The OK Team 2 (13 page)

‘Ah, the whole world undervalues weeds,' says the Bushranger.

Suddenly the few scrawny weeds growing between the tarmac cracks beneath our feet grow like crazy, reminding me of Jack's beanstalk. Torch's arms and legs are entwined in expanding green stalks and leaves. He's stuck fast. Cannonball darts around in the sky as the massive weeds reach out for him. Finally, one snags his ankle and he too is tied up by Bushranger.

‘We need help,' Torch groans. ‘This isn't fair. They shouldn't be this good.'

Blink appears in front of him. ‘But we are,' he says, and he whacks Torch on the nose. My friend reels back into the weeds that are holding him upright – a sitting duck for Blink.

‘Hey,' I yell. ‘He can't defend himself.'

Blink reappears. ‘Well, show yourself, Blur-boy, I'd love to punch you instead.'

‘He's mine, Blink,' says the Bushranger. ‘Come on, Focus. Show yourself or we'll do some serious damage to your Teammates.'

He waves at a weed and it takes the shape of a lethal spike. It rears up over Torch, who remains trapped, both arms and legs caught.

I'm frozen with fear, and that's when The Gamer, carrying a metal rubbish bin, leaps down the stairs from the roof and is confronted by the Bushranger and his gang, with almost all of the OK Team helpless or invisible. Logi-Gal climbs down the ladder behind him.

‘Uh-oh,' she says.

The Gamer places the bin on the ground and gapes at the bad guys for a moment, then produces a Zelda shield and sword from behind his back.

‘Not uh-oh,' says The Gamer. ‘This is excellent. A real-life Boss stage. Lucky I'm at full power.'

‘Directo,' says the Bushranger, ‘I'll let you take care of this one. Let's not hide our true power anymore.'

‘Sure thing, boss,' says Directo, and he walks towards The Gamer, right arm extended and pointing. A massive object is floating through the air from the far entrance of the car park. Still invisible, I squint and realise it's a semi-trailer, with half a cargo of vegetables that must have been mid-delivery to the Northland supermarket.

‘Directo! No!' I yell, becoming visible at last. ‘Bushranger, that's too much. We're only Level D, Grade Three!'

The Gamer raises his shield defiantly as Directo approaches him with the truck. Torch and Cannonball wrestle their weed bonds. Torch shoots a flame at one weed, which recoils, but three others wrap him even tighter.

‘You mean, ex-Level D, Blur-boy,' says the Bushranger. ‘I'd have Directo throw the truck at you, but thanks to the Pact, I get you all for myself. Your pathetic little friends are a different story though. Do it, Directo.'

And he does. Directo swings his arm and the truck flies through the air with a metallic groan. It smashes impossibly hard into The Gamer. The explosive noise is almost deafening. The truck slides across the car park until it slams into the wall, mangled metal and smoke mixed with concrete. The Gamer's body is somewhere underneath.

Dwoooooop.
GAME OVER
.

Logi-Gal screams and runs straight at Directo, fists clenched, but she's barely halfway across the space when weeds wrap fast around her legs and upper body. She's crying and fighting as she's hoisted into the air.

The rest of us stare in absolute horror at the smashed up semi-trailer.

The Gamer is dead.

CHAPTER 13
BAD DOG, SWITCHY!
BAD DOG!

W
e're all still staring at the wreck of the truck when the roar of an engine fills the car park and another huge semi-trailer screeches in off the street. Its headlights illuminate Bushranger's metal mask as the Super-Villain turns to face it.

I just have time to notice a rainbow-coloured mask on the front of the truck's grille before it turns pink and POP!s and suddenly is a giant whipper-snipper, cutting through the mutant weeds as though they're cobwebs. The weeds shrink and cower in the face of the attack, and a few slashes later, Torch, Cannonball and Logi-Gal are free.

Swoop Swoop flies easily past Cannonball and heads for the whipper-snipper, but then Switchy turns into a massive butterfly net and neatly catches the yellow girl-Villain, dumping her in an industrial bin. Bushranger starts to edge behind a pillar.

This has all taken about eight seconds. Switchy is impressively powerful and efficient. There is a POP! and the butterfly net is suddenly a giant fist that KOs Directo with one mighty punch. Then POP!, the fist becomes a tall, handsome version of future-Switchy, standing calmly with his hands on his hips.

‘Hi team. How are we going here?' he asks.

‘Switchy! The Gamer . . . they killed him,' I say. My voice is shaky with grief and the shock has a physical effect on me so I am only vaguely visible.

‘They what?' Switchy gasps.

‘He's really dead,' says Logi-Gal. ‘I can't believe it – but I saw it happen.'

‘I got here as quickly as I could, but too late.' Shifty blinks a few times then takes a deep breath and stands as tall and Heroically as he can. ‘I must avenge him. Two down, three to go. Where's that blinky kid?'

On cue, Blink appears right in front of him and throws a huge punch, but Switchy takes a nano-second to become solid steel and Blink howls in pain as he cracks his hand on contact.

Switchy turns to Morphul, who looks a little like a giant squid. In fact, he's definitely a giant squid, huge and blubbery and waving massive tentacles towards Switchy who turns deathly pale.

‘A giant squid!' screams Switchy. ‘My-my-my worst nightmare. I hate giant squid.'

The squid advances and Switchy cowers.

I finally calm down enough to become visible. ‘Switchy, turn into a harpoon or a big aquarium or a fishing boat.'

‘I can't. Ever since I was a kid, I've been terrified of giant squid.'

‘Then become something easy. Something that might scare a squid.'

