Arch Rivals (Super Hero Academy Book 2) Read online

  Arch Rivals

  Super Hero Academy Book 2

  Simon Archer

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  4. Lord Inferno

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  12. Aylin

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  16. Mother

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  24. Gemma

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  27. Matt

  Chapter 28

  29. Aylin

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  32. Mother

  Author Note

  1

  Rays of sunlight pierced through the sprawling sunroof overlooking Valcav Academy’s gym. One brushed along Matt Barbur’s black hair as he glared at me from across the line we’d drawn earlier.

  “No powers,” he said as he sliced at the air with his hand. “It’s cheating.”

  “You use powers.” I laughed. “How is that not cheating, then?”

  Matt rolled his eyes, and in an odd display of honesty, he spat, “You’re better than me, Nick. I can’t keep up if you use your powers. That’s not really my fault, is it? I am who I am.”

  “Sounds like an excuse,” I snorted as I gestured down at my now-recovered body. “What’s the matter, is Mattie-kins intimidated by this spectacular specimen of heroism?”

  He didn’t take the bait, and I was glad for it. He’d spent most of the previous semester being manipulated by others, and it was nice to know that he’d finally grown some stones. He simply lifted his brow and massaged the tape around his wrists.

  “Tell me, Nick, does your ass ever get jealous from the shit that comes out of your mouth?”

  That one made me laugh, and I was completely caught off guard for a moment. “Sometimes.” I put a hand on my hip and squinted my eyes at him. “You know, I love your hair. How did you manage to get it to come out of your nostrils like that?”

  He burst out laughing as well, and once again resisted the temptation to charge at me like a buffoon. I was proud of him. Matt was far removed from the frantic beast who’d sliced his claws at me for the better half of our first semester together. If I had a dime for every time he had randomly threatened my life, I’d at least have enough money to take my girls out on a date. In retrospect, maybe I should have charged him.

  “Okay, enough,” he pleaded. “You gonna come at me, or what?”

  “Sure, I’ll be your huckleberry,” I said right before I darted in for a quick jab.

  He managed to duck the blow and then sliced at me with his claws. I dodged the swipe, and the two of us began a dance that we’d been performing for weeks at this point. He could read my patterns, and I could read his. He was bigger and stronger now, the fruits of his recent hard training regimen, but I was still faster.

  Block, dodge, counter, block, that’s how our violent dance went.

  As our sparring went on, I thought of my father, Lord Inferno, former top hero and now emperor of the Brand and would-be world conqueror. It was hard not to because he’d been on my mind pretty consistently since his attack on Valcav, and it was an impossible thing to shake off. Because of him, I’d felt death come for me. She had held my hand and told me that it was time, and I refused her out of sheer stubbornness.

  It took me nearly the entire fall semester to recover in the aftermath. My body healed quickly enough, but for a long time, I couldn’t power up. I still felt the endless well calling to me like a lullaby, but I no longer had the access point. There was an extended moment when I was driven a little bit mad and became terrified that it had left me completely. I could feel the power, but for the first time in my life, I couldn’t tap into it. I was stuck being mortal, and I hated it. In those moments, I was grateful to have Kara and Andie by my side. They were the light of my life, my reason for being.

  Eventually, however, it came back. Trickles, at first, then little rivulets, then the whole dam burst at once, and I nearly took out the entire school by accident in a huge blast of light. Fortunately, I regained control quickly enough, and City Master hadn’t minded repairing the damage I’d done. Well, not too much, anyway.

  According to Triton, I’d strained myself on a spiritual level when I’d died, because according to him, there was a moment when I had died. I tried not to think about it, tried very, very hard.

  I mean, how do you even start a conversation like that? ‘Golly, do you remember that time my nutty dad nearly killed me by accident? What a ride, huh?’

  Needless to say, I had issues in the shape of an insane megalomaniac… and those issues tended to remind me of his presence whenever I refuse to acknowledge him for an extended period. If he thought I was mad, he’d be correct. I still was mad.

  At some point during my recovery, I found an envelope pinched into the doorframe of Andie’s room, where I’d been staying. The envelope was engraved with the burning fist symbol of my father. It took me about two weeks to gather the patience to open it. My father’s script was the same flowery cursive I could remember from youth, and I was hit by a wave of nostalgia as I first scrolled over the contents.

  After that, it was hard to resist the temptation to throw it out or burn it. I didn’t hate my father, of course, but I was still allowed to be upset with him. His little offers to ‘help’ always ended in disaster, and I was tired of having a power-hungry child for a dad. He’d nearly killed me, and everyone around me. He’d nearly killed Kara, too.

  Junior,

  I’m very proud of you. I’m also glad you’re not dead. Sorry about that.

  ‘Sorry about that’ indeed. My dad in a nutshell. Never taking responsibility for anything anymore. He used to be a good man… it was getting harder to remember that, lately.

