KAT & SALLY IN: Vanbushed! Chapter 3
Things returned to normal after that. Well, as close to normal as we get anymore. Immediately I sent out a text letting the Watch Squad know we were OK, but otherwise, we grabbed a bite to eat, hung out in Kat’s apartment (I kinda ditched mine after Kat killed a guy in it; granted, it was all in self-defense, but still, my super wasn’t too pleased about it), and forty-five minutes later, our powers came back.
Kat had work, so I’m alone at the apartment, trying to work on teleportation. The laser beams were pretty easy — imagine a beam of light shooting out of your hand. Done. But teleportation?
I can do it with my costume, because that’s moving something from somewhere else onto me. It’s one variable and one constant. But how do you visualize your whole being jumping from one place to another?
And, more importantly, am I going to die if I screw it up?
Having an enormous amount of mysterious power pulsing in your chest at all times is a lot of pressure, especially since I now know that somebody’s going to be coming after us, trying to take it from us. (Or, at least, I assume.) How is teleportation going to be useful? Are they gonna trap us in boxes we can teleport out of? Could that be any lamer of a villainous plot?
As I’m pondering, my phone buzzes. Troy, one of the Watch Group members, says somebody’s selling comics of us at the local gaming shop.
On one hand, I’m flattered. On the other hand, did they get my hair right?
I flash into my costume and, climbing out the back window into the alley (don’t want to walk out Kat’s front door looking like this), take to the sky.
I could’ve walked, but this is gonna be way more impressive.
I land in front of the shop and stride in, looking as heroic as I can as I can; chest up, shoulders back, and just a little bit of swagger.
Say, the shop’s pretty empty.
And dark.
“So glad you could make it.” A man’s voice. Troy?
WHOOSH. Thud.
The doors and windows of the shop are covered by solid steel panels, dropping down into place in sync with each other.
Crap.
This is why I should’ve worked on teleportation.
On the other hand, yes, this is totally lame.
“Y’know, the funniest thing happened a few days ago,” Troy says, emerging from the shadows. “Some bad-looking dudes cornered me. I thought they were going to kill me. Instead, I was handed a big bag of gems — kinda like the ones you told me about, actually — and I was told that if I could find any more, they’d consider taking Earth off their hit list.”
“What are you talking about, Troy?” I ask.
“You know what I’m talking about,” he says, raising his right hand. “I’m not your lackey anymore. Now I’m the hero.”
His beam trims off the end of my ponytail, but I’m otherwise unharmed as I dodge out of the way. Of course, if I hadn’t dodged, I’d be very dead right now.
“So let me get this straight,” I call out, sidling along a shelf full of trade paperbacks to stay out of his field of vision. “There’s no comic of Kat and me here, is there?”
End of Chapter 3
