"I should hang you upsidedown from the window for what you pulled."

"Glad to see you're okay too, Hartley."

It had taken over half an hour, but Alec and Tony had managed to make their way back through the forest and into the clearing where the drop ship was waiting, without attracting the attention of any other Villain. Hartley greeted them at the hatch door, his face livid with fury, while behind him Katrina, Charlie, Maddison, Ethan, Javon, and Reya watched on in the background, all of their expressions varying from apprehension to relief.

"Tell me this wasn't a complete waste of time and that you at least found him," Hartley went on roughly, heading back to the front seat.

"I did. He's okay — or at least he was when we left. Hopefully the League gets there in time to evacuate them. But otherwise, he should be fine."

"Good. At least one of you should still be alive when this is all over."

Hartley started up the ship. It remained in place for half a minute, building up pressure, then columns of bright blue flames erupted from the thrusters, and they took to the air, the forest falling away below them. Deciding that it was best to let him cool off until he got over the urge to toss Alec out the window, Alec opted to sit with his friends and hear the rest of the news while Hartley fumed silently in the driver's seat.

"So? What's been going on? Why did you all come back?"

As he had predicted, it was Maddison who responded. She had been engrossed in her laptop again, but now looked up at him. "For one, practical reasons. The Hydraloop wasn't just destroyed here. It looks like the Villains damaged the chutes in several different places, so there's no way we could use them to get back to school. I don't know if it was in an effort to draw out as many Heroes as possible, or if they had another goal in mind, but a lot of students now have to find different methods of travel."

That made sense, Alec thought, nodding.

"Okay, and the less practical reasons?"

"What do you think, rock-head?" Charlie said, exasperated. "Hartley told us that the Villains showed up at your house! We were here in case you needed backup."

Alec opened his mouth to speak, but his voice seemed to have abandoned him. Unable to find something to say, and feeling a little warm in the face, he averted his gaze and nodded, feeling quite touched.

"Besides, I think the Covenant was aiming to do something here other than cause destruction," Maddison continued. "But I needed to see for myself what was really going on, to confirm whether I was right or not. When the battle shifted away, I started doing some research —"

"Have you stopped once since we started at school all those weeks ago?"

"— particularly into the local museum," Maddison went on, ignoring him, though there was the tiniest note of irritation in her voice. "And I was looking into what kind of items they had on display. Apparently, some of the objects there aren't allowed to be shown on a website, and need to be seen in person." She rolled her eyes. "But I did read on their website that there are certain items they'd procured that they were going to be revealing in two days. Which got me thinking —"

"That maybe something there could have been one of the missing keys for the Infinity Compass?" Alec finished slowly.

She nodded. "But they never actually went anywhere near the museum, which is why it's so puzzling. There must have been some other reason that they showed up here today, picking a fight with the most powerful Superhero organization in the entire world. It couldn't have been for kicks. They're arrogant, but not stupid."

"Well, let's not forget that they tried to kill me too," Alec said, with mock modesty.

"No, I don't think that's it either," Maddison said, in a tone of indifference, her eyes still glued to the screen.

"Are you saying I'm not important enough to kill?" Alec said, feeling slightly offended, and wondering why he did.

"No, but I don't think the entire Covenant was necessary to do that. I have no idea why they would go after you specifically, but if they're just trying to kill you, they wouldn't have needed to make all this fuss to do it. In fact, creating a city-wide disaster would have been the worst possible way to go about it.

"These are people who have years, decades, of experience of stealth and all kinds of criminal work. If any of them truly wanted to, they could have just slipped into your room and slit your throat while you were sleeping. Or just leveled your house." She shrugged.

It was amazing how casually she could discuss the possibilities of his death.

Trying to ignore the feeling of unease that had crept up his spine at the thought of how easy it would have been for these Villains to decimate his entire family, he hastily continued. "But what would they have to gain by killing me, anyway? I mean, I get Shadow Shifter would want revenge, but he wasn't the only Villain who showed up at my —"

The ship jerked in midair as if they had hit an invisible road bump, and the group went flying every which way.

"What?" Hartley demanded from the front, over the groans and moans of pain while the group struggled to sit up. "Shadow Shifter showed up at your house?"

"Well, it wasn't that bad," Alec said, his hand on his forehead. "Tony jumped me away the moment he arrived, so he didn't have a chance to —"

"But he could have," Hartley said, his tone rough and final. "I knew it. I told you it was too dangerous for you to go without me."

"Me going out alone was probably the smartest decision I made all weekend. I wasn't home when they first attacked, but you were and you managed to get my family to safety. If we'd both been gone, they would probably be — be dead." Alec had to force the words out.

