The Strike Trilogy

by Charlie Wood

  “Do you believe?” Rigel asked Adrianna.

  “What?”

  “Do you believe in the Rantamede and pledge your life to him and his quest for universal peace?”

  She shot him a smirk.

  “Do you pledge your loyalty to him?” Rigel asked again, more forcefully this time.

  “Just do as he says,” Nova told her.

  “Sure,” Adrianna said, with a smile and a shrug. “Okay.”

  “Do you give him your life?”

  “Yes.”

  “Until the very end?”

  “Why not.”

  Rigel reached out with his tree-trunk arms and embraced Adrianna, pulling her close. She was surprised, not to mention in a bit of pain from the overzealous squeeze.

  “He will be very pleased to meet you,” Rigel said.

  “Can’t wait,” Adrianna replied, wriggling out of the hug before her ribcage was crushed.

  Finally, with a smile that neither Nova nor Adrianna had ever seen, Rigel walked through the golden entryway and into the shadowed room at the end of the corridor. Adrianna and Nova followed him and inspected the underground cavern: it was a large, circular room, with dozens of candelabras burning brightly, a domed ceiling, and more artwork of half-human, half-animal creatures along the walls. There were also rows of statues of animals made out of black marble, and in the center of the room there was a beautiful green pillar made out of pure emerald, which stood about eight feet high. As stunning as the room and its contents were, however, it was clear that no one had been inside it for years, maybe even decades: there were spider-webs in the corners and on the statues, and the floor was littered with tattered nests and animal bones. In the silence, every few seconds, the trio could hear the sounds of scurrying rodents and insects.

  “Wait here,” Rigel said to the others. “He may look...strange to you.”

  Nova and Adrianna watched as the red giant walked toward the emerald pillar in the center of the room.

  “Is he talking about…?” Adrianna asked.

  “Just watch,” Nova replied.

  Rigel knelt in front of the green pillar and bowed his head. After he whispered and mumbled in the strange language, a burst of black fire erupted atop the pillar. When Rigel looked up at it, the fire swirled and snapped, until it began to take the shape of a pair of eyes, a nose, a goatee, and a mouth. Soon, there was a green face of a man in the middle of the black flames, and it was a face Rigel knew very well—it was the face of his mentor and leader, Vincent Harris.

  Rigel watched the face for a few moments, before looking to the ground, overcome with emotion.

  “Hello, Vincent,” the red giant said. “It is a great honor to finally see you again.”

  “How long have I been gone, Rigel?” the image of Vincent asked.

  “Seven months, sir. It has taken me seven months to heal from my injuries and arrive at this place.”

  Near the entryway, Adrianna and Nova were watching Rigel have his conversation. However, Adrianna was confused—to her, it appeared Rigel was having this conversation with thin air. She did not see either Vincent’s face, or the black flame atop the pillar.

  “Um, am I crazy,” she asked, “or is he talking to nobody?”

  “He’s talking to Vincent,” Nova replied.

  “He is? I don’t see anything. Do you?”

  “No. But Rigel does. And that’s all that matters.”

  Near the pillar, Rigel was staring at the ground and grimacing, shaking his head.

  “I am sorry, sir. I have no excuses for why it has taken me so long to find you.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for, Rigel,” Vincent said. “Without your determination, Rytonia and the entire universe would be lost. You are the reason our people, and our dreams for Capricious, still live.”

  “Thank you, sir. I just wish...I wish you could be with us again.”

  Adrianna watched Rigel from a distance, with a skeptical frown.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “Does he really see something, or does he just think he’s seeing something?”

  Nova shook his head. “I don’t know. But as long as he’s convinced he’s talking with Vincent, and as long as it leads us to what we want, that’s all we need to be worried about.”

  “I wish I was there, too,” the image of Vincent said to Rigel, “but you know that can’t be. I am gone forever, and it is up to you now to look over our people. It is time for you to fulfill your destiny. That is why it is so important for you to find the others.”

  “Yes,” Rigel replied, motioning to Nova and Adrianna, “these two heroes have joined me. They have pledged their lives to you, and to helping us achieve universal peace.”

  Adrianna leaned over to Nova. “Gee, I hope non-existent man approves of us,” she whispered.

  “Shh,” Nova told her.

  “You have done well to find them, Rigel,” Vincent continued, “but there is still one more member that needs to join you. You know there needs to be another.”

  “Yes,” Rigel said. “He is not here yet, sir. But we are working on finding him, and have come here to carry out our plan.”

  “Good,” Vincent replied. “Because without the Daybreaker, you have nothing. He is the one to bring peace to Capricious. Without him, you cannot succeed.

  “He is the one who was always meant to lead us, Rigel. Even if I had survived. This has all been about him. He is the only one who can lead us home.”

  Rigel nodded. “But...there are still people who will try and stop us, sir.”

  “Yes, I know. Is Orion aware that you are still alive?”

  “No. But he is with the others constantly, working with them and fighting alongside them. On Earth and on Capricious.”