Like what?'

‘I don't know. . . . Switchy, become a dog!'

‘What?'

‘Just become a dog! NOW!'

And with a pink POP!, Switchy is a dog, and a powerful one. Black and brown, with a massive jaw, and he's growling and barking ferociously at the squid, which looks as uncertain as a giant squid can look. It backs off a little.

‘Dogs and giant squid are natural enemies?' asks Cannonball, panting to catch his breath now the weeds are away from his throat.

‘Who knew. It's working, isn't it?' I answer.

And it is. The dog is snarling and foaming at the mouth and has crazy eyes. Even I'm frightened. It has the squid seriously backing up now.

As this is going on, Swoop Swoop climbs groggily out of the bin. She and Blink join Bushranger, peeking out from behind the pillar. Blink is shaking and rubbing his hand, clearly in pain. Bushranger points one menacing finger at me and then turns, scoops up the unconscious body of Directo and bounds out of the car park.

The squid backs further and further away from Switchy the growling power-dog and then Morphul is also running, as fast as he can, out of the car park. Torch, Logi-Gal, Cannonball and I simply stare after them. We don't chase them. We're done.

‘Wow, Switchy. You do a good dog these days,' says Torch.

The dog swings his mighty head towards us and continues a low growl, deep in his throat.

‘Your work here is finished. You can change back now,' says Cannonball, taking a couple of steps backwards.

The dog snarls menacingly.

‘Switchy?' I say, taking a step towards him.

The dog barks, so loudly that it booms off the roof of the car park. I turn invisible in shock.

‘Switchy, it's me, Focus,' I say.

The dog barks again, and growls loudly, as if daring any of us to come near him. His eyes are terrifying.

‘Switchy!' says Cannonball from the air. ‘Calm down.

It's us. The OK Team. We're all on the same side. We're the good guys. Heel, Switchy, heel!'

The dog barks harshly and leaps into the air, his jaws just missing Cannonball's boot.

‘Switchy! Bad dog!' he says.

‘I hate to do this. Sorry Switchy,' says Torch and shoots one short burst of flame at the dog, which yelps in pain, and whimpers and then shakes, turns pink and POP!, we're looking at the younger, pimply-faced version of Switchy again.

‘What was that about?' says Cannonball, landing in front of him, hands on hips. ‘You tried to bite me.'

‘I did? What do you mean?' Switchy asks, looking confused.

‘Just now, dog boy. You tried to take a bite out of my foot.'

‘I was a dog?' Switchy looks more confused.

We all sneak glances at each other.

‘You didn't know you were a dog?' I ask. ‘You always know what you are, no matter what form you switch to.'

Switchy sits on the concrete and rubs his temples with his fingers. He looks exhausted.

‘This is highly illogical,' Logi-Gal says.

‘The good news is Switchy might also not realise I just shot at him,' Torch whispers to me.

Suddenly we remember. There's silence as we all look at the mangled truck.

‘Oh. My. God.' says Logi-Gal.

‘I can't believe it. The Gamer is dead!' Cannonball's bottom lip is quivering. ‘The OK Team is not okay.'

‘This is very heavy,' says Switchy.

‘What is?'

The voice comes from behind us and we all spin around as though it's a choreographed move invented by the G
rl-Stars. The Gamer is trotting across the car park, lazily swiping what's left of the trampled weeds to claim gold coin bonuses.
Bloop, bloop, brrrrrrring.

‘The Gamer?' I gasp.

‘Game Boy? Is it really you?' Torch is slack-jawed.

‘We witnessed your death. Logically, you cannot now be walking towards us,' says Logi-Gal, arms crossed.

‘Oh you mean the thing with the truck?' says The Gamer, with a shrug. ‘Yeah, I lost a life. Bummer.'

We take a moment to process this.

Cannonball says carefully, ‘You lost “a life”, as opposed to “your life”?'

The Gamer grins. ‘Sure. I just had to go back to the beginning of the stage and work up to this level. Which meant I had to return to our scout hall HQ and make my way here again. Did I miss much?'

None of us can speak for a moment.

‘So you can't die?' I finally ask.

‘Well, if I lost six lives without picking up a bonus life, I'd really be dead. Stone cold. The closest I've come to real death in the last two years is when I was down to two lives.'

‘You didn't think to mention this to us?' I say, my voice rising. ‘Before we all watched, horrified, as you were killed.'

‘Sorry,' he says. ‘It didn't come up in conversation. There was this one time, I lost a life when a volcano erupted while I was standing in it.'

He stops talking as Logi-Gal gives him a bone-crunching hug of relief.

‘We thought you were dead,' she says.

‘I'm fine. Oh, hi, Switchy,' he says. ‘So, how'd you guys go against the Bushranger and his weedy henchmen?'

‘Terrible,' I say. ‘We failed completely.'

‘I wouldn't say completely,' The Gamer says, looking smug.

‘What do you mean?' Cannonball asks. ‘What happened on the roof ?'

‘It was a tough one,' The Gamer says. ‘I hadn't been to Level 93 before. There was a mystery stage, which was actually kind of cool. There were these eagle-like spaceships swirling in formation overhead, and sometimes they swooped and I had to use cannons, not just the usual fire button.'

We all stare.

‘And I had to rescue Logi-Gal,' he finishes.

‘Which means . . .' Torch ventures. ‘The gorilla got away?'

The Gamer grins and taps on the lid of the rubbish bin beside him. The bin rattles and wobbles and, from inside it come screeching and hooting sounds.

‘Is that what I think it is?' Torch asks.