Origin City: Summer Break

Maniacs (Chapter Nine)

Lenahan attacks me with a barrage of punches. I block and dodge them swiftly with my 5% energy intact. Lenahan swung at me with his right and I blocked his swing with my forearm and palm him in the chest.

"Oof!" Lenahan winces as he falls onto the floor, but quickly recovers onto his feet. He brushed off his shoulder and stood up. "Feel any stronger?"

"Nope. But I am impressed with your fighting.."

"Well, I had good teachers."

"You're a good learner."

"Thanks..? Sort of weird hearing it from a student.." I laughed.

"Yeah, I can see how weird it is." I took a deep breath and release holding on the 5 percent. "We're gonna have to come up with something else if we're gonna take him down. I can't learn how to use more energy in such a short amount of time...it took long enough to master 5 percent.."

"Maybe we could try to use more gadgets, but offensively?"

"Well, I could use my staff, my electric gauntlets, plasma shield, laser, and the air blasts in my gauntlets."

"Maybe we could use those moves against him?"

"Yeah, but what about you? How will you be able to fight those maniacs?"

"I'm pretty good with crowd control.."

"But they're all supers. I can't fight the big guy and maniacs at the same time...maybe we should contact Jasahn?"

"Didn't he have a fallen lung?"

"Yeah...he did. I'm just scared for you."

"Scared for me? What?"

"Lenahan- I thought Quoke could take someone on his own and he got destroyed."

"But that doesn't count. You were knocked out, right?"

"Yeah, but while I was out cold, the cloaked guy bashed in his chest..."

"Jarahn, as long as we're together, we're gonna be alright. What we have to do is have a good plan. You think the cloaked guy is gonna call you out, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. We have some time before that happens. Let's plan out what we'll do and stop trying to push your limits. It'll just waste time."

"Good thinking. Let's plan." I look, grab my watch from the table and activate my suit and so does Lenahan, Before we get started I send Neil a text; "Hey. Some new group called the Maniacs are reeking some havoc. I need you to signal some of your spies to be careful. I don't want them getting hurt."

"Maniacs?" Neil replied.

"New threat. They know how I work and operate. It's hard to keep up."

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Warn your spies. Send them home or something. I don't want them getting involved."

"Pulse. I cannot send home all of them. They help me stay updated."

"They don't do a great job, considering the fact that you didn't know about the maniacs." I sent. I power off my phone and toss it to the side and then Lenahan and I get to work. I teach myself new moves with my gadgets. He has been helping me practice these moves and I've been helping him learn how to take hard strikes. I didn't always have this durability. I've taken a lot of hard hits when I first started out. Lenahan and I trained and trained for hours and surprisingly, nothing happened. The maniacs didn't show themselves.

"So...what happened?" He asked out of breath.

"I don't know...I could've sworn he'd show up...unless my trick worked.." I replied, while also being out of breath.