Chance Fortune in the Shadow Zone

by Shane Berryhill

Overview

At the end of their freshman year, Chance Fortune and the Outlaws saved the universe. Though he lacks a superpower, fifteen-year-old Chance used his natural athleticism and quick wits to form his team into an effective fighting force. The Outlaws have learned to trust and rely upon one another. As the bonds of their friendship strengthen, Chance finds it more difficult than ever to conceal his true identity. When an apparent teleportation malfunction strands the team in the Shadow Zone, the Outlaws are put to the test once more. Teeming with supervillains exiled by the Brotherhood of Heroes, the Shadow Zone is a land of nightmares brought to life. And when Psy-Chick, Gothika, Iron Maiden, and Private Justice are kidnapped by the mysterious Shadowmen, Chance knows that he must set aside his doubts in order to save them.



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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429940399
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/28/2008
Series:	Adventures of Chance Fortune , #2
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	323 KB
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Shane Berryhill is the author of Chance Fortune and the Outlaws. He lives with his wife, Lesley, in Chattanooga, TN.

Shane Berryhill lives with his wife, Lesley, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He is the author of The Adventures of Chance Fortune, including Chance Fortune and the Outlaws and Chance Fortune in the Shadow Zone.

Read an Excerpt

Chance Fortune in the Shadow Zone

The Adbentures of Chance Fortune

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By Shane Berryhill

Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright © 2008 Shane Berryhill
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-4039-9

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CHAPTER 1

Chance Fortune and his battle teammates, The Outlaws, stood in an alien dimension beneath an ever-darkening sky. There were no Team Combat Training safeguards to protect them, or any adults, superhuman or otherwise, to rescue them. Only in their teens, the Outlaws had already faced threats most never experience in a lifetime. But all that was nothing in comparison to the challenges that lay ahead of them.

How did this happen? Chance thought. One minute we were teleporting home from Burlington Academy for the Superhuman. The next, we reintegrated here in the Shadow Zone!

Chance turned to face Psy-chick, the team's psionic. She looked frightened.

Psy-chick? he thought at her.

She gave no response. Chance guessed fear was preventing Psy-chick from focusing her telepathic powers. His heart went out to her. The two of them had become especially close during their semester together at Burlington.

Chance looked to the rest of his teammates. They all stood peering up at the short, rocky cliffs surrounding them. Hissing and growling echoed from above. Chance saw shadows scurrying about the cliff tops.

Whoever's up there, Chance thought, they're not friendly! And they've got the high ground. We've got to move before they attack.

"Guys!" Chance called.

His teammates didn't notice. They stood in a huddle for protection as they gazed upward.

"Shocker!" Chance said. "Get a hold of yourself!"

"Too much," Shocker said. He was dressed in his usual attire of leather jacket, jeans, sunglasses, and bandanna. He was crouched on his haunches, scowling with pain as he pressed his hands against his ears. "Too much! It hurts!"

Good lord, Chance thought. What's gotten into him? No matter. I'll get the others under control first and then deal with it.

"Snap out of it, you guys!" Chance yelled.

One by one, they did. The Norse demigoddess, Iron Maiden, rose to her full and considerable height. She crossed her well-toned arms over her costume's breastplate.

"Just tell me who to punch, Chance," Iron Maiden said.

The communicator watch riding on Private Justice's lanky, red-and-blue-clad arm produced a hologram of a small, open manual. "The Burlington handbook says one is to always remain calm and call for instructions when faced with a new and potentially dangerous situation."

"Not now, PJ," Chance said. "We need to —"

"Burlington Academy," Private Justice said into his watch, "this is Private Justice of the Outlaws. There has been a malfunction with the teleporter. We didn't make it home. We're trapped in the Shadow Zone! Please respond."

The sound of white noise was the watch's only reply.

"I'll try, Chance," Space Cadet said. The team's technomancer was clad in overstretched purple and white spandex. He adjusted the glasses that sat on his chubby, brown cheeks and began to speak into his watch.

