The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy, Book One: The Hero Revealed (25 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

The New New Crusaders

As the Levitator stepped out of the car, it became clear how a taxicab had gotten up to the seventy-fifth floor of a skyscraper. I guessed that once Lev had raised the taxi to the proper height, Stench had used his own particular talent to propel the car through the hole in the wall. The Levitator was followed out of the cab by the Big Bouncer, Windbag, and …

“Dad!”
I hollered. “He’s trying to drain my brain!”

“Over my dead body,” my dad growled, heading for Professor Brain-Drain, his hands already glowing bright red.

“Look out, Dad,” I warned him.

Three Deadly Dumbots came right at him. One of them dove at my father and knocked him to the ground. The other two piled on a moment later. I immediately heard one of them start to scream, and I knew Dad was laying on the heat. Thankfully, additional help was also on the way.

The Big Bouncer came crashing through, knocking two of the Dumbots off my father. Next, the Levitator grabbed both Dumbots by the ankles and hoisted them harmlessly into the air where they couldn’t reach any of us.

The remaining three Dumbots came running toward the new arrivals, but they ran into a solid blast of air from Windbag.

Now free, the members of the League of Ultimate Goodness rejoined the fight as well. Spaghetti Man grabbed an umbrella and used it to whack one of the Dumbots. Major Bummer sat down on the one who had been guarding him and began telling him all his troubles. Whistlin’ Dixie provided an exciting background fight melody. And the Crimson Creampuff, no longer being used as a kickball, was renewing some family ties.

“BB!” he shouted at the Big Bouncer. “It’s me!”

“CC?” the Big Bouncer replied. “What are you doing here, little brother?”

“I’m here to kick some bad guy butt!” he yelled. “Are you ready to help me?”

“Let’s do it,” BB answered.

With that, the Big Bouncer propelled himself into an oncoming Dumbot and sent him sailing right toward his younger brother. The Dumbot landed right in the center of the Crimson Creampuff’s ample belly and seconds later was ricocheting into the upper recesses of Brain-Drain’s lair.

“This just won’t do at all,” Professor Brain-Drain commented mildly as he watched his Deadly Dumbots being dispatched one by one. Retrieving the Oomphlifier and shoving it into his pocket, he turned back to me. “I believe it’s time to depart. And
you
will be coming with me.”

“Wait a minute!” a voice shouted to the Professor. It was the Tycoon. “Don’t forget your contracts. When you’ve had a chance to look them over, just sign them and send them back to me.”

The Professor grabbed the briefcase full of contracts in one hand. Then, quickly unlatching me from the Brain Capacitor, he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me behind him up the central circular stairway. Dad was still fighting with a pair of Dumbots and couldn’t see what was happening.

“Up we go to the blimp.” Professor Brain-Drain cheerily hummed to himself. “Do you enjoy blimps? Of course you do. All children love blimps.”

“Let me go.” I struggled. “And, no, I don’t like blimps!”—even though I sort of did.

But I couldn’t break free of that skeletal grip that crazy old men always seem to have, and soon we were up on the catwalk that led to the moorings where the blimp awaited us. As we got closer, I saw the Multiplier in the gondola carriage.

“Lock the boy in the blimp,” said the Professor to the Multiplier, handing over me and the briefcase full of contracts. “Then come with me.”

The Multiplier did as he was told. Trapped in the blimp I watched the Professor and the Multiplier head over to a small room where I assumed the tethering mechanism was located. As they disappeared, I turned to check out the interior of the blimp. It actually looked fairly homey. In fact, it looked like an entertainment room. There was a small kitchen area, a television set, a rug, some furniture, and … a Ping-Pong table? Well, why not?

Maybe it was just a habit, but with nothing else to do, I instinctively walked over and turned on the TV. To my surprise, what popped onto the screen was a shot of the Professor’s lair. And it was a live shot. I could see the battle going on between the Deadly Dumbots, the League of Ultimate Goodness, and my father’s team (I couldn’t quite bring myself to call them by their awful new name just yet).

The Multiplier and Professor Brain-Drain soon reappeared. The Professor seemed a little jittery as he stepped into the gondola, but he was calm again by the time he took the controls of the blimp and began backing it away from the spire of the Vertigo Building.

Just then I heard an explosion, and a blinding flash illuminated even the darkest nooks and crannies of the spire’s interior. For a moment I thought I saw a figure in white still standing on the catwalk.
The Sneak
, I thought to myself.
He got left behind! Ha!
And then there was another burst of color. From the chords of calliope music I was hearing, my bet was that Tadpole

had gotten his hands on the Combustible Calliope and was giving it its test run.