There was a small, uncomfortable silence.

"Look, I know you're worried, but I'm fine. I swear."

Hartley made no response other than another heavy exhale. The stiff silence continued, in which everyone turned their eyes in a different direction. Then Ethan jumped to his feet, making them all start.

"What is that?"

They all stood up along with him, peering intently through the window. A small black dot seemed to be hanging in the air behind them. . . . But it was growing larger . . . moving closer.

"Someone's flying towards us!" Reya said, alarmed.

"Any chance it's a member of the Hero League coming to give us a first class escort?" Charlie suggested hopefully, but Alec could tell he didn't really believe that.

"No chance of that. Everyone, buckle up!" Hartley shouted. They moved quickly into position, pulling straps around their torsos or holding tightly to the metal bars overhead to keep themselves steady. Hartley slammed the lever forward, and the ship rocketed forward, the boost propelling them along at a pace that made their heads wobble.

The thing behind them, however, was still gaining. But now, as Alec stared out at it, tracking its progress, he noticed that more and more dark figures were rising into the air all around them.

Charlie shouted a rather crude word that Alec would never have expected him to say, given how polite he usually seemed. Everyone stared at him, temporarily distracted, and he seemed quite abashed for a moment. He cleared his throat and muttered, in a very small voice, "Sorry."

Then Alec returned to his surveillance. Even as Hartley zigged and zagged, dived and rose, the figures kept to them, drawing ever nearer.

They had finally reached the sea, and now a long, glittering expanse of pale blue water spread out around them like an endless carpet, rolling in every direction.

"There's nowhere to lose them!" Reya said shrilly.

This situation seemed awfully familiar, Alec thought bitterly. He heaved up the bars restraining him and made his ungainly way to the front, struggling to keep upright as Hartley continued his bumpy journey.

"We'll have to confront them," he said.

"Absolutely not," Hartley said, in a tone of finality that, in any other case, Alec would not have challenged. But this time was different.

"There's nothing around for miles! There's no way we can lose them on the water and they're gaining on us every second —" He was interrupted by a heavy blow to the ship's left, that knocked them off course. Hartley heaved against the controls, narrowly managing to get them back in the air before they hit the water's surface. "Scratch that — they've gained on us! And if we don't shake them off our tail now, they're either going to blast us out of the air or they'll follow us back to Helix, and then what'll we do?"

Hartley seemed to be mulling it over. Alec wished he would hurry. The ship was being bombarded on all sides now. Clearly, Hartley didn't like the idea one bit, but he was smart enough to see the truth in what Alec was saying.

With a sigh that was somehow audible above the ruckus of the ship's engines and the hits they were taking, he reached a finger under the dashboard and pressed a large yellow button that Alec had never noticed before. There was a click and a soft hiss, then a small movement behind Alec caught his eye and he turned to see a compartment opening up over Ethan's head.

"Woah," everyone chorused.

"Well, go on," Hartley said.

Alec hurried to join the others in staring at the hidden compartment full of incredible weapons that had opened along the wall.

"Is that a GX-50 Tundra Rifle?" Charlie breathed, staring at a long, sleek, black and silver blaster with streaks of blue along the nozzle, and looking as though he might faint from excitement.

"Yep, fresh out of League stores," Hartley said. "But don't touch it if you're not experienced with the type. Last thing I need is to have to lug any human-shaped icicles up to Helix —"

"Please," Charlie said heartily, wrenching the weapon from its case and balancing it. "This baby's mine."

There was another blow from behind, but less powerful. Something seemed to be digging into the hatch door, and sure enough, right before their very eyes, the seam between the walls was being torn apart, revealing someone floating right at the ship's edge, dressed in a suit the colour of arterial blood. Everyone scrambled to pick up a weapon, awkwardly trying to balance it or figure out how to fire.

The doors of the hatch were torn clean off, and the Villain tossed them into the water below. Then he looked up at them with a wicked smile — which turned at once into a grimace of horror as he noticed all the barrels pointed at him.

Anthony, whose weapon was so big it had to be balanced against his chest and held with both hands, fired: a green surge of energy flew from the shaft and erupted with such force that Tony was actually pushed back several feet.

It slammed into the Villain's gut so hard that Alec could have sworn he saw a sliver of spit flying from his mouth on impact, illuminated by the emerald flare. Then he was blasted away from the ship, and he was falling . . . falling . . . splash!

"Yeah!" Charlie and Anthony high-fived, so excited that it didn't seem to occur to them that they may have done more than simply knock their adversary out. But before anyone could point this out, someone else swooped into the ship. They bounded forward and bowled Javon over, settling on his chest. Alec wheeled around with his own weapon poised, but couldn't get a clear shot because the person was moving around so much.

