Chapter XXX: Graduation Night!
At last the moment commenced. All seniors gathered together
for their final time together as a class in front of their parents and
relatives and even friends. Each student was garbed in a scarlet or white cap
and gown, the colorful symbols of this school. They began preparing themselves
inside the school for the ceremony to begin. Joe Zukoski arrived just a few
minutes before final count with Philibuster in his car. They threw on their
gowns and hoped for the best. “Man, I hate this thing, it looks tacky.” Said
Zuk as he examined the gown. “I hear ya man, pretty lame, but it’s a one time
thing.” Replied the other Joe. They all gathered in line to properly be
escorted down to the football field for their graduation.
They
began walking down the field to their seats in the center for all to see them.
Meanwhile,
Calabro exited the Room of Spirit and Time. He fell to his knees. “No…they did
it, they are really here. I can’t feel my strength. Well, that means they will
never stand a chance like that against them. Calabro then picked up a silver
surfboard and threw it in front of him; it hovered a few feet off the ground.
He hopped onto it and attached a pack with all the scholar’s utilities and flew
off at insane speeds to get a chance to stop the invasion before there was
nothing to save. He was several miles from the school straight down and he had
to speed up before it happened. But from his bird’s eye view of the miniature
school below, he saw a small party being assembled at the front of the school,
and down the road to the football field, massive innocent bystanders as well as
a blob of red and white gowns of the senior class. “I must go faster, damn
board, move it!” he cursed at the speed he was going at. Within a few moments
he landed near the field and flipped off in front of the senior class and in
front of the parents. “GUYS, LOOK NEAR THE SCHOOL!” he shouted as he pointed
toward it. Everyone stood up and looked as a massive blob of dark figures
marched down the walkway to the field. To the scholars who have fought before,
they all knew, it was something not good marching their way.
The
two Joe’s, Mike, Bastedo, and Stephanie ran in front of the class, who began to
wonder and question, for the typical PHS student knew not of the legendary
events of the past 3 years. They attempted to file people safely out of the
field and to a secure location. But as people chaotically ran out of the field,
smaller shadows troops blocked the exit and held the people in. Calabro, from
his surfboard, opened the knapsack and removed weapons and threw them to their
owners. Now that everyone was armed, it was time to battle. But as the mob got
closer, the crew noticed a flying enemy landing to their location. The Dark
Lord descended a few feet in front of them. “Well, well, well. The time has
come to take what we want and toss you aside like common humans.” The Dark
being stated to the awed crew, his voice echoed like some demonic beings. “What
the hell do you mean?” shouted Philibuster. The High being smiled and Calabro
bowed his head, “Guys, they blew up the satellite, we don’t have our powers
anymore...” Everyone turned in panic to Calabro and questioned his response.
The Dark Lord laughed, “Yes, we found that device in the sky and blew it up,
rendering you all useless. Are you going to run away like those pathetic humans
over there?” He motioned to the panicking mob of teachers, students and
parents. But the crew stood their ground. “We are the defenders of this school
and the world. Powers or no powers we will show you that evil will never
triumph, we have a responsibility to attend to.” Zuk stated. “Well, well, well,
so be it…die if I care.” Replied the leader. He clapped his hands and several
phantom-like fighters, like a shadow stood before them.
The
rest of the senior class and parents were paralyzed with fear and could do
nothing but watch on. But several key non-combatant scholars whom had Calabro
before vaguely remember a shadowy figure who seemed unbeatable from the first
invasion...But to them, it seemed like Deja vu.
“I
am Dark Lord Maddas, the leader of my people. You killed our leaders, our
masters, our creators, and our reason for living. We shadows are assassins and
bodyguards to the Zephlin. We were a lost race of people with no reason for
being and with minds too weak and fragile to govern ourselves, until the
Zephlin created me...” Joe Philibert pushed everyone aside and stood in front
of Maddas, “You think you can come in and conquer our world? You have no
right!” With that he attempted to transform to a Super Scholar in a rage. But
as he felt his hair rise and ready for the full power to rush for him, he felt
the power flying away, thus not allowing him to transform. He fell to the
ground in a pant for over doing himself. “…It’s…true, we are powerless to stop
them.” Zuk and Calabro ran over to help him up. “It doesn’t matter if we have
it or not, we have a job to do and we will do it to our best.” Stated Calabro.
Maddas waved his hand in commencement of the dark ones to rush and attack.
Calabro
was checked by a shadowy figure flat against the fence, and felt him punching
him repeatedly he could do nothing. It seemed the training was useless…but a
feeling in his stomach made him think that deep inside he had something
left…But those dreams came to a halt by a gut punch from his assailant. Calabro
reacted by grasping his stomach and falling flat, fatigued and beat up. From
his blurry vision, the others were getting smashed. Philibuster was trying to hold
his own, but still, the frenzy of punches were overwhelming. Stephanie was
getting abused from heavy punches to her face. For a once valiant fighter and
now, losing all her powers of magic had caused her to take one more hit and
fall to the ground, unconscious. Bastedo had no use to fight on account he
didn’t have his notable weapons, because he relied on his super strength and as
a result was getting kicked around. Mike was frozen in fear as all this had
gone on, it had been against these shadow warriors that he had lost his life in
the first invasion…It took all he had and the only way he prevailed and saved
his friends was by sacrificing himself…
Calabro watched on and felt tired and began to fall into a deep sleep.
