Episode XV: A Hero's Journey!
Sophomore Year – Part II
20 years have passed since the return of the Calabro Crew from Arlia...
Chaos reigned over the once peaceful planet. Red skies and darkness
covered the land. Cities destroyed and people killed. Only few survived. Many
would ask what happened to Earth, and if something did happen, wouldn’t the
Calabro Crew save the day again? Well, many things have happened since the
return.
Across the horizon at the once beautiful school of Pomperaug, which
laid fallen and toppled over the hill it stood on. A youth of 16 years, walked
cautiously exited from basement like doors long side the school walls. He
walked out toward the soccer field to breathe in the day. A figure flew across
the sky and landed beside him. “Dad, your back! What happened?” The middle-aged
man panted a little and looked up at the sky and two other figures flew toward
them, “RICHARD, GET INSIDE...THEY ARE HERE!” the man shouted. Richard ran as
fast as he could to the entrance he came out of, as he saw his father prepare
to battle. Two figures landed, one was of Philibuster and another of Joe the
Strong. Joe the Strong was a clone of Joe, whom was garbed in Mandalorian
armor, which Zuk defeated earlier. The father of Richard charged up his
newfound powers and he burst into a Super Scholar. Richard was awed at the site
of seeing the power of that. He always wanted to have the power that his father
had. The man dashed toward the Philibuster clone, but he blocked it and nailed
him to the ground with his elbow. Then he picked him up and slapped him a few
times. He turned him around and faced him toward Joe the Strong. Joe the Strong
clenched his fists and a blue aura covered it, “Now, we finally got the second
Super Scholar.” He punched the Super Scholar in the chest, which punctured
through him. Blood gashed out of his stomach and he fell to the ground in a
loud cry and died.
The clones laughed a little and flew off away from the school. Richard
left his hiding spot and ran to his deceased father. He hugged the dead body
and cried aloud. “Father, I should have been with you to help you just like Mr.
Philibuster told me too when he was training me. You pushed me out of the way,
because I haven’t been strong enough to fight the clones yet. You said I needed
to...BECOME A SUPER SCHOLAR...AHHHHHHH!” Before Richard finished his sentence
he felt the hate rise...the anger of the death of his father, his fault...He
cried harder, as his eyes changed from the blue they were to an emerald green,
then back to the blue. His hair stood up, phasing from the brown hair it was to
a gold. Then in a burst of anger and pain, he burst into a Super Scholar; the
flame of “chi” wrapped itself all around his body. He had achieved his goal.
But he realized that one boy couldn’t take on the both of them. He wept and
released his power as he ran into the refugee camp of his family. As he ran
across the darkened hallways, where columns broke through walls and concrete
fell to the floor, he ran to the once Nurse’s station of PHS. There, Caitlin
stood, washing dishes from a meal. The 36 year old woman turned to see Richard
running into the office in tears, “Mother, mother, Dad is dead...He tried to
save me from the clones, but died...” He said. “Oh...Brian....” Caitlin
replied, she remembered her lover of twenty years, Brian. The one who fathered
her child that stood before her. She embraced her son as she too wept. After
clearing away the tears, Richard broke the embrace. “Why did Zuk have to die on
us, why did have to die, allowing all the others to be killed? All they did was
try to save the world. But those super clones were too strong for them.”
He stormed out of the room and wandered the hallways, until he reached
upstairs to the science department of the school. Inside, a woman was
performing an autopsy on a dead body. “Miss Tara, can I talk to you for a
moment.” Tara turned to see the lad, “Richard, why are you here, you know your
mother told you not to see me again. She is very upset with me, you should know
that.” Richard nodded, “I know, I need some time to rest up, since my father
just died. What are you doing?” Tara stood perplexed, another death she
figured, and the toll was so high it didn’t faze her much. “Well, I found
Philibuster’s body intact, and have been studying the gene structure of his
DNA. I want to find a way to create an Artificial Super Scholar. If we had an
army of them, we can destroy those clones.” Richard glanced over and became
disgusted at what he saw. “Miss Tara, I have a better idea, can you create a
time machine for me. Something for me to go back into the past and warn
everyone before the clones appeared. I know you can do it. Mother told me a few
times your intelligence and skill to build anything got you out of a few
problems. I want to change the past so there is a much better future.” Tara
pondered the thought; she had a basic understanding of the Space-time
continuum. She could do it. “Well, for you I will, just I don’t know if you
should go. You haven’t gotten strong enough to fight strong people yet.” she
said. Richard walked out of the room a happier person; “I can go back into time
21 years into the past. The day before Zuk returns to Earth. I will warn them
to become stronger when the super clones appear.” he thought to himself.
He ran to his room next door to the nurse’s room and fell asleep, as
Tara worked busily at the time machine.
The next morning, Richard woke as quickly as he could. He got ready as
fast as he could and ran to Tara’s lab. He saw her busily working a domed egg
shaped object about the size of a car. “Miss Tara, is it done?” Richard blurted
out from behind her. “Almost, Richard, I need a few hours to fix a few kinks
and power it up.” she said. Richard sat for a while as he watch her hammer,
nail and fizzle with a few components of the time machine. After an eternity,
she rubbed her brow from the sweat and said, “There it’s done.” Richard ran in
joy to the ship and examined it a bit; he wandered inside and looked at the
controls. They seemed pretty straightforward. He ran to the corpse of
Philibuster and grabbed a katana blade from his x sheathes. He sheathed it into
his own and ran into the ship. He powered it up and set the date, June 1st,
2001. The egg ship span wildly as it sped to speeds faster then light, and then
to the speed of time. In an instant, the ship disappeared.