  “So Tobin is still alive then,” Vincent said. “And has he been learning more about his powers with Orion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has he become more powerful?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has he become a hero?” Vincent asked.

  Rigel waited a moment before answering.

  “Yes,” he finally said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The “Gala by the Back Bay” was one of the most prestigious events in all of Boston; held on the top floor of the historic Bellemont hotel, this annual fundraiser to benefit the city’s hospitals attracted the wealthiest of the wealthy: politicians, socialites, athletes…year after year, the most famous citizens of Boston would attend the gala to mingle, eat terrific food, show off their most expensive jewelry…and, of course, donate to a very worthy cause.

  Being that the event was so well attended by Boston’s most famous citizens, the event’s security was always top-notch. This night, however, many of the partygoers had noticed something strange about the many security guards stationed throughout the ballroom. Many of them seemed nervous. Jumpy. As if they were waiting for something. They didn’t, many people at the gala thought to themselves, seem to be acting like security guards at all.

  That’s because they weren’t.

  BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! The three gunshots rang out, loud and sudden in the ballroom, causing the music to stop and many of the partygoers to shriek and drop their drinks and appetizer plates.

  “Everybody be cool!” one of the security guards shouted, holding his pistol in the air, which was still smoking from the three warning shots that had just caused the party to come to a screeching halt. “This is a robbery! Everyone listens to us, and nobody gets hurt!”

  With that bone-chilling threat, every other security guard on the top floor of the Bellemont hotel also fired their guns into the air. The partygoers screamed and dropped to the floor, trembling and crying. As the security guards began locking the doors to the main ballroom, it became very clear what had hap
pened: at some point, the real security guards for the party had been replaced—by armed, dangerous, vicious thieves.

  “Put all your money and jewelry into these bags,” the leader of the thieves shouted, as he began throwing small, tan bags to the partygoers on the ground. Several of his partners were also throwing empty bags to the trembling partygoers, while also barking orders and making it very clear they were to be listened to. “Don’t forget a dime, and don’t say a damn word!” the leader continued. “The first person who talks gets a bullet in their head, and so does the person next to them! We are not joking around here, people! You will die! There will be blood!”

  Suddenly a window shattered. The thieves and the partygoers looked up.

  He was here.

  Through the broken glass ceiling of the Bellemont hotel, a masked figure dressed in blue jumped down from the night sky and into the ballroom, surrounded by shards of broken glass. A dark, tattered cape was billowing around him as he gripped it with both hands, and a bo-staff was on his back. As his feet hit the floor, the figure in dark blue looked up at the thieves and partygoers, and the eyes above his mask sparked and flashed with white electricity. To the partygoers, he looked like an avenging hero. To the thieves, he looked like an angel of death.

  Strike—the masked, electricity-wielding, crime-fighting vigilante (who was also secretly Tobin Lloyd, an eighteen-year-old high school senior from Bridgton, Massachusetts)—stood up straight, stomped across the broken glass, and headed for the leader of the thieves. The rest of the thieves were so frightened they didn’t even fire their guns or try to run away—even when Strike grabbed their leader by his shirt collar and smashed him against a wall.

  “You’re right,” Strike said, holding the thief a foot into the air, “there will be blood.” The hero leaned in close, only inches from the thief’s face. “Yours.”

  Then there was the sound of an elevator bell, dinging to announce somebody’s arrival. Every person at the fundraiser—the partygoers, the thieves, even Strike—turned to see who was coming through the elevator at the far end of the room. When the elevator door opened, everyone watched as a six-and-a-half foot tall, blue-and-white Siberian husky walked out of it and into the party. He was wearing a cowboy hat and a brown leather jacket, and also holding a very large grenade launcher over his shoulder. Many of the people at the party had heard rumors of the dog-man that had been fighting crime alongside Strike for the past few months, but nobody had ever seen him this close. He was even stranger looking than the newspapers had described.

  “Seriously,” Keplar Costello said. “Don’t you ever just use the door? You and the broken windows.”

  Strike relaxed his grip on the leader of the thieves and let him drop to the floor. “I don’t know,” the hero said. “It’s my thing, ya know? I like the broken glass entrance.”

  Keplar walked towards the center of the ballroom, loading green canisters into his plasma cannon. “Yeah, I can tell. And you know what else it is? Really mean to whoever owns the window.”

  “You think so?” Strike said.

  “Yeah. You know how much it must cost to replace a window that big? Plus it’s getting really old. No one’s even surprised by it anymore.”

  “How can you not be surprised?” Strike asked. “Who said that? How can you not be surprised when somebody crashes through a window and—”

  “Um, hello?”

  Strike and Keplar looked down. One of the fund-raising partygoers—an older man with white hair—was cowering on the ground.

  “The thieves with the guns?” the white-haired man said. “You might wanna do something about them?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Strike replied. “Right.” The hero looked to Keplar. “You wanna?”

  Keplar fired his plasma cannon across the room, nailing one of the thieves with a green, explosive blast that sent the thief crashing through a door and into the outside hallway.

  “Yeah,” the dog replied. “Why not.”