He
blinked his eyes and he felt a thud and an explosion in front of him and he
opened his eyes to see the shadow warriors thrown aside in a heap, and slowly
getting up in a daze. Ahead of Calabro was…Brian. The Super Scholar was
transformed and had his palm flat and pointing toward them, as if he fired a
beam and knocked them away. He walked toward the center of the pile of the beat
up bodies. Zuk faced up toward him and said, “Brian…how is it that you have
your powers. We lost ours from the satellite being destroyed. How?” His voice
started to get lower and groggy. “Joe, it is very simple. I too felt the loss
when the satellite blew up, and I sensed something wrong, but at the fear of my
loss of my love, Caitlin, I felt a tingling inside of rage and revenge at the
thought of her death and felt the power resurrect itself from me. You see
everyone, the power you received you were born with! It was deeply hidden
within and suppressed, but the aliens appeared did not relay a signature to
give them to you, it instead awoke a sleeping spirit of heroism. So, reawaken
your powers by getting angry! LET IT ALL OUT!” He fired up his “chi” to
intimidate them…it exploded from within him with a brightness and ferocity no
scholar had previously witnessed.
Joe
felt powerless, and scared, a shadow stood above his battered body and raised a
sword above his head and prepared to strike him dead. But the fear Zuk felt set
him off as he looked around at the loss he was about to suffer. The sacrifice
he would pay for failure. He saw the families of graduates, who waited 18 years
for this to happen. To the graduates who have a life ahead of them, which would
be wasted due to tyranny and oppression. He wasn’t going to let this happen.
The dark saber of the shadow fell sharply near him. The intense rage triggered
his transformation in a quick millisecond and he flipped around and blocked the
sword with his arm. He snarled against the sword as he pushed it away with all
his remaining strength. He hissed as the sword snapped in half and the blade
flew away from him and sank into the ground. Without thinking he got up and
heavily punched the shadow into the stomach and it was so strong that it
punched through him. The blacked demon vanished into thin air...Zuk wondered,
“Is it dead?”
Joe
Philibert followed through and as his shadow slowly dashed toward him, he got
up and powered up, shouting to the heavens as he blew up into his advanced
Super Scholar form. The shadow stopped and watched in awe. Joe blasted off in a
low altitude flight toward his opponent and fired up his “chi” as he then
stopped suddenly in front of him and raised his hand right on his chest and
shouted, “BIG…BANG…ATTACK!” and he shot for the an enormous ball of energy that
pushed the dark foe away and was slowly eaten by the ball’s destructive power.
Bastedo
wrestled with the shadow for a little bit till he remembered that his
girlfriend, the young junior in the audience could be in danger from this
hellish beast. His fear and protective sense awakened his super strength, his
muscles blew up into massive arms as he picked up his shocked assailant and set
him gently on the ground. He curled his arm and circled his arm in a small
circle. “Now try out my cyclone punch.” As he continued to circle his arm, the
shadow stood there, expressionless due to his dark face. But Sean, with all his
might he built in the circling of his fist rammed his fist into the jaw of the
clone, which sent him spinning as fast as a speeding car, crashing into the
side of the weight room, he crashed through the wall and out the other and fell
to the ground, with a huge bloody dent on the point of impact.
Gilday
was having some trouble with his shadow...But he also remembered the people he
cared about in the audience…his friends from the senior, junior and sophomore
classes. He flipped up and back handed the shadow to the ground, the rage built
up as he shouted to Calabro, “HAND ME MY FREAKEN SHOTGUN!” Calabro reached to
his board knapsack and pulled out the Remington sawed off double-barreled
shotgun and tossed it with his newly rejuvenated strength to the scholar. Mike
caught it as he pinned the shadow with his foot. “’Names, Mike...cart boy!” he
proceeded to not give his foe a chance as he fired his weapon and blew its head
clean off. As had happened with Zuk’s foe…it vanished.
Stephanie
began to come to, but she was badly hurt. She looked over to see a shadow
picking up a young man, tossing the boy on the ground. He was beat up fairly
badly. Her fear came to the worse as she examined the boy, “Oh, Shit…Kyle…no…”
she began to weep as she picked up the now unconscious boy into her arms. She
hugged him and she turned her heard toward the now descending evil twin of her.
“You will regret this. I’m going to…SHOW…YOU…HOW…I WILL KILL YOU!” The rage
built up exploded as her magical powers and experienced flooded her mind, her
fighting techniques ran through her brain as the clone slowly charged toward
her. With her powers beyond mortal men, she held her hand out and stopped the
shadow it its tracks. She then mad dashed in a blur toward her counterpart.
There was a crack a brief second later and the shadow choked as it instantly
froze into nothing. She reappeared behind it, raising her leg and spun it
around in a roundhouse and kicked the frozen being into two pieces. “Cold
Shoulder technique…you were hot, but now your not!” she quoted with a smile.
Calabro
picked up his sword and took the shadow out quite simply; the training had paid
off as he thrusted his sword into the chest of his opponent. He picked up the
sword with the shadow stuck to it. With his strength the tossed the sword like
an arrow across the field and it dug into the ground, with his defeated
opponent still penetrated within.
Maddas
smiled as he announced to the overconfident band of warriors, “Children…they’ll
never learn.” The crew was shocked they had just fought children… “Now its time
for the big boys to come out and play.” Maddas said, laughing his shadowy
laugh.
Brian
came over to the scholars and the other wounded and fed them Bastedo’s cookies
to regain their total strength. The fight begins now as the scholars attempt to
repel the shadow army of Maddas. The senior class was wide eyed. What have
these classmates become, what are these gold warriors that just appeared…all
they could do was watch and hope the good guys win…
Tune
in next episode as the army of Maddas attacks the scholars. Even with their new
powers, will it be enough to save the school? But after that, can the scholars’
battle back against Maddas and his arrogant fighting power? All this and more in
the next chapter of the Calabro Conversion, chapter XXXI: Infinite Justice!