Underground Lab, Sorcerer Scientist’s Lair
The invisible force dropped Jack into the glass room like a misbehaving puppy. He hit the ground with a grunt and rolled, scraping his elbow on the polished white floor. The faint glow of containment runes pulsed beneath him as the curved wall of the prison shimmered shut with a low electric hum.
Across the room, Ethan was already on his feet.
“Jack!” he shouted, rushing forward.
Jack scrambled up and ran to meet him halfway, the two boys colliding in a quick, tight hug before pulling back, both equally flushed and wide-eyed.
“You’re okay!” they said at the same time.
Jack grinned. “Barely.”
Ethan’s face lit up, but it was laced with worry. “I saw you fall through the duct. I thought—I thought she got you.”
“She kinda did,” Jack muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “But hey—I dropped those cyberbug things first. Luckily they’d done something cool.”
Outside the glass walls, the Sorcerer Scientist hovered, her coat billowing despite the absence of wind. Her bionic arm glowed violet as she surveyed the lab, still bathed in red emergency light. Sparks danced from darkened terminals. Lab assistants scrambled to reset systems and override fried circuits.
She didn’t seem bothered.
She was smiling.
“Power loss confirmed. External shields offline. Perimeter breached,” droned a robotic voice from a ceiling-mounted orb.
“Finally,” the Sorcerer Scientist said with icy delight. “Our guests have arrived.”
Moments later, a blast rocked one of the outer doors—then another. The third door burst inward in a flurry of smoke and light.
Khaki, Anansewa, and Cyberteen stormed in like a miniature hurricane.
“Hands off the boys, you freak!” barked Cyberteen, charging up a blast in each fist. Anansewa’s silk threads glowed in twin spirals around her wrists. Khaki moved ahead of them both, every muscle coiled, every breath steady.
The Sorcerer Scientist raised one hand lazily—and the lights above flared, then dimmed.
With a flick of her fingers, the glass room housing the boys lit up bright violet, a new shimmer surrounding it. Jack and Ethan flinched.
“Careful,” she said in a singsong warning. “I wouldn’t suggest making a move without listening to the rules of the game.”
Khaki stopped.
So did the others.
The boys stood frozen behind the shimmering glass, wide-eyed. They didn’t understand all the strategy, all the tactical nuance—but they understood danger.
“What are you doing?” Anansewa called, narrowing her eyes.
“Negotiating,” the Sorcerer Scientist replied, turning lazily in the air. “I have two assets. You three have... determination. And I do love watching the young try to be brave.”
“You hurt either of them,” Khaki growled, “and I swear—”
“Oh, I won’t hurt them,” she purred, spinning mid-air. “Not yet. But I will make it very difficult for them to breathe in there if you force my hand.”
Jack pressed closer to the glass, looking back and forth between his friends and their captor. His heart hammered in his chest. “She’s bluffing, right?” he whispered.
Ethan, equally pale, shook his head. “She doesn’t look like she bluffs.”
Inside the glass enclosure, the air shimmered slightly. A soft mechanical hiss filled the background. Jack squinted—was that the vents? Were they being sealed?
“Why are you doing this?” Anansewa demanded. “You’ve already got what you wanted!”
“Not quite,” the Sorcerer Scientist replied, lazily circling the enclosure. “I need a ritual. And for that, I need the original summoner—that young boy there. But his mind is fragmented. Broken, even. I need time to realign the threads. Until then... I thought you might like to watch.”
“Not happening,” CT muttered, already aiming his wrist blasters. “We’ve fought worse than you.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” The Sorcerer Scientist smiled wider now, and with another flick, tendrils of purple energy launched toward the teens.
Khaki dodged left. CT rolled forward and fired. Anansewa weaved a protective silk dome, shouting, “CT, disrupt her gauntlet! Khaki—guard the boys!”
The lab erupted into chaos. Blasts of magic and tech collided in showers of sparks. Jack and Ethan flinched behind the glass, watching the Adolescent Avengers fight with the kind of precision and bravery that made their heads spin.
And yet... neither boy could do anything but watch.
“I don’t like this,” Jack muttered. “I hate this.”
Ethan turned to him, his face pale, but his soft jaw set. “We have to help them somehow.”
Jack gritted his teeth. “If only I could remember how to break outta places like this...”
Then he blinked. A flicker.
A moment.
A scene that didn’t belong to this life—a flash of fists against concrete, of tearing through an electrified cell wall, of fighting beside Ethan—
No. Not beside.
As Lumberjack.
The image faded. It left a tingle behind. A phantom itch of memory.
“Did you feel that?” Jack whispered.
Ethan nodded slowly. “Like déjà vu.”
The battle raged on outside the glass. Khaki was locked in a spinning melee with one of the Sorcerer Scientist’s arcane drones. CT’s blasts were hitting harder now, sparking along the walls. Anansewa’s silk strands had caught one of the auxiliary turrets and yanked it free.
But the Sorcerer Scientist herself remained untouched. Every time they struck, she flicked her gauntlet and phased, teleported, rebounded. She was like trying to punch smoke with teeth.
And all the while, the air inside the glass room was getting thinner.
The boys started to cough.
Ethan clutched Jack’s arm. “We have to do something.”
Jack pressed his palm to the glass, fingers splayed.
“C’mon,” he whispered. “C’mon, muscles. Give me something.”
His hand clenched into a fist. He pulled back.
Then—
WHAM.
He punched the glass.
It hurt.
The glass didn’t crack.
But something inside Jack clicked.
Not a memory.
A reflex.
His other hand came up. Elbow bent. Feet planted. Breathing slowed.
He moved.
A technique. A pattern. A sequence his body remembered even when his brain didn’t.
WHAM. WHAM. WHAM.
The glass shimmered, but didn’t break.
Outside, Khaki noticed. “Stealthy Scout?”
The Sorcerer Scientist glanced toward the room, frowning.
Jack’s knuckles were bleeding now. Ethan joined in, kicking at the lower edge, their combined efforts making the barrier ripple—but not yet break.
Then the Sorcerer Scientist snapped her gauntlet once more—
And the air inside the glass room suddenly dropped in temperature. A blast of arcane frost burst across the floor. The boys stumbled back, shivering.
“That’s enough,” she hissed. “Playtime is over.”
She extended her hand toward the glass—one final move.
But she hadn’t seen Cyberteen’s final play: a tiny drone—shaped like a fly—crawled up the back of her gauntlet unnoticed.
“Boys,” CT shouted, “Duck!”
The drone exploded.
The gauntlet sparked. Magic backfired.
The glass barrier flickered—and shattered.
Khaki dove through the shards, grabbing both boys and pulling them to safety just as Anansewa wrapped the Sorcerer Scientist in a binding web of reinforced silk, momentarily locking her magic arm in place.
The boys coughed in the open air, gripping Ken’s arms.
“I… I thought we were toast,” Ethan panted.
“You almost were,” Ken muttered, then looked down at Jack. “And you—you stubborn little gremlin—remind me never to let you punch glass again.”
Jack gave a crooked, breathless grin.
“Only if you promise to punch her next.”
Ken smirked.
“Gladly.”