Sophomore Year

“Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing...” went the sound of the fire alarm at the Region 15’s Pomperaug High School. Every student and faculty member, piled out of the school, like a herd of cattle to the back and front of the school. Joe Zukoski was interrupted from doing his Biology homework, with a grunt and a quick swear as he walked out of his resource room outside to the front of the School. Joe Philibert had just sat down at lunch at that moment and had just ready to eat, when the annoying buzz alarmed the cafeteria, “Dammit, why now, it better be a real one or I am going to be pissed.” grumbled the short Joe. He walked out the back entrance of the school and sat on the hill about 20 feet away the school. Calabro had exited the building a few minutes earlier, whom just left the main office from his fourth call from there. “You know, if they wanted me that bad, they should have came to me, and even then, it wasn’t worth it” whispered the master of English.

It has been over a year since evil aliens had taken over the school and these heroes rescued mankind from them and their evil clones. As Zuk walked along by himself, he pondered what was going on, since the bell rang at exactly 11 am, Joe thought it was a common drill. But as masses of fire trucks and police cars barricaded the front of the school with fire fighters running in and out of the building like crazy.

Joe observed the top of the school, “Hmmm, no smoke, what’s going on.” questioned Joe to himself. At around this time, Calabro had met up with Zuk as well as Philibuster at the corner of the school. “Hey, guys, I heard from Miss Nistemski, that someone found Nitro glycerin in the school, possibly could go off."” said the Philibuster as he stopped in front of the assembled pair.

Two fire fighters ran toward the trio and told them to step away from the building; one gave Zuk a distinct look, like something more was going on. The other walked to the first fire fighter and whispered a few things to the other. Calabro gazed into both of their faces; they looked very similar, almost identical! The fighters ran into the building at that moment, Calabro turned to the Joe pair and said, “Guys, I got a good look at the pair, they looked identical, do you suppose they...were CLONES?” Joe Zukoski, raised an eyebrow and shook his head “No way Calabro, we wrecked that armada, no way could they came back, it’s impossible....”

As Joe tried to finish his statement, a powerful surge filled his body, his eyes stretched out, as well as Joe too. His muscles increased slightly, he grabbed onto his head as shook wildly, both screamed in unison as aura’s surrounded them as their original powers were re awakened. Both Joe’s looked at each other, “It... it... it, happened again, it must be clones, last time those creatures invaded us, our feeble strengths multiplied as well as developing our unique powers.” said Joe as he stuttered in his speech from the transformation. Joe Philibert, thought for a second, charged his new energy up, and flew to the top of the school and motioned the other Joe to do the same. Calabro thought a second and ran into the boy’s locker room to see for himself.

The Joe pair landed on the top and broke into the ventilation shaft and crawled till they heard familiar grunts and snarls of the alien commanders. Reaching the end of the shaft right above the group of the commander and four fire fighter clones, they held a package up and shook it a little and began to open it. Joe P. looked at the other, quietly whispered, “I know that package, there’s another reason for the drill, a so-called home made bomb too, must have some tie in with the nitro.”

As the evil clones opened the package, they found a box, made of the same texture as the alien hide and dark brownish color. The pried the top open and in it, a holographic sphere appeared, raising itself out, giving detailed information and diagrams in the Zealot’s language. “Yesss, it is here, the invasion documents from the first attack, to aid us where that foolish Li Eclud had failed, we will still conquer this world for our colonies.” Before the party exited the room, both Joe’s smashed through the vent and flipped out to their opponents.” Haha, leaving so soon, well I’m hurt...let’s get it on!” quoted Zuk as he cracked his knuckles. The fighters pulled out “laser” blasters and aimed them at the pair. Joe clenched his fist and the “chi” within him emitted around him, giving him the proper power, aimed them at the fighters and quickly opened his fist. A yellowish beam as big as his hand fired out and hit the center fighter and broke into several beams, which hit every fighter and vaporized them, leaving only the fire fighter helmets above a pile of dust.

The commander gave a nervous look, began to shake a little, before he attempted to escape, he pulled a ball shaped almost bomb like object and fired a harmless “laser” at Zuk, which made a quick scan of his body chemistry. He dropped the ball and slithered as fast he could. The ball exploded and out appeared five identical copies of Joe, except they were half his size. These “Joe Jr.'s” circled the pair and attempted to attack. Joe Philibert smirked, devilishly and made a quick half turn and elbowed a “mini-Joe” and knocked him down and quickly made a tiny hop and made a high kick and nailed another copy in the face, as he flipped and landed on his head. The other Joe thought he too, can fight off these nasty clones of him. He coiled his arm back, and flexed his muscle as he made a clean left hook to an evil copy of him. The copy easily dodged it and flipped backwards, then dashed toward Zuk and gut punched him really hard. Then Joe slammed hard onto the floor, breathing heavily. One thing he didn’t know was that by definition of clone in the story is an identical copy, which is exactly like them in everything, including fighting styles.

As Joe rubbed his stomach to ease the pain, the copy made it toward Joe, he stuck out his pointer and middle finger and prepared to charge it up full of energy. From behind him, Philibuster was occupied in an intense fistfight with the rest of the clones, he was just kicking ass. Zuk felt powerless as his evil midget began to fire his beam at him. All of a sudden, a light humming began to fill Zuk’s ears as a female figure dashed toward the clone and hacked him in half with a glowing red blade of energy.

The girl turned toward Joe, it was Stephanie, with a smile on her face she asked, “You okay, hun?” Joe tried to smile back, despite his pain as he coughed a little. “Yeah, I’ll be okay.” Joe replied back. They both dashed along side each other in attempt to kill the juniors. But despite the team effort of them, the juniors were far too small and fast and easily knocked them down. While Joe watched on, he felt hurt, both physically and mentally. Then, the juniors began to hover near the downed bodies of the two. They flew down and began to torture them. By kicking them around, to pulling hair. Joe felt outraged, angered to a point of no return, “STOP IT…STOP…” But the juniors continued their tortuous acts to the heroes. Joe felt an energy stirring inside him. He got up and with his pain from the hit before. He attempted to rush at them with all he had to kill them.

He fell to his knees, clenching his fists very hard. The anger soured to its potential peak, higher then ever, being already having such incredible power, it was almost uncontrollable. Joe snapped his head upright and felt a change undergoing through him. Joe and Stephanie turned to see their friend shifting in and out of his real self. His hair stood straight up, changing from the dark brown, to a golden yellow. His eyes, too, shifted from a deep blue to pure emerald green. Zuk screamed out in a cross between pain and the rage he suffered, as a golden aura surrounded him and exploded around him, leveling all the desks and knocking his friends away as well as the juniors.

The smoke cleared and they saw as he reached a transformed state, the look into his eyes as well as his angry look, proved to show, he was much stronger then before.

The juniors giggled, but were in some way astounded. They all jumped toward him to attack. Joe grabbed the first one by the leg and smashed it against a wall, where it exploded. He fired a bolt of energy and it struck another. He flew toward a pair and hurricane kicked one, and spun some and hit another, both exploded to nothing. He rushed at one more and punctured his fist through it, and it exploded. One remained, and it was very frightened by the immense display of power. Joe teleported in front of him and stood with an angry look, the junior attempted to run, but Joe kicked him up in the air, and he blew up, save for his head, frozen with the lifeless expression of the sight. Joe walked up to it and squashed it. The other two, got up and were in awe and astounded by the amazing display of power they witness before them.

Tune in next time, as this new mysterious power Joe had received is unveiled as well as another epic battle between good and evil, all this and more in episode VIII, The Legend of the Super Scholar!