Thirty seconds later, the time machine appeared on top of a large
hotel. Richard popped his head out of the egg shaped machine and examined the
area. He looked down and realized he was on top of the Ramada Hotel across the
street from the school. “I know where I am, the school should be straight
ahead.” he said. He jumped in the air to fly, but failed and fell onto the
roof. “Dammit, I forgot, my powers only work if the alien creatures are here.
Wait a second, let me try again.” He hopped into the air again and was able to
fly. He remembered that the clones were locked in a stasis on planet. So it was
possible to retain his powers. He flew at lightning speed to the school. He
landed over by the pole-vaulting pit of the track field, next to the school.
Among the athletes were Andrew and various other juniors and some seniors. “Hey
Andrew, how’s it going?” Richard bluntly said. Andrew picked up his pole and
walked toward the youth and his marking on the runway, as if getting ready to
vault. “Do I know you? I don’t believe we met.” Andrew replied as he faced the
mats and readied himself. “No, we haven’t, you see, I’m a friend of Zuk and I
heard he was coming back today.” Andrew dashed down the mats and vaulted a
perfect 9-foot vault. He got up and look at Richard, “WHAT? You mean he will
come back. How do you know such information?” Richard thought for a minute, “Well,
I can just feel it. My past is a mystery, I cannot mention anything to any of you
for fear of messing up the future.” Said Richard. Andrew caressed his chin in
thought, “I see. Go on.” He replied. “Well, he is due here tomorrow, at 3:43 pm
on the lower soccer field.” he answered and with that he jumped and flew off.
Andrew raised an eyebrow, this was weird, he was thinking hard. “Perhaps, this
time traveler is right, look as he flew, none of us have our powers…or do we?”
He ran off back toward the school at these rather exciting news.
Meanwhile as Richard flew around he saw a lot of familiar faces. He saw
a much younger Sean Bastedo, Mike Gilday (although he heard a lot of bad
stories from her mother about him) he turned his head away from him. Then he
saw Joe Philibert, sitting on a rock behind the school. He flew to the ground
and landed before him. “Excuse me, are you Joe Philibert?” The Joe looked up, “Yea,
what’s up?” he said. “Well, I head you can change into a Super Scholar. I would
think you may be as strong as I, but I don’t believe you can change into that.”
Joe stood up; he had beliefs he can still change, though supposedly there were
no clones around to spark his power. He stood up and clenched his fists as he
tried to change into a Super Scholar very easily, “Satisfied now...Now go away!”
he shouted to Richard. Richard also very easily changed to a Super Scholar. “You
see, I am one of you too.” Joe began to get confused, he only remembers two
Super Scholars around and only he remained. Richard fired up his “chi” and
said, “Let’s test to see if you are whom they think.” He shouted aloud as he
dashed toward the youth and they locked into combat. Left, right, left, right,
each fist sped to each other at incredible speed.” Then Joe punched Richard
hard at the jaw. He fell backwards and lost control of his power and fell to
the ground in pain. “So, you are strong as they say.” he said as he wiped the
blood from his lip. As he got up and turned, the entire Calabro Crew stood
before them in a circle, in addition to Andrew as well as Caitlin Anazalone’s
new boyfriend, Brian. Richard scanned them all, all of them looking younger
then he remembered, and then he saw his mother, Caitlin. He looked at her for a
little bit then dropped his eyes to the ground. “I am here to tell you all that
Zuk will return here tomorrow at 3:43pm at the lower soccer field. Be there.”
Richard shouted. Before any person tried to question him, Richard flew up to
the air and back to his ship. Where he rested.
The next day, after school, the Calabro Crew assembled around the edge
of the lower soccer field. All were present, Caitlin, Tara, but they weren’t
talking to each other, they had an argument, Sean Bastedo, Mr. Calabro, Mike
Gilday, Andrew Dylag was also there, and finally Joe Philibert. Richard flew
over them and landed next to Bastedo and Gilday. Then a loud sonic boom cut the
silence of the sky and plummeted to the ground, the very center of the soccer
field...the time, 3:43pm. It was a round ship, a little bigger then the size of
a person. The door slowly opened up and out appeared Zuk. He was garbed in his
Namek-jin cape and gi. He waved to everyone surrounding him. “Hey all, miss me?
How come you knew I was going to be back here?” he said to everyone. Then
Calabro stepped forward, “Zuk, this boy here told us your exact time you were
to land.” he said. Zuk turned to Richard, whom shook his head and told them
they were to talk later.
Then Mike said to Joe, “So, where have you been and how did you get off
planet Arlia?” Zuk answered, “Well, as soon as I got onto the ship, I tried to
start it, but it failed. I looked at the bar coding and recognized the
lettering as Latin and it said this ship was some sort of crasher ship. Meaning
that it is designed to be impenetrable to large explosions and crashes. Then
the planet blew up! It catapulted my ship out into orbit, and to the unknown. I
was knocked unconscious and didn’t wake up till I crashed on some desolate
planet. Seeing my ship was a beat up, I decided to wait out a time to train and
study this new area. The new atmosphere sparked a new technique I learned on my
own; all this peace and quiet there was amazing.
Tune in next time, as Richard delivers his story about the destruction
of Earth with the Super Clones and the preparation of the Calabro Crew in
episode XVI: Preparing for the Super Clones!