Then Alec realized, with a jolt of shock, that this new enemy was no man at all. It was a massive dog: its body was a swirling mass of black mist, but it was snapping viciously at Javon, whose hand was up, trying to cover his face.

There was another flare of green light, but this time darker and colder, then a pitiful whining noise, and the dog melted before their eyes.

Alec dropped the weapon and hurried to help him up. "You okay?"

Javon looked rather faint. "Yeah, I'm — I'm fine —"

But Alec realized that he wasn't fine at all. The dog seemed to have sunk its entire set of teeth into his arm. The indentations of its fangs were clear, even through the blood flowing from the wounds.

"I'm fine," Javon tried to protest. But then something else erupted into ship, and this time it went for Reya. It grabbed her, but instead of pinning her to the floor, it ducked back out of the ship.

"Reya!' Charlie yelled, and, it seemed, without the slightest consideration for what he was going to do next, he dropped the Tundra Rifle and darted after them. He took a great, bounding leap, soaring through the air in a vast arc. For a split second, it actually looked like he would make it, that he would catch their airborne assailant. But then —

Something hurtled into him, pushing him aside and out of sight entirely.

"Hartley, take us down!" Alec shouted.

"I can't —"

"They're going to kill them, just do it!"

With a growl of frustration, Hartley wheeled the ship around. Alec and the others were flattened against the wall as they spun, but as they managed to right themselves, they saw that the shadow animals were coming from all directions now, swarming at the hatch door like a group of dogs scrabbling for food. Maddison rushed forward, two long, slender swords in her hands, and began to hack through the crowd, cutting the animals into wisps of dark smoke.

Anthony grabbed Charlie's discarded Rifle and rushed to the open door just as Maddison finished dealing with the crowd.

"What are you doing?" Katrina demanded, as if worried he too might leap from the vehicle.

Anthony didn't respond. He pointed the blaster straight below, and pressed the trigger. A beam of bluish-white energy erupted from the nozzle and flowed straight down onto the water outside. The light from the beam seared against their retinas, forcing them to look away. When the glare had died down, Alec looked down and saw a solid sheet of ice floating serenely in the middle of the water. Then Anthony waved his hand and conjured a portal beside them; down below, another opened up onto the ice platform.

Maddison did not hesitate. She darted into the portal and emerged onto the frozen stage below. Katrina and Ethan rushed forward as well, along with Javon, who was healing the wounds to his arm. Alec, however, did not move.

"Earth Elemental, remember?" he said, when Anthony looked around at him. "I'm useless in water!"

"Then it's a good thing you're not in the water yet!" Anthony said, exasperated, as though Alec was being dense. Then he gestured around at the wall.

"Oh!" Alec had forgotten his squad leader's words in his panic. Wildfire had explained that his powers could work on different subsets of earth, including metal. He hurried to the wall and absorbed the metal from the ship: his skin turned sleek and silver, like a statue. Then he too charged into the portal.

On the other side was pandemonium. Even though they had barely gone on a minute before him, all of his friends were now locked in combat. Reya had a managed to free herself, and was now levitating in midair, a purple aura glowing around her form, fending off more shadow beasts with a miniature tornado.

On the ice, the others were doing what they could. But there was no sign of Charlie. Yet even as Alec tried to take his bearings, a new Villain came soaring down like a torpedo and crashed into the ice, right in front of him, so hard it cracked apart, and they began to drift away from the rest of the fight.

"Earth Mimicry," he said, sounding mildly impressed. "I like that. You know, I can do something of the sort too."

It was Iron Titan.

"You. Of course."

"You know who I am?"

"The only thing I don't know is why you're here. A group of kids on their way to school can't be that high on the Black Covenant's priority list, can it?" Alec asked, raising an eyebrow.

The expression on Iron Titan's face changed dramatically. "How do you know about that?"

"Is it that big of a surprise that I know your little playgroup's name?" Alec said tauntingly. Iron Titan's skin changed as quickly as his expression, morphing into a gleaming coat of metal. He charged. Even with Alec's own durability enhanced by his powers, the blow was still a heavy one.

A loud clanging noise echoed out as Iron Titan's fist made contact, like a pan being dropped onto the floor. Alec staggered, lost his balance on the slippery surface, and fell over, and Iron Titan seized his chance. He swooped, descending on Alec like a giant block of iron, and grabbed Alec around the neck. As he made to lift him up, Alec's hand, which had been dipping in the water behind him, flew up. The water splashed against Iron Titan's face, which didn't do much in terms of damage, but it had the effect Alec had wanted. Iron Titan instinctively clutched at his face, and in his moment of distraction, Alec leapt up, morphed the metal of his hand into a large, double-sided hammer, and slammed it into his head.