"Burlington, this is Space Cadet. Do you read me, over?" More white noise. "Burlington, this is SC, do you copy, over?" SC looked up and shook his head in confusion. "It's no good, Chance. I ... I can't make it work."

"It's happened to you, too, hasn't it?" Gothika asked. Days before their departure from Burlington, the Outlaws' witch had used her magic to grow her hair out and highlight its natural ebony sheen with streaks of pink and purple. She maintained the color scheme throughout her outfit. "Chance, something is wrong!"

"Yeah," Chance said. "No kidding."

"No, really!" Gothika said. "I can't feel. My sixth sense is gone!"

"What are you saying?" Private Justice asked as he scratched his buzz-cut head.

"My magic," Gothika said. "It's not working!" Gothika hugged herself and began to mumble. "So hollow. So empty."

"And I've gone deaf!" Psy-chick blurted, her voice finding courage at last. She was dressed in form-fitting black. The white starburst that was her emblem rode on her chest.

"If you've lost your hearing, how do you know what we've been saying?" Iron Maiden asked.

"No, not deaf deaf!" Psy-chick said. "I can't hear your thoughts." Psy-chick turned to face Chance, apprehension in her eyes. "Or anyone else's."

"And I can't stretch!" PJ said as he repeatedly thrust out his arms before him.

"What's going on, here?" Iron Maiden asked as she walked toward Chance. "Chance, tell us what's going — ow!" Iron Maiden tripped and fell, banging her elbow as she landed. She sat up and massaged her funny bone, her eyes wide with fear. "That hurt."

"But you don't get hurt, Maiden," Psy-chick said.

"Her powers are gone, too!" Gothika said.

"Nonsense!" Iron Maiden said as she shook off her pain and got to her feet. "Here, I'll show you!"

Iron Maiden tried to lift Gothika over her head in a display of superhuman strength. But no matter how much Iron Maiden pulled and tugged, Gothika didn't budge.

Chance reached beneath his black, Zorro-style mask and massaged either side of his nose. They've all lost their powers. Probably even Shocker, though it wouldn't matter one way or another in his current state. This is definitely not good.

The irony of the situation was not lost on Chance. He was a normal human and therefore superpowerless to begin with. It had taken a little white lie in that regard to get Chance into Burlington, backed by years of training and study to make the lie stick.

Chance knew if his normalcy ever became known, it would mean immediate expulsion from the school. Never mind that under his leadership the Outlaws had almost won the Team Combat Championship and saved the school from an alien invasion during their first semester. As Private Justice would've said, the rules were the rules.

So Chance had never told anyone he was merely human. Not even his closest friends, the Outlaws.

A shrill scream echoed down from the cliffs, and the Outlaws jumped with fear. Chance dragged Shocker to his feet.

"Let's move! On me!" He sprinted for the end of the canyon no more than fifty yards away, his teammates obediently following. But it was too late.

CHAPTER 2

"Incoming!" Iron Maiden yelled.

The Outlaws were dive-bombed by a human-sized bat. Or rather, it was a human with a bat's face and wings. The Outlaws scattered and rolled.

"No," Chance said. "Don't let them separate us!" Chance felt someone or something clamp its hands around his shoulders. Before he could react, a foot was in the small of his back. Opposing pressure at both points on his body was applied and he flipped head over heels. He impacted the earth hard, churning up black dust and gravel. He spat and coughed.

That's the last time somebody gets the drop on me today! Chance thought as he slammed his fist against the ground.

He looked up to see a small hooded and cloaked figure armed with a bo staff, undoubtedly the one who'd flipped him, making short work of his teammates.

Chance leaped to his feet and sprinted toward the battle, unsheathing and extending his billy clubs as he ran. He swerved just in time to dodge a blow from an enormous hunchbacked creature wearing a cloak similar to that of the bo staff fighter. He had appeared out of nowhere.

Chance dodged a second blow that shook the ground where it impacted. Chance ran up the length of the hunchback's massive arm and somersaulted off his cloaked shoulders, pelting the attacker across his head while in mid-flip.

