It has been several months since the Super Clones invaded Pomperaug High during the sophomore year of our famed heroes. It was Homecoming week; so many students within the building were showing their school spirit in many ways. Some wore face paint, while others donned school colors, bandanas, and even jerseys by which the spirit of the panther was manifest. The story of Calabro and his scholars continues during the pep rally that occurred the Friday on which the fabled Pep Rally occurred.

It was a sunny and crisp early October day around the school on top of the hill, the one that from the highway resembled a prison. The halls were empty, the cafeteria was unavailable, and the classrooms were empty. Every student and faculty member was in the gymnasium, celebrating the spirit of the Pomperaug Panther for the annual Homecoming Pep Rally. After watching fellow classmates gulp down pies at the pie eating contest (which the Big Papa Pimp, Gary Rosenthal, lost in an unprecedented upset) and egg throwing, the big event everyone was waiting for began...The strength contest. A representative from each class would have the chance to punch a punching bag that was electronically set up to give a score for each punch. The prize: The title of strongest student in the Region. “The highest score is the winner,” Miss Nistemski announced, “Alright, freshmen, choose your champion, and we’ll let him take a swing.”

A rather tall (around 5 feet tall) and well-built freshman sliced through the crowd and onto the gym floor. The large freshmen class chanted energetically, “FREDDY...FREDDY...FREDDY!” from the far right of the gym, Freddy ripped his shirt off and flexed for the crowd that worshipped him. He walked up to the punching bag and spat upon his hands. He rubbed them together and eyed the bag. Then he looked to the score-keeping device. It showed a bright “0”. “Not for long,” he thought. He pulled his arm back slowly. His mind went blank, as he with all his power he thrusted his arm forward as much as he could. A loud bang echoed throughout the gym, the sound resembled that of a heavy anvil falling onto a metallic surface. The scoring machine tallied the strength. A digital 50 appeared from what was once a zero mark. “Wow, oh wow! A score of 50” shouted Miss Nistemski through the roaring crowd that surrounded her. “Now, sophomores, its your turn to choose your class representative.”

The crowd began cheering in response, “BRIAN, BRIAN, BRIAN!” Our hero, Brian took off from his seat in a large leap. He flipped forward three times, before gracefully landing on his fee in a low squat. He had chosen to wear the armor of the Saiya-jins. He wanted everyone to remember his noble suit: the thick armor made of a durable material that protected its wearer better than any contemporary armor. It covered his chest comfortably and underneath he wore a spandex blue jumpsuit with matching white gloves and ankle boots. He cracked his knuckles, which echoed like the familiar bone crunching of a breaking neck, which Brian had been known to inflict. He stepped up to the bag. With a powerful curl of his arm, he was ready to throw a punch…but something stopped him. He vaguely recalled that the juniors would go next, and with the choice of either Philibuster or Zuk, the resulting strength score would be astounding. He would have to try his hardest, and that would require a brief moment of Super Scholar form to even attempt to out do them. Maybe it was possible... He swung his fist, putting all his energy behind it, and with a strong and powerful shout, he thrust his fist into the punching bag. For a second he changed to a Super Scholar and that added to the strength value substantially. The bag flew over and crashed to the other side of the gym. “Wow, oh wow! A score of 350! Excellent…the sophomores have the lead as of now. Will a junior please come down?” Stem said, attempting to sound unimpressed but secretly in awe.

Brian and Freddy began to sweat; they knew the juniors had the strongest students out of all the classes. Every junior shouted for Joe Zukoski. Joe Philibert on the other hand wasn’t present in the gym at that moment; he was putting his band stuff away, or possibly at the nurse…or maybe just flirting with some girls in a locker bay... Zuk stood up and flexed for the gym, which erupted in cheers from the junior class, “ZUK, ZUK, ZUK, ZUK!” Zuk flipped up and landed with a heavy thud onto the gym floor. The floor shook for a second and the crowd of juniors went wild. Zuk clenched his fists and shouted aloud as the heavy pressure inside him built up and manifested itself in a large flame of “chi,” the wild energy flame of life appeared to eat up our hero as the wind that was produced nearly pushed the administration clear out the door. Zuk suddenly stopped; he decided he had shown off enough. It was time to let everyone know who the school’s true strongest student was! He walked up in a carefree strut to the punching bag. He quickly wet his thumb with his tongue and rubbed it against his nose. Then he flexed his arm back and spun his wrist around a few times until it cracked and then he thrust forward with all his might. He suddenly stopped ever so lightly before impact with the bag and flicked it as if it were a crumb from one of Bastedo’s famous cookies. Joe’s score sprang up and glowed a score of 500; he knew he was capable of far more... “500. Whoa the juniors have done it! Well done, Joe…Now for the…uh…seniors...” Stem said baffled by the unprecedented strength she saw in the student body…she would think twice before handing out her next Saturday detention for sure.