  And by ‘that,’ I mean the whole killer robot plan. I suppose I didn’t think about the consequences until after the systems got scrambled. Next time, I’ll just slip him a virus. Viruses don’t turn on their masters, do they?

  On second thought, maybe a poison. Except… poison is boring. What about a big gun from space? Big guns from space never go wrong.

  Anyway. What I’m trying to say is I fucking hate this I hope you’re not mad at me

  I wish I were a better father.

  I really am sorry for how things happened. You’re doing good stuff, kiddo. Keep it up.

  Dad

  Matt caught me hard with a side punch, and he reeled in surprise just as much as I did. I blinked through the pain and looked back at him with a dumb expression.

  “The hell is your problem, Nick?” he growled. “Get your head in the game.”

  From the sidelines, I heard Eric howl for joy. He had a fist to his mouth, his ‘microphone’ as he pretended to be an announcer in a wrestling match.

  “And Nickie Boy takes a claw to the face by The Beast! How will he recover, folks? This. Is. Insaaaaaane!”

  To play along with the gag, I flopped down on the floor and pressed my hand to my heart.

  “I may actually be dead,” I said dryly, my voice a complete monotone. “Oh, look. I’m dying. Oh, no.”

  Matt didn’t think it was nearly so funny, and he snatched my wrist to yank me back to my feet.

  “We don’t joke about that,” he muttered. “Not now, not ever.”

  I was st
ill adjusting to this new, oddly protective Matt. According to Kristen, this was his default state of being. After Petey’s robot rampage at the rescue finals, my entire team had now become part of his inner circle, which meant we got to deal with his big brother tendencies.

  “Honestly, Mattie, you’re being a little--”

  “Call me whatever stupid name you want,” he said as he shoved me back a little, “but that joke is off limits.”

  Eric ignored the exchange like the champ that he was. “Our two rivals seem to be having some bizarre civil discussion in the middle of the match! How can this be? Are they actually friends?! That’s insane!”

  Triton and Judgement were seated behind him like two old men who couldn’t quite fathom what Eric was up to but didn’t have the energy to actually tell him to stop doing it. Wrestling was a fine source of entertainment as far as I was concerned, but it clearly wasn’t Triton’s cup of tea. Then again, the old man had a seemingly endless amount of secrets, so who knew for sure?

  Seated next to Eric on the floor, Kristen looked up from her notebook scribbles. Her expression said, ‘I approve,’ before she went back to writing again, cool as a cucumber. So Kristen was a wrestling fan. I put that little nugget aside for later.

  Matt smiled when he noticed his sister’s brief attention. The twins had made up in the aftermath of last semester and were now closer than they’d ever been. In fact, they’d started doing weird twin voodoo where Kristen would give Matt a look and then he’d translate a whole paragraph’s worth of information. It was a little terrifying, to be honest.

  I lifted a brow at Matt and asked, “Round two?”

  “Yep, the World’s Finest tournament is next week,” he said as he lifted his fists into a boxer’s stance. “I want to be ready.”

  One of the most prestigious tournaments on the planet, The World’s Finest involved every single powered academy on the planet fighting for honor and prestige. I had been so caught up in my first semester at Valcav to even think about the World’s Finest, but Triton and Judgment had been planning out Valcav’s team for some time. They pit Matt against me while I recovered so that I could train patience into him, and he could train strength back into me.

  This led to me fighting Matt in endless sparring matches and combat exercises to the point where we could probably fight each other with our eyes closed. I wasn’t entirely clear on who would be participating in which event, hell, I didn’t even know what events would be this year, but Triton and Judgment both agreed that Matt and I would be partners throughout the tournament.

  I didn’t tell anyone that I thought this was probably because we were the favorites of either mentor, but that didn’t matter. Matt surpassed my expectations and turned out to be a pretty decent sparring partner. He wasn’t the fastest learner in the world, but he was nothing if not persistent.

  We danced around each other for a good long while, trying to grab any opening that we could. I tried to kick Matt, but he dodged out of the way. He tried to jab me, but I blocked him.

  Block, counter, block, dodge. Frustrated over the back and forth dance, I pretended to charge Matt, knowing that he’d step to the side. He fell for the feint, and I caught him with a vicious kick.

  “The Beast fell for the ol’ Nickie Feint!” Eric cheered from the sidelines as he announced on his invisible mic. “What a classic! That’s gotta hurt, folks.”

  If I’d hit anyone else, I’d have probably broken a jaw, but Matt just grunted.

  “Going to be like that, are we?” he snarled as he glared at me.

  I laughed, but Matt was so incredibly annoyed. “Why should I pull my punches? You can take it.”

  “It still fucking hurts,” he grumbled.

  “Get used to it, buddy. They’re not going to be pulling punches at the World’s Finest, either.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, we better go all out now,” Matt decided with a growl. His thick hair grew out into a mane, and fur erupted from his bare skin. His fangs elongated, his claws grew longer and sharper, and his muscular body swelled.