The Villain recoiled, stumbling off the block of ice and towards the water. But somehow he managed to stay on. As he was getting up, Alec then did something that they both could agree was quite stupid.

He charged.

He did not know what made him do it, could not explain it other than he wanted to keep Iron Titan down. Both of them plunged into the water, still grappling. The afternoon sunlight was still filtering through the water, providing a faint glow that kept him visible to Alec's sight while they continued to sink, much faster than usual due to their altered body compositions, heading right towards a stretch of moss-covered earth below.

But Alec knew that under no circumstance could he drop his metal guard. Between Iron Titan's enhanced strength and the treacherous water around them, he would be leaving himself entirely vulnerable.

They continued to struggle, but it was much harder moving in this twisting, whirling current. A school of fish flickered past like tiny bullets. Alec thought he must have imagined it, but it almost seemed like the fish were looking at them with a mixture of alarm and disapproval.

With a roar of frustration that made a stream of bubbles erupt from his mouth, Iron Titan kicked out, dislodging himself from Alec. As the latter spiraled towards the ground, he saw Iron Titan clawing back up to the surface, desperate for air — back to where his friends were. His resolve hardened. Alec focused his energy on the ground below, ignoring the building pain in his head, as if it were about to split apart. He felt the pressure against him tightening, like an invisible hand was trying to pull him down.

Above, Iron Titan faltered, then he came pelting to the ground like a torpedo, splattering against the dark, mossy rock.

Alec could see him writhing, trying to peel himself from the stone, but he was pinned by the enhanced gravity. But now Alec was struggling too. He was feeling more and more lightheaded; his chest felt like it was about to burst. He couldn't think about Iron Titan anymore. There was only one thought in his mind, a single desire he had to obtain: air!

Instinctively, he turned his attention away from the still struggling villain and started clawing his way upwards, towards the light, towards air. But the feelings of discomfort were growing far more violent now. He wasn't going to make it. . . . The metal suffusing his skin faded, and now he truly felt it: the stinging cold of the water, the rippling of the tide, the water filling his lungs like over-large balloons. There was an explosive feeling building in his gut, greater even than that in his chest.

His eyes fluttered closed. He lost the strength to keep swimming, and he began to sink. . . . Then he heard a colossal crash. Something hard rammed into him from behind, and he felt himself shooting up.

Next moment, he burst through the surface of the water, above the ocean, on a large, floating piece of land. Gasping and sputtering violently, clutching his searing chest, he looked around, and managed to make out what had happened: he had, completely unintentionally, pulled up a huge chunk of the rock below and pushed both himself and Iron Titan to safety.

The Villain looked around at him, eyes wide, unable to move as he gasped for air. Then there was a loud wooshing, and a streak of movement caught Alec's eye. Reya had swooped onto the scene, and now, hovering above them, she shouted, "Aguaperiedo!"

The water in front of them exploded as if a tiny bomb had been set off under the rock. The hose of water struck up so fiercely that Iron Titan was flung backwards, landing about fifty feet away with a tremendous splash.

"Thanks," Alec rasped, his chest still burning as though from fire and not water.

"No time!"

Reya turned her outstretched hand towards him and began to chant. The water beside him climbed onto the earthen platform and began to gather beneath him, spiraling to form a miniature whirlpool of almost solid water, revolving slowly underneath him and propelling him into the air. Then they took off across the water. The ice platform had been severely damaged, shattered into great chunks that now drifted aimlessly across the ocean's face.

"Where's Charlie?" Alec asked.

His question was answered before Reya even opened her mouth. Following the sudden grunts that had reached his ears, he leaned over his water spout and saw Charlie's bulky figure below, arms burning with vibrant energy like glowing boxer gloves, pounding a massive, fallen, golem-like figure so viciously that even Reya cringed. She pulled him atop a water spout as well, and as he cried out in a mixture of confusion and frustration, she led them towards the drop ship, still hovering in the sky. They clattered in through the open cargo bay, where Alec found everyone else gathered. But something was wrong.

Anthony was lying in Katrina's lap, his eyes closed, while she sobbed over him. Javon was at his side, energy pouring from his hands over what looked to be a wound caused by a gigantic black stalk sprouting from his stomach. Maddison was standing over them, her face and arms cut in so many places it looked as if she had walked through a forest of thorns.

Before Alec could even ask what had happened, Ethan leapt up. "Go!" he shouted at Hartley. "Go! Go!"