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Masks: Ordinary Champions by Hayden Thorne Release Date: April 15, 2009
Publisher: Prizm Books
ISBN: 978-1-60370-688-9, 1-60370-688-7 (trade paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-60370-687-2, 1-60370-687-9 (electronic book)
Publisher Link: http://www.prizmbooks.com/zen/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=12&products_id=44
Amazon Kindle: Masks: Ordinary Champions
Amazon: Masks: Ordinary Champions
Blurb: Book Three of the Masks series follows Eric's adventures as a newly-transformed supervillain sidekick. Taking advantage of Eric's relationship with Peter, the Devil's Trill uses him for a shield against the superheroes. In the meantime, new villains and a new, covert vigilante-like group appear, with a young hero with chameleon powers attempting to infiltrate the Trill's hideout and help Eric. Eric struggles with his conscience and schemes to turn the tables on the Trill, but his powers deteriorate. He grows more and more unstable and unsafe while the Trill's henchmen appear to grow stronger and stronger, as though they were also subjected to the same manipulation that's been used on Eric. As the Trill fights both the heroes and tries to assert his dominance over the new villains, Eric realizes that he doesn't have much time left to set things right on his own, even if it costs him his life.
Excerpt:
from Chapter 5
I turned and aimed at the two, powering up again to help Jessie with stronger energy blasts against Magnifiman. Before I could shoot anything out, I was caught, held, and flown out of the battle scene through one of the windows and way, way into the night. The arms holding me tight didn´t slacken. I gritted my teeth and sent pulse after pulse of energy blasts out of my body to weaken Calais´ grip, so I could shoot him away in another bubble. No dice. He learned the hard way the first time around, and he wasn´t about to let go so easily now, it looked like.
Still pulsing energy, I dimly felt myself hurled in a tangle of arms and legs through space to only God knew where. My stomach went through endless somersaults from the crazy speed, but before long I felt myself crashing against something hard. Splintering wood and clanging metal filled my ears, and pain seared through me. The world-already reduced to dissolving streaks of color and light-turned around and around as we tumbled through piles of crates and barrels.
It seemed to take forever, but the world eventually stopped. I was lying on something hard and rough, wincing from the pain of getting smashed and the debris that dug into my back as Calais´ weight pinned me down. My powers had weakened a little, and I had to struggle to re-energize. The results were pathetic, to say the least. Energy pulsed from the deepest point in my belly, but it merely coughed up anemic bursts. My breathing was hard and ragged, and little by little, I realized that Calais and I were so tightly tangled with each other that I didn´t know where I ended and where he began.
My arms were growing numb. He was holding me down with a grip of steel, and my circulation being cut off forced my powers to sputter and weaken around my hands. I felt my fingers grow cold and lifeless.
"Get off me, Peter," I whispered.
His face was pressed against the side of my head, and he said nothing at first, grunting a little whenever I struggled to fight him off. The more I bucked and kicked and re-energized, though, the more tightly he held me down, and I could hear him panting tiredly against my ear.
"Get the hell off me!"
"No," he finally hissed back. "I´m taking you back with me, Eric, even if it means knocking you out."
"You can´t," I returned, gritting my teeth against the icy pain that was now shooting through my arms. I could feel small energy surges running through my limbs; pushing, pushing past the constricted area where Peter gripped me. My blood vessels felt like they were exploding, as though they were rapidly filling up with too much blood and too many energy waves. I turned and stared through the fog in my eyes and saw an exposed part of my arm glowing white, with veins and capillaries gradually emerging and pressing against my skin, a throbbing network of red and blue.
"You can´t," I whispered again, biting back a groan of pain and fury. "I´m stronger than you think. I´m stronger than you want to admit." I sputtered and threw my head back with a stifled cry, and something warm bubbled and burst from my right nostril. It trickled down the side of my face, and another surge of energy swept through me-stronger this time, but with more pain edging it. It was blood. I knew it.
"Eric, we can help you. Althea´s been working with her mother and my parents to come up with an antidote for you," he said. He lay rigid atop me, probably not even realizing that he was killing me with his weight-literally. "Please. Work with us. You´re curable. We´re not. You still have hope. We don´t."
For a moment, I felt myself emerging to the surface, just as I´d been submerged in quicksand before this. When I spoke, I didn´t recognize my voice.
"Peter-I can´t fight it-something´s taking over-I can´t help myself-"
He finally raised his head and looked down on me. I couldn´t see his eyes, as even with the dull sheen of his mask, the rest of his face remained cloaked in shadows.
"You´re bleeding..."
"It´s...coming back," I whispered. "It´s coming back. I...feel so torn up. I don´t know who I am...anymore. I´m trying to do something...good with this...Peter...but I don´t know...if I can control it." I winced. "It´s coming...back. It´s taking over...again."
"You can fight it. Trust me, Eric, you´re far stronger than that. Remember? You just told me a second ago. Please stay with me." Cautiously releasing one arm, he started to fumble around his side for something.
I shook my head, my voice failing me again as I felt myself sink back into a thick, sandy tomb. The only thing I could feel then was the blood that continued to trickle out of my nose. I must have lost something at that moment because I couldn´t sense anything. Just cold. Numbness. And a distant, dull pain that faded with every passing second.
"Tell me where the Trill´s hideout is," Peter said, his voice fading in and out. His hand appeared, holding something-a small instrument that looked like a cell phone. I heard a few very faint clicks and then a tiny buzz. Then he moved it closer to my arm, aiming it like a gun.
"Peter!"
Energy bubbled in my stomach again, and it rippled out-a violent, explosive spasm that seemed to scorch every organ, every tissue in me. I blinked, my vision vanishing quickly, and let out a loud cry as whiteness filled my world, and heat bore down on me, enveloping and surging and suffocating. I tried to hold on to Peter-reach out to him-but he wasn´t there anymore.