  He said he was going serious, and for Matt, that meant going full werewolf. I cocked my head as he finished his transformation into a powerful, snarling, regenerating beast and grinned.

  “Guess that means I get to use my powers now, huh?” I cracked my knuckles as I gave into the well of limitless power inside me. My muscles swelled as my veins lit on fire with raw energy, and I felt whole again as I was filled up from the inside out. “Let’s do this.”

  Eric whistled in approval. “The stakes are being raised! It’s gonna be a proper slaughter tonight, folks!”

  Matt snorted as he shook out his fur. “Jesus, Eric,” he managed to say through a lupine snout, an amazing feat in and of itself. “You’re really selling this.”

  “Just doin’ my job, Beast!” Eric howled like a maniac, which was more or less part of the wrestling shtick. He was so excited that his whole body sparkled with little lightning bolts. “Bring on the bloodshed! Raaah!”

  I lifted a brow at Matt as I hovered a few inches off the ground, suspended by my power, and asked, “You sure about this?”

  “Just don’t be an asshole and make me grow back a hand again,” he roared as he began to circle me. That had been an entertaining week. He’d been so pissed with me, always shaking his little stub in outrage as his hand regenerated.

  I had to give it to him, even in his full animalistic state, Matt had learned enough to not to rush me in my powered state. In terms of raw physical might, no matter how strong he was now, he wasn’t a match. So, he had to either stall me until my ten minutes of godhood were up, master the presence of mind to fully share his own power with Kristen’s magnetic manipulation, or trick me into a slip-up and get a vital strike in. As we’d seen, at his full power, he could actually pierce my nigh-invulnerable skin with his fangs or claws.

  Of course, my job was not to let him capitalize on any of those things. While my first instinct was to blitz Matt down with a combination of super speed and strength, I wanted to see if he could, in fact, keep his cool. So, instead of going right in, I lazily circled for just a moment before I decided to poke the wolf.

  And by poke, I meant a sudden flash of laser eyes right through his right arm.

  The big werewolf did try to duck away, but Matt wasn’t faster than the speed of light. The twin power beams blew through his arm, a shower of ruby drops following the burning light as it exploded out the other side. Not that he bled for long between his healing factor and the cauterization effect of the lasers.

  “I can’t believe it, folks!” Eric cried in overexaggerated alarm. “There’s blood in the ring! I repeat, there’s blood in the ring!”

  “Eric,” I heard Kristen mutter, “there is no ring.”

  He didn’t even care. “There’s blood. In. The. Riiiing!”

  Matt let out a roar of pain that would make most people shit their pants, and to my dismay, some of his old rage clearly bubbled to the surface. Well, best to get it out of his system. I baited him with an arrogant little grin that old Matt would have been unable to resist trying to claw off my face.

  Sadly, he took the bait, coiling up before he broke into a manic sprint. Again, if I had been anyone else, he would have bowled me over, ripped my arm off, and beat me to death with it.

  But I was me and at my full power to boot. Matt’s leap was almost in slow motion as I sped to one side and ended up behind and above him before I dropped an elbow into his back.

  Matt’s spine cracked and popped before he rocketed into the gym floor. I almost thought that was it, but the resilience of Matt’s werewolf form was pretty impressive. His spine must have regenerated before he even hit the ground. He bounced off the gym floor and turned my crushing impact into a claw-first leap back at me.

  This time the element of surprise was on his side, and score one for Matt as I threw my arm up defensively. As his jaws latched onto my forearm, I bit back the slight pain as his teeth actually managed to dig
into my skin and managed to deflect his predictable follow-up swipe. Then I drilled one super-strength punch right into his snout.

  His nose and upper jaw exploded into blood and bone, but I wasn’t worried. I’d hit Matt way harder, and by the utterly pissed look in his eyes as he lost his grip on my arm, I could tell he would be okay… so I kicked him back to the earth like a soccer ball.

  I was there before he hit the floor, and as he careened toward me, I caught him in the center of the back with a front snap kick that popped him into the air. As he flew upward, I was already waiting at the apex of his arc and hit him with a double-handed overhead swing that sent him rocketing into the ground once more.

  He hit the floor with a thud that cracked the cement, and as he bounced into the air, I wrapped my arm around his neck and took us both to the ground. While I could have just used raw power to hold him down now, I did my due diligence and positioned myself with leverage so that I had him pinned in such a way that I could break his neck with a gentle tug. Even without super strength.

  I had no intention of doing so, of course, but even if I did, he’d probably heal the damage within minutes anyway.

  He tapped my arm to call for the break. By the time he sat up and checked his shattered snout, it was already fully healed.

  “You still got angry,” I said while gesturing at the blood still streaked on his skin and fur. “I know Brad left his mark, but--”

  “We don’t talk about that name,” Matt growled as he shifted back to his normal form. “I’m done being manipulated.”