Power (Book 1)

Chapter 36

See, the problem with my life now is that several bad things can happen in a day. Like now, for instance. I got attacked by my two best buddies Metagor and Sage, then nearly got sucked into a black hole/wormhole, and now I'm fighting my actual best buddy, who's being mind controlled by my worst nightmare: the Master. What a day.

I narrowly dodged Master-Jake's jump for me, but his hand grazed my shoulder. My hard exterior felt as if it was burning. That was the only pain I'd ever felt in this form before. Ice spread from the area where he touched me.

"Stings, doesn't it?" Jake asked me, still smiling. "Did you know if diamond gets too cold, it can crack?"

My face would've paled if it was human skin.  Touching him meant death. Getting near him like this meant almost certain contact.

I switched back to human so I could use my speed. Switching into hypermode, I ran at him at full speed and knocked him in the jaw with my fist for a brief millisecond. The contact almost froze my hand.

I went back to normal time again. Jake's head recoiled, just reacting to my punch.

"You can't touch me now, Jay," he said. "My supercold aura is getting stronger. Even if you hit me for less than a hundredth of a second, you'll still lose a limb."

That was good news and bad news. Good news: he couldn't use the Master's abilities to aid him. Bad news: he was just as dangerous. I couldn't lay a hand on him, but he could destroy me with a single finger near me.

A thick layer of frost spread from Jake's feet all the way to where I was standing. I backed up to get away from the expanding ice.

"The good thing about having ice powers is that it's the ultimate weapon against people like you," Jake said. "If you run on ice, you don't gain any traction. You can't use your speed."

"You can say the same thing about regular people," I said as I retreated.

The ice stopped growing when it had a large radius around Jake. "Now what are you going to do?"

"I'm working on it," a voice said inside my head. Boan.

I walked around the circle of ice. He was right- there wasn't much I could do. It was a stalemate.

Suddenly, an image popped into my head. A telephone pole.

I looked behind me. The black van we had used to get here was smashed into one.

"Thanks, Boan," I thought inside of my head.

I rushed to the van and hefted it over my shoulder.

I hurled the van at Jake. He raised a barrier of ice to protect himself, and the van bounced off to rest just inside the circle of ice.

I wasted no time picking the van back up and spilling the leaking oil around Jake's ice.

"What are you up to?" Jake turned to keep me in his sights.

I finished circling around the ice and tossed the van off to the side. "You may know all about my powers, but I know even more about yours," I said.

I ran to the telephone pole and heaved it up out of the ground. There was a loud cracking of wood and the entire structure snapped at the base. Without a second thought, I pulled on it, and the wires popped off, sparks flying everywhere.