Cobalt screamed as his opponent slapped him across the face. Brown Recluse’s touch was notorious for the festering wounds it caused upon contact with skin. Many heroes had felt the sting of their own flesh rotting when he sought out the bare patches of skin left uncovered by their costumes.
“The Boomers disappear, and these kids are the best New York can send against us?” Recluse shouted to his team mates.
“Damn straight we are.” Cobalt replied, hitting Recluse with a telekinetic punch, sending the villain reeling.
“God Recluse, can’t you do anything right?” Wolf Spider asked, as he streaked towards Cobalt, who barely had time to teleport out of the way, before Wolf Spider attempted to tackle him at Mach 1, the villain sprawling on the ground.
Cobalt appeared next to his teammate, Balefire, who was suffering blow after blow from Jumping Spider. Cobalt assaulted the villain with a psy-bolt, Jumping Spider deciding discretion was the better part of valor and leaping out of range of the attack.
“Regroup!” Dark Rose of Blood shouted, as she retreated from Tarantula, whose blows she had been dodging, the villain instead denting the pavement.
Aperture appeared alongside the other three, stepping through a hole in space, narrowly avoiding Black Widow’s web net dropping on him.
“What’s the plan fearless leader?” Cobalt asked.
“Don’t look at me, Appy is the strategist here.” Rose replied.
“Well, whoever it is, hurry up, they’re regrouping too.” Balefire observed.
Aperture had been listening to a police scanner, and had heard about a super-crime in progress at the First Bank of New York. The team had met up on the scene and found Arachnophobia about to make their escape with bags full of cash.
“Balefire, we need an obstacle course to keep Wolf Spider on his toes, slow him down enough for me to strike. Cobalt, keep Black Widow, Brown Recluse and Jumping Spider distracted, Rose, try to drain Tarantula.” Aperture ordered.
“Three of them? You’re kidding right?” Cobalt asked, but he obeyed anyway, hitting the three targets with alternating telepathic assaults.
Balefire reached out her hands, glowing energy snaking out and forming a tangle on the ground between the team and their opponents.
Rose charged forward. And so did the villains.
Wolf Spider ducked and dodged and weaved around the obstacle course, but Balefire had understood Aperture’s plan the moment he spelled it out, leading the speedster under an alcove, where Aperture simultaneously opened both ends of his portal, one above the villain, one below, catching the poor guy in an infinite gravity loop.
“One down…” Aperture said, as a ball of web hit him square in the chest, sending him to the ground. He looked over and saw Cobalt on the ground, Jumping Spider pinning him down and pounding him in the face. Black Widow and Brown Recluse were now free to move forward.
“A hit and run distraction? An amateur mistake. As is that.” Black Widow pointed at Rose, who reached out to touch Tarantula, hoping to steal his powers for her own. Her eyes widened as she realized…
“Our powers aren’t natural.” Tarantula said simply, knocking the girl flying towards Aperture, crashing down next to him.
“Balefire, get Jumper off Cobalt, we need him!” Aperture said, and Balefire snaked out her energy cords to lift the villain off her teammate, before pulling Cobalt to safety next to Rose and Aperture, where she soon joined them.
“He’s unconscious. Crap. Rose, I know you don’t want to…” Aperture trailed off.
“I’m on it. Cover me for a minute.” Rose said, reaching out and touching Cobalt’s face, as Balefire erected a mesh with her powers, keeping their enemies away.
“I can’t hold it long…” Balefire said.
“You won’t have to.” Rose said, standing up.
“Good.” Balefire released the shield, and Arachnophobia charged through.
Aperture ducked a blow from Jumping Spider, before punching him in the face, his own powers tied up in trapping Wolf Spider. The villain laughed and kicked him square in the jaw, sending the teenager flying, and rendering him unconscious.
Balefire was next, a touch from Brown Recluse distracting her long enough for Tarantula to land a blow that would dent a car door to her midsection, knocking her tumbling across the street.
Rose used her newly acquired powers to her advantage, teleporting around her enemies to keep them distracted, landing telekinetic blows with each appearance, even laying physical blows when she was able, showing much greater strength than a girl her age and build should possess, but still not enough to damage the spider-people.
“This hasn’t been entertaining at all… At least those kids in LA managed to keep us occupied for an hour or two.” Black Widow complained.
“Yeah, but the Brat Pack caught us. We’re better off here.” Brown Recluse argued.