An unknown senior got up from the front row of the raised bleachers. He flexed his arms and took a swing at the bag without thought. The buzzer went off and the gold numbers flashed a 550 as the score. “WHAAAT! Grrrr....DAMN Seniors.” Zuk shouted to the audience. “Now, we have the final round, where the top two scores will square off one last time,” shouted Miss Nistemski. Joe stepped up to the bag again, his eyes filled with anger and jealousy. He wasn’t going to let a normal human challenge the powers of a Super Scholar. With his left arm revved back, Zuk wasn’t going to go out so easily. His anger forced him to power up, and he almost lost control.

Meanwhile, some sinister figures wandered through the hallways of PHS. A small and well-armed squadron of humanoids operated a tracking device with a green blip beeping on a map of the school. “At last, found him. We’ve got his location thanks to this “chi” radar. Alright...move out.”

Zuk shouted even louder than before as he forced his arm forward with all his might and a second before impact shouted, “KAIO-KEN TIMES 10!” A bright red flame ran around Zuk’s body as his fist rammed through the punching bag and it smashed it so hard it flew off the holder and rammed into the side of the gym and crashed into the wall, where a large hole formed. The counter sped up incredibly fast to 3000 before it blew up from the large power surge before them. “Ohh...my god...Did he just do that? I guess then, the juniors win…” Stem said before feinting.

The junior class stood up and cheered wildly as the amazing display of strength sent pride and…well Pep…throughout the gymnasium. Zuk panted slightly, not expecting to get frustrated enough to try so hard to beat a senior at. Zuk turned behind him to give a “thumbs up” to fellow friend and companion, Mike Gilday, whom was recording the whole pep rally via a video camera. Mike too, repeated the “thumbs up”, to signal a job well done by Joe.

Joe was about ready to get back to his seat, when the gym doors burst open and a small squad of guards rallied themselves in professional military positioning. They were armed with semi-automatic M16s. “Uh oh...not good.” whispered Joe to himself. The marines lined themselves up in a straight line as the obvious leader walked in slowly behind. But with him were two creatures. One was obviously a Zealot High Lord. He slithered in on his dark tan snake tail which bent in a ‘S’ shape and curled and allowed his body to sit itself on this ‘S’ slant. The next was obviously a Cerabrate bodyguard, he walked on his two legs with his very dark blue colored hide armed with a small laser pistol. Zuk took a defensive stance with his left arm up and right arm down, awaiting the trickery of these creatures. Brian stepped behind him and he too, also took a stance. Gilday flicked the camera off and walked behind his friends and cracked his knuckles ready for a brawl.

Joe grasped behind him to his belt. Attached there was his Nyoibo Staff shortened to about the length of two fingers, which he always kept with him, in case of an emergency. He pulled the small item out and twirled it around twice and the staff extended to its proper six-foot length. “Haha, Zuk...you wish to fight. Well, you will defeat neither my disciples nor I. We have come here to this planet to take this nice plot of land for our temples and a place to excavate your resources. We are in dire need and this small blue planet will do nicely. Our first two attacks upon you ended in failure. We have only enough resources from our conquered planets for this one final military endeavor. We will win this time,” the High Lord stated to our heroes. “Now this time, we have permission from your leaders,” he pointed to the two new assistant principals the school had just received. The two were obviously possessed as Majins. Their eyes flared a bright red as their fangs slipped out from their closed mouths in a hiss. “Go now, attack them. We will deal with everyone else, upon their defeat.”

The two assistant principals attacked with a flying leap, but Joe, Brian, and Gilday took a step back for extra defense. The male principal, almost a clone of former president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) rushed with his mouth gaping at Joe. But Joe defended his flying fist with his own and the two locked themselves in fierce combat. Mike took on the female assistant principal, whom looked very much like a prom queen or a model. Her deadly smile was forged into the brains of many. This evil duplicate will be dubbed, Smiley. Smiley rushed toward Gilday with a swarm of swipes from her vicious claws. Mike tried not to get caught in a handful of those and merely smacked away her hands before she slashed him. One more swipe from this female duplicate left a scratch mark on Gilday’s shirt. Without hesitation, Mike saw a good chance to punch her as hard as he could into the jaw. That sent her flying and crashing into the side of the gym. “Groovy.” He added coyly.

Meanwhile as the others continued to fight, Brian felt the need to end the main menace where it stood. “I am going to kill you where you stand, you vile piece of shit.” Brian shouted to the High Lord and his army before him. “Well, Brian...you may try. But it will be I, who will vanquish you.” He pointed his finger toward Brian and almost instantly fired a small green “chi” laser to our hero Brian. He had no time to react and fell victim to a hit to his chest and punctured a small hole through the left part of his chest. He coughed up a little blood and fell backward to his death, uttering, “...You...Bastards...” The battle rocketed to new heights as the High Lord and his army walked out of the gym and disappeared into the corridors of the school.

