boyfriends?” she asked with an arched brow.
“She really is a hermit,” Vortex said. “We took her to the opera the other day and it was her first time.”
“You popped her opera cherry? How did that feel? Was it exciting or did it hurt a little at first?” Crystal Woman asked, smiling wide.
“It felt amazing,” Vortex replied, beaming.
“You really hadn’t been before?” she asked me.
I shook my head.
“What else haven’t you done? Let me pop a few cherries, too,” she said.
“Is it ever possible for you to be serious?” Cobalt asked Crystal Woman.
Her smile wilted, and she said, “Sure, whenever I have to talk to a jerk, I get real serious.”
He rolled his eyes, turned back around, and exhaled. “Time to get to work, boys. Let’s take this monster down.”
The monster in question was six stories tall with scales and a tail similar to a crocodile, yet it stood on two legs.
“Is that a knockoff kaiju?” Crystal Woman asked.
“What?” Vortex asked her.
“From the movies,” I answered. “That totally looks like a knockoff version.”
“Did someone animate a knockoff toy?” she asked.
Cobalt and the two new heroes flew at the monster.
I wondered what their plan was until I saw them separate at the last second and split up with Cobalt headed straight for its face.
“Does he have a death wish?” Vortex asked and quickened his pace.
“He’s too conceited to have a death wish,” Crystal Woman countered.
“Watch out for its tail,” Tremor said from a nearby alcove. Clearly, he had been one of the original heroes sent after it since he was already here and hadn’t come with us. He could cause earthquakes, make the ground split open into huge canyons and then close them back up.
“Is that what destroyed that fountain?” I asked, looking at what used to be a fountain with a Pegasus statue in it and was now a pile of rubble with water spraying up.
“Yep,” he answered. “I need to rest a minute.”
“Awesome,” I said.
“You shock it and I’ll spear it,” Crystal Woman ordered me.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said and saluted her.
We took a few more steps and then froze as Cobalt, who had been flying in front of the monster’s face, was eaten by the monster.
Collectively, everyone froze.
That couldn’t have happened, right? Cobalt didn’t just get swallowed by a huge lizard monster?
The two men who had come with Cobalt drew strange weapons and started shooting red lightning into the monster.
The monster bellowed and swung wildly at them.
The huge, scaled arm caught one of the men and sent him flying into a nearby building and the impact created a human-sized crater in the building’s wall.
Finally reaching its feet, I shocked it with as much power as I could in one blast before running away to a safe distance so I didn’t get stomped on.
Crystal Woman created several long, thin crystals and jammed them into the monster’s feet before jumping out of the way as well.
The monster roared in pain and stomped the ground, but none of us were near it to be damaged.
“How are we going to defeat this thing? My electricity isn’t strong enough to kill it or even still its heart for a moment. And your crystals just seem to tick it off.”
I watched the men who had come with Cobalt beneath the cover of a building alcove whispering to each other and bandaging the one who hit the building. Who were they?
“I need to get up high enough to try throwing a crystal into its eyes. If I can blind it, that will give us a big advantage,” Crystal Woman said.
“I can use my wind to toss you up there,” Vortex said, coming up behind us.
“Blow me away to the side if it tries to grab me, okay?” Crystal Woman ordered.
Vortex nodded, clapped his hands together, closed his eyes, and exhaled.
Crystal Woman slowly grew a long crystal in each hand, her eyes pinched as she focused on her task. I watched as sweat dripped from her brow and then slid down her arm to the crystal to help it grow.
A strange pressure grew around us, making it almost difficult to breathe.
Forcing myself not to panic, I watched the monster who had turned its attention to the parking structure in front of it, tossing cars left and right and smashing the stone columns as it growled.
What was its goal? Why was it here? Did it just want to destroy things? Most animals had a reason for attacking, but the monsters never seemed to.
It was almost like it was orchestrated.
“Ready?”