Jumping Spider’s lighting fast reflexes allowed him to catch Rose as she tried to attack him from behind, the villain holding her by her wrists, preventing her from teleporting. Rose attempted to launch a psy-bolt at her captor, but a brief touch from Brown Recluse brought that to an end.
“Now now girly, be nice. You’re going to take your friend over there’s powers, and you’re going to free our teammate from that roller-coaster ride he put him on, understand?” Brown Recluse said.
“Drop dead douchebag.” Rose said, head-butting the man with the rotting touch.
“At least Mr Universe was witty.” Black Widow observed.
“Speak of the devil and he shall appear.” A voice said from overhead.
The villains looked up to see Mr Universe and Hyper Girl flying above them.
“Now we’re talking!” Black Widow said, spitting a web-line from her mouth at the hero, one he easily dodged… Right into a mid-air tackle from Jumping Spider, who brought Mr Universe crashing to the ground.
“Hey, watch it! I need him in one piece.” Hyper Girl said, blasting Jumping Spider, sending him reeling. “Come on Matt, don’t make me do all the work!” She added with a laugh, which turned to a scream as Brown Recluse appeared behind her, having been thrown at her by Tarantula, and grabbed her, his fingertips brushing her neck.
“Hannah!” Mr Universe shouted, as a bag of coins flew from Arachnophobia’s loot pile and pounded the villain in the head, dropping him from the sky.
Tarantula fell to the ground, clutching his head, as Rose stood behind him, striking him hard with a psy-bolt.
Black Widow looked around at her fallen comrades and threw her hands into the air.
“I can’t believe I actually wanted a challenge…” She said.
“I can’t believe Hyper Girl interrupted our date to go answer a Hire-A-Hero call.” Mr Universe said.
“And I can’t believe Mr Universe packed his costume when he was supposed to be here to visit me.” Hyper Girl countered.
“It was for emergencies. This was an emergency.” Mr Universe replied.
“I let you idiots beat me?” Black Widow wondered.
<><><>
For once, the authorities beat the media to the scene, the police began loading the super-villains into armoured vans as Aperture, Balefire and Cobalt began coming to.
“What happened?” Cobalt asked.
“We won.” Rose said simply.
“Well, technically, we won.” Mr Universe corrected.
“Yeah, these guys swooped in at the last minute and finished them off.” Rose explained.
“Actually, we saved your ass.” Hyper Girl said.
“Yeah, I’ll give you guys credit… Whoever took out Wolf Spider had the right idea, he’s the biggest problem on that team, but besides that, all you guys did was make a mess.” Mr Universe added.
“We responded, we were kicking ass, we’re heroes.” Hellfire said.
“Who the hell are these guys?” Mr Universe asked.
“They’re the Teen Dream Team. They beat Do, Re and Mi a couple of months ago, and think they’re big time.” Hyper Girl answered.
“They beat who?” Mr Universe asked.
“My point exactly. A trio of small-time girls; gave us a little trouble around here in the summer.” Hyper Girl explained.
“Oh. Big deal.” Mr Universe said.
“And you think that just because you’ve got the merchandise, and the contracts and the publicity, that you guys are the only teen super-heroes that can tangle with the bad guys?” Aperture asked.
“Listen kid, you guys can take the little jobs, but I think today proved that you can’t hang with the big kids yet.” Mr Universe said.
“Kid? I can’t be more than a year younger than you!” Aperture spluttered.
“Still, he’s right. You kids might be having fun, but it’s crap like this that landed us on TV, taking the blame for the terror that is child super-heroes.” Hyper Girl said.
“Yeah, you need to tone it down, we won’t always be here to save your ass.” Mr Universe said.
“Someone’s going to need to save his ass in a second…” Balefire said, a ball of energy appearing in her hand.
“This is Trish Lane, and I’m here on the scene of the most recent super-battle in New York City.” The media had arrived.
“Put it away kid, and smile for the cameras.” Mr Universe said, and Balefire reluctantly complied.
“Mr Universe? We’ve got to know, what are you doing in New York? Are the rumours true?” Clark Jameson, of the New York Post asked.
“Hyper Girl, can I get a word about what happened here?” Trish Lane, from CNN asked.
“Mr Universe, you’re not really helping your case for teen super-heroes here, are you?” Kirk Robertson of Fox News asked.
“Ok guys, stand back, shut up. Mr Universe is about to issue a statement.” Hyper Girl said.
