and angry.

  When I bent over to pick him up and throw him again, he kicked me hard in the chest, sending me flying backwards, and I landed on my knees. I gasped for air; my ribs had been crushed and my lungs had collapsed. I felt them crack and move back into place, and I began to breathe again just in time for Richter to punch me in the chest again. He put all his anger and rage behind the punch, and I went flying backwards off the mountain.

  I fell down into the woods at the foot of the mountain, slamming through trees and sending them crashing to the ground.

  I slid to a stop just as Richter jumped off the mountain and landed a few yards away from me. I scrambled up off the ground as Richter ran to my side, ready to punch me again. I dodged it, and got in two good punches to his torso.

  Anger and frustration boiled within me, and I used it as the power behind my punches.

  Richter ran to a tree, pulled it from the ground, and before I realized what was happening, he swung it like a bat, and I was the baseball.

  I went flying high into the air, above the trees. I stopped myself in midair and turned around to see Richter flying right at me.

  I dodged out of the way, and he went soaring past me. I couldn’t help but smile a little at how dumb he must’ve felt in that moment. I was the matador and he was the bull.

  He turned around and flew back toward me, but I started flying too, except in the opposite direction. I flew slowly enough that Richter would be able to keep up. He was hot on my tail as I began to fly south. I got a little too cocky, though, and underestimated Richter’s speed. He caught up to me in seconds. We were in Seattle when he grabbed me and threw me.

  I tumbled through the air, unable to correct myself. I hit glass hard, and went flying through some sort of observation deck, right on through the building, taking out everything my body touched. I fell through the other side, and that was when I realized that what Richter had thrown me through was the Seattle Space Needle.

  I slammed into the empty Seattle street. Water from pipes I’d broken spewed into the air and back down onto me. I pushed myself up off the ground, every inch of my body in pain. I looked up at the sky to see where Richter was, only to find that he’d torn the observation deck of the Space Needle off the pole, and had sent it hurtling toward me.

  I ran out of the way, but he’d thrown it so fast and hard, it almost wasn’t enough. It slammed into the ground behind me, sending buildings all around me tumbling down. The shock wave of the impact sent me flying forward into some abandoned cars.

  I got up and looked behind me. The top of the Space Needle sat in a pile of rubble in the ground. Dirt and dust filled the air and covered everything around me. All of the buildings in the immediate vicinity had been totally destroyed.
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br />   I looked around for Richter and saw him standing on top of the rubble, an evil smile stretched across his dirty face.

  “Isn’t this fun?” he shouted at me with his arms raised. He took in all the damage and destruction he’d caused. “I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner. It’s so—” He disappeared in a blur as he ran straight at me. He stopped inches away from my face, before I had time to react. “Therapeutic.”

  He grabbed my Tempest outfit and launched into the air. I was ready this time, though, and with a shout, I slammed my arm down onto his wrist as hard as I could, causing it to break and him to let go of me. Richter let out a sharp wince in pain.

  “You’re right,” I shouted as I flew to his side. I grabbed his shirt and punched him twice in the face, hard. “This is therapeutic.”

  I let go of him and began flying south again, Richter close on my tail. This time I made sure I was going fast enough that he wouldn’t catch me again. I flew toward the Arizona desert, where the nuke would strike—and end Richter once and for all.

  Detonation

  It was only a matter of seconds before we reached the Arizona desert. I had to slow down in order to look for the small blinking light they’d placed in the sand that you could only see if you were looking for it. Unfortunately, that gave Richter the perfect opportunity to tackle me to the ground.

  He slammed into me, and the two of us tumbled across the desert floor, head over heels.

  I spat out a mouthful of sand and turned to look for Richter. He was picking himself up off the ground and spitting out sand just like I was.

  I searched for the flashing light but couldn’t see anything. I began to feel frantic. “Guys, I can’t see the light,” I said.

  There was no response from Agent York in my earpiece.

  “Gu—”

  Richter slammed into me before I could finish my words.