The Anthem Force Chronicles

Chapter 8- Tournament of Heroes

I instantly start running but before I make much progress I’m swept off my feet. Before I know it Adam’s carrying me piggy-back style.

“What are you doing?” I yell at him. We’re zooming much faster then my liking but I know that I’m also slowing him down. Zane has disappeared but a mysterious shadow is trailing not far behind us.

“No offense Dante but you’ll just slow us down. Trust me, this competition was practically made for me,” Adam says as we head down a path through the middle of the woods.

I don’t like this. Not one bit. I feel helpless and useless, pretty much everything Ultraman and Zane think I am. But I don’t complain. Adam does have a point and even while carrying me he’s much faster then I’d ever be.

Before I can say anything else I see something coming our way. It looks like a small metal box with big black wings poking out the sides. We soon pass underneath it and the small box turns to follow us.  

Suddenly a red light forms in front of it and an energy beam starts flying towards us.

“Dodge left,” I yell to Adam and he does what he’s told, narrowly dodging the beam. The giant ball of red light crashes into the ground, erupting into an explosion.

“They’re trying to kill us,” I mutter but I don’t have much time to complain because the box is still on our trail.

I swing around so that now my legs are wrapped around Adam’s chest. He looks confused for a moment but keeps running.

I grab a boomerang out of my belt, another one of my weapons. It’s rigged with a sharp blade on one side. Using all my strength I hurl the boomerang at the box and it cuts straight through the middle. The destructive little box falls to the floor in a fit of sparks.

“Yes,” I yell as I pump my hands into the air. The celebration is short lived though as I see a flock of similar boxes coming straight for us.

I grab my boomerang carefully as it comes back and immediately toss it back at the incoming boxes. It slices through two but one more keeps coming. It passes us however and shoots a beam right at the mysterious shadow that has been trailing us.

“Zane,” I yell as the beam makes contact with an invisible object.

Suddenly Zane appears from nowhere, writhing in pain, and falls to the floor. 

I jump off Adam, who’s so shocked he stops too, and began to sprint to Zane. I catch my boomerang as it comes back to me and put it in my pocket. Instead a pull out my crowbar and smash the small box, which is in the middle of recharging and pointed at Zane, and it falls to the floor.

“Come on. Wake up,” I yell at Zane who lies unconscious on the floor. I don’t know what to do. I have no training in this and we’re losing time. Even worse, I feel Zane might be seriously hurt.

I kneel beside him and Adam joins me. I look at him and he has a similar look of confusion. So I do the only thing I can think of. I reach back and slap Zane across the face.