  The fight began, and the room turned into a warzone: as Strike and Keplar began taking out the thieves one-by-one, bullets were whizzing around the ballroom and the partygoers were taking cover every which way they could, with many of them escaping through the open door or into the elevator. In the middle of the awkward, violent chaos, Strike was as calm, cool, and swift as the world’s greatest acrobat; as he flipped and cart-wheeled around the room, he was dodging the thieves’ bullets and fists, while also taking them out with his glowing, electrified, blue bo-staff. In the seven months since Tobin Lloyd had become Strike, his fighting skills and agility had advanced well beyond any human comprehension; he often simply looked like a spinning, kicking, punching, staff-swinging ball of electricity. The would-be thieves of the Bellemont hotel were barely able to comprehend what was hitting them.

  “So let me get this straight,” Strike began, as he spun in a blue flash and kicked one of the thieves directly in the stomach. “For the past seven months, a legit, real-life superhero has been stalking the streets of Boston and literally kicking the snot out of the city’s criminals, and you guys decide to rob one of the most well-known events of the year? I’m guessing you guys didn’t do too well in school, did you? I’m gonna say…fifth grade? You didn’t make it past fifth grade? I know, believe me—long division is a nightmare. Am I right?”

  Whereas Strike was fast and agile in his attacks against the criminals, across the room, Keplar’s fighting style was different: the husky was strong, deliberate, and downright brutal. He had been fighting crime much longer than Tobin, after all, and was so skilled in the use of his plasma cannon that taking out these thieves was a game for him.

  “Oops, sorry about that,” Keplar said, as yet another thief was sent flying from a green explosive blast from his gun. The husky had noticed a group of partygoers trying to escape through a locked door, so he was quickly making his way over to them. “Hey there, look out,” he said with a laugh, as he used his giant, furry, blue paw to cold-cock one of the thieves across the chin. Finally reaching the partygoers, Keplar used his plasma cannon to blast the door open. “There you go, everyone,” he said, as the partygoers ran to safety. As they escaped, many of them were glancing back in shock at the dog that was saving them from the criminals. “No, folks, do not believe the Internet—this is not a costume. C’mon, now, you know how insulting that is? Go ahead, get a good look. But don’t stare too long—we’re trying to keep you alive here, after all. Don’t worry—I’ll be available for pictures and autographs later.”

  As Strike watched the partygoers run out the door, something caught his eye; one of the thieves was dashing behind the hotel bar. After disappearing out of view, the thug stood up again and pointed his handgun at Keplar.

  “Keplar!” Strike shouted. “Look out!”

  Keplar dove out of the way right as a series of bullets whizzed by his tail. The gun-wielding thief behind the bar laughed, thinking he had his target cornered…until he tried to fire his weapon again: CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! The gun was out of bullets.

  The thief looked at his useless gun, then turned his eyes to Keplar. The husky stood up, grinning wildly, and pointed his plasma cannon at the thief. But when he pulled his own trigger: CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!

  Keplar looked at his plasma cannon. “Well, what do you know? I’m out of ammo, too.”

  The thief let out a sigh and let his shoulders relax. Keplar laughed.

  “Now that’s funny, huh?” the dog said. “You gotta admit, that’s pretty funny.”

  The thief nodded and chuckled, relieved.

  “Why don’t we just call it even?” Keplar said. “It’s only fair, right? It’s a draw.”

  The thief shrugged and smiled.

  However, Keplar quickly pulled one of the laser blasters from the holster on his waist and blasted the thief. Instantly, the thief was thrown against the wall in a green f
lash, before dropping and disappearing behind the bar.

  Keplar blew the smoke away from the barrel of his laser blaster and put it back in its holster. “A draw,” he said, shaking his head. “What do you think this is, soccer?”

  At the other end of the ballroom, Strike was engaged in a brawl with the last two robbers. When he elbowed one of them across the jaw, the robber’s fake mustache went flying across the room.

  “Oh my god, you guys wore fake mustaches?” Strike laughed. “That is so awesome. What, were you gonna try and blame this on a group of baseball players from the 1980’s? C’mon, if you’re gonna attempt a huge robbery, at least have some fun. You could even do a themed thing next time, like pirates or something. How cool would that be?”

  Strike swung his glowing bo-staff around his body and knocked out the two robbers.

  “Bank-robbing pirates. You guys gotta start thinking of this stuff.”

  As soon as Strike was finished with the last of the criminals, he heard police sirens blare outside. Looking out a window, he saw a half-dozen squad cars pull up outside the hotel.

  “Uh-oh,” he told Keplar. “Time to go.”

  “I’ll head out the back and meet you out front.”

  “Got it.”

  With a flash of blue electricity erupting from his boots, Strike shot up into the air and through the broken ceiling window, returning to the night sky.

  Down an alley not far from the Bellemont hotel, Keplar (wearing a helmet to cover his face and a pair of gloves to cover his paws) pulled a blue tarp off of his motorcycle and hopped on. When he reached the sidewalk, Tobin was there to meet him, already out of his Strike costume.