I turned back to the screen to see if anyone would be coming to my rescue anytime soon. Things down below looked like they were just about wrapped up even amid the fireworks. Stench had grabbed the Levitator’s two Dumbots right out of the air and, knocked their heads together, leaving them unconscious. Counting the one that had been put out of commission by the Crimson Creampuff and the Big Bouncer, and the two that Major Bummer and Spaghetti Man had incapacitated, only one was still causing trouble.

Dad finally got the last Dumbot off him—the Professor Brain-Drain with hair—by pressing his hands against the mindless creature’s face and delivered a searing blast of heat. It ran off howling with a bright red handprint on each cheek. Then Dad was on his feet in under a second, calling out for me.

“OB!” I could hear him holler both on the screen and from a distance, even though the blimp was drifting away from the building at that point.

“I’m on the blmmmp,” I tried to holler back just as the Multiplier covered my mouth with his hand.

But Dad had heard me, and I could see him standing in the gaping hole in the side of the building staring back helplessly at me. I should have known he wouldn’t let that stop him though.

Desperately, he looked about the laboratory and immediately spotted the invention that Brain-Drain had called the Icarus III. Jumping aboard it he began to pedal. The wings started flapping right away and he was soon barreling toward the hole in the wall. Fortunately, the wings fell off almost immediately. If they had waited until he was out of the building it would have been bad news for Dad. On the TV, I watched him bolt over to the Levitator.

“Lev, you’ve gotta get me out to that blimp,” he implored.

“I wish I could, Thermo,” he said helplessly. “But I can only levitate things up and down. I’m not the Propellerator!”

“This guy can get you there,” Windbag said huffily, pointing at the Amazing Indestructo.

I could see that AI wasn’t sobbing anymore, but he still looked beaten down. Tentatively, he glanced up as all four members of the New New Crusaders stepped up to him. Okay, so I said it. But it’s still a stupid name for a team.

“What about it, AI?” said the Big Bouncer. “Thermo’s son is on that blimp and you’re the only one who can get Thermo over to it.”

“You didn’t help us fight,” pointed out the Levitator, “so here’s your chance to make up for it.”

The Amazing Indestructo looked pathetically from one to the other.

“It’s no use,” he wailed. “I’m a failure as a hero and as a human being.”

“That may be true—” Windbag started to say, but he was interrupted.

“You fellers jes need ta know the right sorta things to say,” Whistlin’ Dixie said as she barged her way into the conversation. “And a course how ta say ’em.”

Taking a deep breath, and pulling her spangly rodeo gloves on tight, Dixie went to work.

“Oh, you big handsome feller you.” She batted her eyes. “Ah hear yer the most powerfulest hero thar ever dern was.”

Sure enough, AI looked up and his eyes were no longer teary—but focused on the damsel in distress. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, still a little weakly. “That is what they say.”

“Then only you can help lil’ ole me,” she said, pouring it on. “Will ya?”

“Of course,” he said a little more firmly as he once again got to his feet.

“Ya done such a darlin’ job moppin’ up all these nasty criminals here.” She waved her hand across the field of victory that AI had had no part in.

“Well, ma’am, that is my job.” A corner of his mouth rose in a rakish smile as he surveyed the wreckage.

“Well, thar’s a lil’ buckaroo who still needs rescuin’, and someone has to take that tyke’s poor papa out thar and help him save the boy.”

“A perfect job for the Amazing Indestructo,” he boasted, apparently fully back to his normal superior self. “Let’s go!”

Windbag and the Levitator, standing on either side of Dixie, gaped in amazement.

“They don’t keep me aroun’ jes fer ma whistlin’,” she said, giving them a wink.

Most important, the Amazing Indestructo started up his rocket pack and grabbed my dad from behind, hooking his elbows beneath his arms. As the fires from the rocket pack built up to a roar, the two heroes blasted off toward me and the blimp.

“Let’s go save your boy!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The Price of Popularity

They were coming to rescue me! Now I just had to keep the Professor distracted until they got here … hopefully before he remembered to drain my brain.

Professor Brain-Drain set the blimp on autopilot, got up from the controls, and came back to find the Multiplier. I stayed carefully out of the way.

“There you are,” Brain-Drain said in exasperation when he found the Multiplier sitting on the edge of the Ping-Pong table, smugly bouncing one of the balls with a paddle. “Are you ready to do your job at last?”

An evil-looking leer spread across the Multiplier’s face as he withdrew the fully-charged Oomphlifier from a pocket in his costume.

“Now you’ll see my power unleashed,” he sneered at me.

“No,” the Professor corrected him, “it’s
my
power. I just happen to be lending it to you for my own purposes.”