Vanguard: The Complete Second Season: A Superhero Serial (Vanguard: The Collected Seasons Book 2) Read Free

who he was certain had a large grin beneath the mask that covered his jaw.
    Shift emerged from the portal behind Paragon, who still scanned the battlefield looking for the next threat. The metamorph’s arms transformed into tentacles, slowly inching across the ground and trying to reach the metal ball that stood on a pike behind Paragon.  
    Paragon spun and grabbed Shift’s tentacles, yanking them and with them, the girl they belonged to. “Sorry about this, Erin,” said Paragon, hurling the teenage girl across the room where she fell into the waiting arms of Sharkskin.
    “Remember me?” he said with a smile.
    Shift gave a mischievous smirk of her own. “Oh, just wait.”
    “Huh?” Sharkskin blinked a few times in confusion.
    A flash of energy appeared behind Paragon. Lucent materialized, taking hold of the orb. Sharkskin noticed his appearance and shouted. “Anita, behind you!”
    Paragon spun, just in time to experience an optic blast directly in the face from Lucent. He tossed the orb in the air and seemingly vanished, moving too fast to be glimpsed.  
    Shift’s body slimmed down, becoming almost like a snake as she moved out of Sharkskin’s grasp. He tried to grab hold of her, but she slithered up to his shoulders and jumped from them. Her hand stretched out to grab the orb when Gunsmith’s energy blast hit her in the chest before she could reach and she fell to the ground.
    Paragon flew after the orb, but it vanished in a shadow portal just as she was about to grab it. The orb reappeared in Wraith’s hand who transported himself in a portal to the other side of the room. Sharkskin pounced on him, wrapping his burly arms around Wraith’s torso.  
    Wraith tossed the orb into the air and Lucent appeared in a sudden flash right where the orb fell, taking hold of it and moving across the finish line.
    A klaxon blared in the large training room of the Atlas base. The team relaxed and two men approached from the observation booth. One was older with   a gray beard and glasses—Dr. Howard McCabe, formerly of the Human Genome Project and advisor to Vanguard. The other man was young with a handsome brown face—Lee Parker, a special in his own right who had been forced into working for the Khagan.
    “No fair!” said Sharkskin, his bulk decreasing and his skin changing from gray to beige. He now took his human form of Koji Asano and pointed an accusatory finger at the opposite team. “A teleporter and an energy being on one team is cheating!”
    “Could say the same about two bruisers on one team.” Wraith pulled the mask away from his jaw and ran his fingers through his chin-length dark hair.  
    “He’s got a point,” said Gunsmith, holstering his weapons.
    Koji looked between Wraith and Gunsmith, a dumbfounded expression on his face. “Jim Ellis agreeing with Dominic Vaughn? We got another mind-control situation on our hands?”
    McCabe approached Lucent, who powered down and now stood as a human man with a bald head. “How are you doing in there, Zenith?”
    “Still somewhat disconcerting, but I’m becoming more comfortable with Lucent’s abilities.” Though he was in the body of Lucent, Zenith was an artificial intelligence who once inhabited his own robotic body. That is, until Lucent absorbed his energy. At first, Zenith was believed dead, but as a side-effect of the Khagan’s manipulations, Zenith was able to assert control over Lucent’s body.
    “How’s it coming with his body?” asked Erin, looking at Lee.
    “Still working on it,” said Lee. “But with the future of the team up in the air, kind of working with slim parts. And there’s also figuring out just how we’re going to transfer Zenith back into the body.”
    McCabe nodded. “That’s definitely a concern. Without knowing exactly how the transfer happened in the first place, reversing it will be difficult.”
    “They can’t really shut us down though, right?” asked Koji. “I mean, we saved the world and