"Ow!" the hunchback cried as he massaged his head. "You no play fair with Brutus!"

"You'll have to pardon me," Chance said as he whirled out of Brutus's path, "if being attacked makes me a bad sport!"

Brutus missed Chance and charged headfirst into the canyon wall. Cracks spiderwebbed from the point of impact. Brutus dropped onto his rear, his eyes rolling in his head. Chance turned and ran toward the small cloaked figure just as the attacker sent the last of the Outlaws tumbling to the ground.

Chance reached him and began throwing the best kicks and swipes he had to offer. His mysterious opponent used the bo staff to expertly block and parry every blow. Chance could not believe his opponent's skill level. He was even better than Anime, Burlington Academy's premiere student martial artist.

Good as he was, the cloaked fighter was not perfect. He ducked under one of Chance's blows a little too late to keep the Outlaw's club from snagging his hood. The weapon's momentum inadvertently yanked the hood off his opponent's head.

Chance froze, stunned at what he saw.

"You're a girl!"

The fighter was a girl about Chance's age, though her hard eyes and sharp features made her seem older. Her head was completely bald and pointy; elfish ears bookended her face. But her most striking feature was her iridescent blue skin.

The girl jerked the hood back over her head and gave Chance a leaping roundhouse kick that sent him tumbling.

She placed the end of her bo staff beneath Chance's chin, daring him to rise.

"You are a fool to be in our territory," the blue girl spat. "And right at nightfall, too. Do you have a death wish?"

"I'm sorry. I don't —"

Suddenly the girl's eyes grew wide with fear. Without explanation, she turned and ran, her quarrel with Chance forgotten.

"Shadowmen!" she screamed.

Chance turned to see what had so frightened his attacker. Ghostly shadows flew through the sky toward him. Their faces bore no distinguishable features save for the glowing crimson eyes housed beneath each of their furrowed brows. The sight of the Shadowmen conjured up thoughts of every boogeyman and monster Chance believed had lived under his bed as a boy. He shivered with fear.

"Run!" Chance screamed as he sheathed his billy clubs. "Outlaws, run!"

At Chance's words, the Outlaws, though still groggy from their thumping at the hands of the blue-skinned girl, bolted as a single unit toward the end of the canyon. They made it out only to realize they were at the edge of yet another cliff — one that had no bottom.

Chance turned, but the Shadowmen blocked the canyon mouth, cutting the Outlaws off from any hope of escape. Chance determined there were at least a dozen of them. He now saw they were humanoid and varied in size and shape in every way possible. But their ominous red eyes and viscous black skin chilled Chance to the bone.

One of the Shadowmen stepped forward and seized Psy-chick, effortlessly lifting her off the ground. Chance ran forward, but Shocker, finally showing some semblance of his old self, reached her attacker first.

"Get away from her, you parasites!" he yelled. "You bunch of nothings!"

A backhand from a neighboring Shadowman sent Shocker hurtling backward. He slammed into Space Cadet and both of them went tumbling over the edge of the cliff to the dark depths below.

Time seemed to slow as Chance watched his teammates go over.

"No!" he screamed, but he was too late.

Chance renewed his charge for Psy-chick. But like Shocker before him, his attempt was in vain. A Shadowman, this one feminine in form, lifted her arm and an energy bolt left her hand to strike Chance square in the chest. The Outlaw captain stumbled backward and gasped in horror as the feeling of earth beneath his feet disappeared.

Forgive me, Psy-chick, Chance thought as he tumbled over the cliff.

CHAPTER 3

It seemed to Chance as though he'd been falling for all eternity; that his life back in Littleton with his family and his mentor, Captain Fearless, had all been just a dream, and this never-ending plummet into the abyss was the grim reality of existence.

However, where Chance's thoughts failed him, his training came to his rescue. Moving on instinct, his hand unsheathed the grappling gun holstered along his right thigh and fired its hook into the rock face speeding by.

The hook caught and pain seared through Chance's arms and shoulders as the line abruptly went taut. Chance transferred his momentum into his swing and somersaulted onto a small ledge along the cliff face, simultaneously thumbing the grappling gun's release and reel buttons and drawing both the hook and its line back inside the gun.