Mr Universe smiled. “Ok, first of all, the rumours are true. There’s another teen super couple. I’m dating Hyper Girl. Second of all, Teen Dream Team assisted us in taking down a very powerful team of super-villains, who are wanted in several states, and stopped them from taking a large sum of money from the people of this city. Before you question teen heroes, who also appear to be the only heroes on the scene, you should start to ask how they got back out in the first place? The Brat Pack put these guys into Alcatraz months ago, before that they lasted a year in the joint, after Thunderbolt caught them, before that? Who knows? Something needs to be done about the security at Alcatraz. There are multiple breakouts every year. If we could keep guys like this in prison, maybe we wouldn’t need teen heroes.” Mr Universe said.
“So you stand by your statement regarding your career choice?” Robertson asked.
“Damn straight I do. So long as you need us, we’ll be here. Whether you like it or not. Don’t you have anything else to spread fear about? Muslims maybe? The internets? Or are you going through a ‘those darned kids’ phase?” Mr Universe replied, obviously annoyed.
“Calm down Matt…” Hyper Girl muttered.
“Anyway, the Teen Dream Team were the first on the scene, why don’t you ask them?” Mr Universe said, pointing at Rose.
“You guys have been pretty active this past year, but we know so little about you… What is your name?” Trish Lane asked.
“Uhh… The Dark Rose of Blood.” Rose said.
“That’s a little… Dark, isn’t it?” Lane asked.
Rose gave her a withering look, gesturing at her dark-schoolgirl look, complete with dark eye-makeup, black lipstick and pale skin.
“Right… And you are?” Lane moved on.
“Balefire.” The team’s other girl replied.
“That’s the kind of name we’ve come to expect from our heroes, and what a wholesome image you project.” Lane said, as the camera panned out to show the cheerleader’s body, clad in a tight orange-and-yellow costume.
“And you sir?”
“Cobalt. As in Cobalt Blue.” He pointed at his bright blue costume.
“Fair enough. And last but not least…”
“Aperture. I’d like to give a shout-out to my buddy Gordon Freeman over at Black Mesa by the way. The cake is a lie dude!”
“Right…” Lane said, as Mr Universe shook his head in disbelief.
“Well this was a triumph…” Mr Universe muttered, as Aperture grinned like an idiot.
“What the hell?” Hyper Girl asked.
“It’s a nerd thing, get used to it.” Rose replied.
<><><>
“Well, that was interesting, to say the least.” Matt said, as he and Hannah stepped out of the taxi they’d caught from near the scene of the battle, to Matt’s hotel After getting changed in an alleyway, of course.
“Yeah. You think we were too hard on them?” Hannah asked.
“Nah. Someone had to tell them. It’s one thing for guys with our level of abilities to go out and take on these big threats, but they’re younger, less powerful, and probably not as smart.” Matt said.
“Coming from the guy whose team leader just agreed to some insane plan from some guy he just met?” Hannah asked.
“We’re well aware he seems shifty. But his story seems legit. He knows something about Mosley. His psychic shields have been fried, like he said. Katie confirmed that. He looked pretty banged up when they found him too. That’s a lot of effort to get us. If he knows who we are, he could have just attacked us. Why lead us to an ambush?” Matt argued.
“Publicity? Random teens get murdered, vs Brat Pack slaughtered in Salt Lake City. Someone could have an agenda.”
“Someone does. Carmichael.”
“Assuming Fissure is right. Even if he’s lying, are you sure you can take on the Order of Darkness? They did just beat the East Coast Boomers. You just lectured the Teen Dream Team for going in over their heads.”
“We’ll be hiring some support.”
“Hiring? You expect Hire-A-Hero to give you backup?”
“Our contracts run out two weeks beforehand, so we’re free to take whatever missions we want. We will have made enough money to hire D13 for the two days we’ll need them. Not to mention we’ll have Stratos with us, and Rabbit and The Fog on radio to keep us updated.”
“If Fissure’s future is true, you want to take out half the founders of the Rebellion in one fight? You, Perfect, Cal Richards. You’re insane.”
“We’re not insane. We’ll have it all planned out. Besides, there are bigger names than us in that team.”
“Yeah. ‘Cobalt. As in Cobalt Blue.’ He’s promising.”
“We don’t know what he’s capable of. And you know I was talking about the Eagle and Uncle Sam. Not to mention whoever the new Blackbird is.”
“You’re sure it’s not the old one?”
“He’s like, 70 now. I’m pretty confident.”
“Well, if you’re going on a suicide mission, we’d best make the most of the time we have together, huh?” Hannah said, as they stepped into Matt’s hotel room.
Matt smiled. “I guess so…”
<><><>