Page 106 of Supernova

The arena began to tremble. Wood splintered and metal groaned. Seats were yanked up from where they had been bolted in the stands and sent soaring toward the Renegades who still had enough strength to fight, pinning many of them in place. The steel trusses that held the light fixtures were torn from their structures, dropping onto Ace’s enemies, curling around them into makeshift cages.

Adrian felt like he was watching the scene unfold from somewhere outside of himself. None of it felt real—not the armor heavy on his skin, not the blood dripping down the bleachers, not Ace Anarchy suddenly, impossibly, returned to power.

Sensing that they would soon lose this fight if they didn’t stop him, the remaining Renegades shifted their attention to Ace. It might have left them open to attacks from the Anarchists andCragmoor prisoners, except they, too, seemed dazed by the quick turn of events. How swiftly their worldviews had been altered and tested in the space of only a few minutes.

First, Callum Treadwell, and now this.

On the field, Blacklight threw a blinding strobe into Ace Anarchy’s face. The villain instinctively ducked his head, putting the briefest pause on his assault on the arena.

It was enough time for the Captain to hurl his chromium pike. The weapon speared through the air, glinting in the spotlights still aimed at the stage.

Ace flew upward. The pike missed him by mere inches. He snarled at the Captain, and then with a wicked grin and a flick of his wrist, he lifted the chains that had held the Cragmoor prisoners off the ground and sent them flying at Blacklight.

One chain wrapped around Blacklight’s torso, locking his arms at his sides. Another chain swept around his head, gagging his mouth.

“No!” Adrian screamed, his voice mingling with a hundred others.

But it was not enough.

Ace flicked his fingers.

The chains yanked in opposite directions, snapping Blacklight’s neck.

Cold sweat dripped down the back of Adrian’s neck as the arena filled with screams. He heard his dad yelling—Evander!

Fury roared inside Adrian. He called the laser diode up on the forearm of his suit. Every part of him that had been filled with wonder when Callum had taken over the helmet was now filled with rage. White sparks flashed in his vision as his gauntlet began to glow.

He was not the only one spurred on by Blacklight’s murder. Onthe field, Tsunami released a guttural scream and sent a tidal wave crashing toward the villain, but Ace merely flicked his wrist and the entire platform on which he’d been shackled flipped onto its side, creating a barrier between him and the water. The wave broke and crashed away from him, flooding half of the arena. Ace’s fingers twitched, tossing the platform at Tsunami. She cried out and raised her arms to defend herself as the makeshift stage crashed on top of her, burying her beneath its weight.

In that moment, Ace roared with pain, one arm jerking back, but striking only air.

Adrian held his fist toward the villain, but hesitated. Ace spun, allowing Adrian to see a knife buried to the hilt in his back, near his left kidney. Adrian had not seen anyone throw it, which meant… the Dread Warden had just stabbed him.

Adrian gulped. He was so far away. An attempt to hit Ace would put his invisible dad at risk.

He didn’t have time to make the decision. From the stands on the opposite side of the field, Queen Bee screeched at the sight of the blood soaking into Ace Anarchy’s prison uniform. She threw her arms forward, and every wasp flew in Ace’s direction, searching for the invisible assailant. They found him easily, the black cloud of their thick, buzzing bodies forming the silhouette of the Dread Warden. Adrian heard his cry of pain. Simon flickered in and out of view a couple of times, before becoming fully visible as he collapsed to his knees, curled into a ball in an attempt to defend himself from the painful venom of the insects’ stings.

Adrian adjusted his aim and fired.

The concussion beam struck Queen Bee in the chest, probably the best shot he’d ever had from such a distance. She fell backward, landing awkwardly across a row of plastic chairs.

The swarm shifted away from the Dread Warden, flying back to protect their fallen queen.

But Ace was waiting. The knife had pulled itself from his back and as soon as the distance between him and the Dread Warden was clear, he sent the weapon straight for his enemy’s throat.

Another flutter of motion replaced the swarm of bees—golden butterflies, converging in front of the Dread Warden. Danna blocked the knife with her forearm, knocking it from the air.

“Nice try,” she hissed.

Ace cocked his head. “I remember you. Last we saw each other, I believe I had you trapped in apillowcase.”

Whatever counterattacks either of them were planning were interrupted by a new volley of attacks aimed at Ace, drawing his attention away from Danna and the Dread Warden. No one dared attack him with more weapons, seeing how easily he deflected them and turned them on their own, and so he was pummeled instead by sandstorms, streams of acid rain, even deafening sound waves. Ace blocked what onslaught he could, using everything at his disposal to put a series of barriers around himself—chairs, doors, the podium, cinder blocks torn out of the walls, sheets of metal dragged down from the ceiling. Adrian himself sent a series of fireballs and concussion beams into the melee, but none of them made it through Ace’s defenses.

All the while, Ace’s eyes were shining, as if this were a game he’d come to miss.

Until a bolt of black smoke struck him directly in the face, sending Ace into a frenzy of coughs and wiping the grin away. Pride swelled inside Adrian. He was sure it had come from Oscar somewhere in the chaos.

Danna morphed again into the monarch swarm. The Dread Warden was on his feet, still visible, and trying to stumble out of thepath of destruction, but his movements were jerky and he kept slipping on the uneven, muddy ground.

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