THE VILLAINS

Vylex has a motto, and he means every word of it: power controls all.

Blades built into his gauntlets for when it gets close. A giant energy shield that blocks anything the Squad throws — and that he's more than happy to swing back at them. An army that doesn't get tired. And a workshop turning out copies of every hero on the team.

He believes strength is the only thing that decides anything. Every book in this series is an argument with that idea.

Don't let the size fool anybody.

No-Bots fire energy blasts, throw up energy shields, take a hit and keep coming — and when the ground stops being useful, their legs fold into a hover pack and they come at you from the air instead.

They never get tired. They never get scared. They never once stop to ask whether what they're doing is right. That last one is the whole problem with them, and it's exactly why they lose.

Same design as Baboom's boomerang — darker, glowing green, and with an energy blade along the edge. Same strength. Same power. Everything Baboom has, copied exactly.

Everything except the reason he uses it.

A Boomstick built out of metal and energy instead of nerve. It hits harder than Buster's does — that part is true, and Vylex is very proud of it.

What it doesn't have is the thing that makes Buster go first: the choice.

The shield is a perfect copy — energy-powered, multi-angle, deflects everything. Vylex built it to protect a machine.

Scout carries hers to protect somebody else. Same shield. Completely different weapon.

Ratchet builds things nobody has thought of yet. Robo-Ratchet builds nothing — it was handed a finished copy of somebody else's idea and told to fly it.

Fast, stable, built for tricks. Not one original thought in it.

Devastating impact force, straight from a hammer with an energy core in the handle. On raw numbers it out-hits the real thing.

But a hammer doesn't make you dependable. Turning up does — and nobody ever called a machine faithful.

This is the one Vylex is proudest of.

A full robotic copy of the world's greatest hero. Super strength. Extreme durability. Energy attacks. A combat AI that learns. Built for exactly one purpose, and Vylex had it written into the plans: built to defeat the Boom Squad.

He copied the strength. He copied the speed. He could not copy the dad.