Mike had Smiley pinned to the wall of the gym near the senior bleacher section. The other students rushed to the highest seat in the bleachers as possible, so as not to get hurt in the fight. Smiley took another slash at Mike, who defended with his left arm and smacked her vile hands away; he took a swing, and missed. Smiley saw an opportunity to use one of the Majin techniques, a spit of acid-like secretion to bear any opponent temporarily dazed. Smiley fired a large green splash from her mouth and splattered onto Mike’s face. The secretions covered Mike’s face, and blinded him…however Mike had had swimming that day and the chlorine covering his skin was able to neutralize the secretion before any irreparable harm was done.

Smiley was then ready to finish the clone slayer before he regained himself. She curled her arm back, and then struck as fast as she could to his face. But an arm off to the side whisked in and grabbed Smiley. The arm belonged to none other then Sean Bastedo. He looked at the duplicate with a sinister smile as she turned to him. He wiggled his pointer finger to sign the villain a bad move. “No, no, no…bad clone. Here take a seat.” As he finished his statement, he lifted the clone up and tossed it halfway across the gym. Then from his back he removed, his infamous Vibro-axe. With a few simple twirls he dashed to the beaten clone, which just stood up. Bastedo disappeared in a flash as he rushed at the opponent and then a slicing sound cut the echo of battle and then Bastedo reappeared behind his opponent. He was hunched over slightly with his axe stained with some blood. The duplicate screamed and then silenced as her upper body slid from a rigid slice from her left shoulder to her waist and splashed onto the ground. The lower torso fell right behind the upper one.

Zuk was busily fist fighting with the other clone at incredible speeds. He flipped out of the combat a few feet from the duplicate. He held his Nyoibo staff at ready and then shouted, “NYOIBO STAFF EXTEND…” he had pointed the head of the staff toward the bleachers horizontally. The staff obeyed its command and fired off against the bleachers. Upon impact, Joe ran toward the duplicate and slammed its legs into the Nyoibo Staff. A loud crunch sounded, as its legs were broken. Joe shrank his staff and flipped up into the air right above the duplicate. He pointed his staff right at the beaten duplicate. “AGAIN NYOIBO STAFF!” He commanded. The staff extension flew toward the duplicate. With all of it’s power the staff extended right through the clone. The creature grunted in pain and gave into death. Joe deactivated his staff and flipped toward his villain and stomped onto it’s neck and jumped again and landed near his friends. The student body arose from their cramped chaotic quarters in the bleachers and gave our trio a standing ovation. Joe could only give the biggest grin as high as his power rating as he rubbed the back of his head which literally said, “Aww…it was nothing.”

But the team of obviously cloned marines began to open fire wildly, upon our heroes. Joe merely stepped forward and shouted aloud as each bullet bounced off the newly created red “chi” shield that Zuk had formed from his ear-shattering shout. After these soldiers stopped firing, they questioned amongst themselves, why this human could block this bullets so easily? Zuk, grinned sinisterly as he raised his left hand and hands spread out toward this task force of clones, without hesitation he fired a large wave of energy, which mowed down every marine. After Zuk had stopped, nothing was left except for a few melted weapons.

But Joe turned and saw his fallen comrade…Brian was coughing up small drips of blood all over his t-shirt. “Joe…I don’t think I am going to make it.” He breathed heavily and continued, “If I ever get wished back…I have no will to go onward fighting fights that do not mean anything to me…Zuk, why must you use me as a token for your army. I desire much more then gratitude as my reward.” With this last thought, Brian passed on into the world of death. After a moment of silence, several EMT’s covered the body of Brian and lifted him off and away. The others mourned for a minute or so, but didn’t notice Caitlin running behind them and following Brian’s parade out of the gym.

Bastedo, Gilday, and Zuk soon organized and began to discuss what will they do to prevent what appeared to be a new Invasion. The faculty and police to a safer location had dismissed the student body. Joe realized that each teacher was very calm during this encounter…as if they knew about it! The trio assembled in a small circle and brainstormed ideas. “It is obvious that these ass holes are following through with a more precise invasion than the first attacks.” Stated Bastedo. Everyone nodded in agreement, Mike added “But they must have a command ship or area...or something. We have to find it, that’s our main goal. But to cover more ground, let’s split up. I’ll take Bastedo, Joe you look for Calabro and take him and search the upstairs. But we will also have to search for those medallion pieces, so we can wish Brian back” Joe nodded. Mike and Bastedo walked out of the gym doors and to the left, to the locker room…First Mike had to properly arm himself.

Tune in next episode, as the Zuk finds Calabro and yet another friend to add to his party to find the alien command ship. He comes upon a most interesting discovery. All this and more in Episode XXI: Revenge of a Super Scholar.