Chance looked up in shocked amazement to see a hulking Shadowman looming over the blue-skinned girl who'd given him so much trouble back in the canyon.

Sucks to be you! Chance thought and turned to duck and run inside a cave leading into the cliff face. But a shrill scream from the girl halted him in his tracks.

"Flarn it!" Chance said as he whirled and leaped onto the Shadowman's back. The creature was unaffected by his attack, so he withdrew two pellet-sized concussion bombs from his utility belt and slammed them into the Shadowman's ears before dropping to the ground and scrambling backward on his elbows.

The bombs detonated and the Shadowman gave an inhuman wail of agony. He whirled on Chance, the girl forgotten, and closed the distance between them at an incredible rate of speed. The Shadowman seized Chance by his neck and hoisted him into the air. The touch of its ichor-covered hand felt like worms wriggling over his skin.

Chance watched in horror as the ichor lining the Shadowman's jaws formed into a worming proboscis that groped for his face. Just before it reached his nostrils, Chance thrust his right hand before his face. The proboscis met his gloved palm and pain like an icy fire engulfed his hand.

The Shadowman shrieked in frustration and thrust Chance against the cliff face, knocking the wind from his lungs. Chance heard something in the back of his utility belt break on impact. Suddenly bright, white light flashed from behind Chance, encircling him in a corona. The Shadowman gave a deafening shriek of pain and released Chance as he stumbled backward.

As the Shadowman writhed in agony, the ichor syrup covering his body drew back, retreating away from the light, revealing the person beneath — a grotesque figure with a large tusk jutting upward on either side of a snotty, wrinkled snout.

"Watch out," Chance said as the light strobe at his back faded, "you're going to —"

In his fit, the Shadowman ran off the ledge and plunged to the depths below. Chance was so shocked by this, it took him a moment to realize the blue girl had pulled him into the cave. She tugged him into a low crevice just large enough to slide in on one's belly.

When Chance regained enough of his senses, the blue girl gestured for him to be quiet. He did not have to wait long to find out why.

Even in their hiding place, Chance felt the displacement of air as Shadowmen landed on the ledge outside. They made no sound as they hovered in, the tips of their toes barely touching the cave floor.

The crimson eyes of several Shadowmen flashed in a way familiar to Chance. He'd seen it happen many times back at Burlington when students with the ability to see light at both ends of the electromagnetic spectrum invisible to human eyes activated their powers.

Not good, Chance thought nervously. It was only a matter of time before they were discovered.

Chance gasped in fear. The blue-skinned girl clamped her hand over his mouth and threw her cloak over his body. Chance watched breathless from beneath as the eyes of one of the Shadowmen peered directly at their hiding place ... and then looked away.

Slowly, one by one, the Shadowmen exited the cavern, seemingly content that there was nothing to be found inside. They'd been gone for quite some time when, at last, the blue-skinned girl removed her hand and allowed Chance to breathe.

CHAPTER 4

Psy-chick knew she was dreaming, but it didn't make seeing Chance, Shocker, and SC going over the cliff's edge all over again any easier. She watched, helpless in her dream, as the Shadowmen seized Private Justice, Iron Maiden, and Gothika and put them to sleep with a pale green flash from their bloodred eyes. Psy-chick screamed as the eyes of her own captor flashed green and darkness swallowed her.

Then the dream started over for what seemed like the hundredth time. The nightmarish memory played again and again until Psy-chick was certain she would go mad if she didn't wake up. But when at last she did awaken, terror overtook her, for she realized she wasn't going crazy — she was already there. She had to be. Only an insane mind could have imagined the scene that lay before her.

At first, Psy-chick had felt warm wind blowing against her face. The sensation had actually been pleasant until its scent reached her nose and she began to cough. The air was full of smoke and it stank of burning rubber.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Chance Fortune in the Shadow Zone by Shane Berryhill. Copyright © 2008 Shane Berryhill. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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