Era of the ULTRAs (The Last Hero Book 5)

by Matt Blake

  Of all the tasks I had to do before fully committing myself to taking down Catalyst and retrieving the Failsafe, you wouldn’t believe what I found one of the most difficult tasks in my life so far.

  San Francisco looked good in fall. Orange leaves coated the hilly streets. I could hear the sounds of horns honking gently, not with the same ferocity and impatience as they did back in New York. The Golden Gate Bridge always looked spectacular as it soared over the Golden Gate Strait. Granted, there had been a little repair work needed after the showdown with Saint. There were few places in the world that hadn’t been touched by that battle in some way.

  But it didn’t matter. San Francisco still looked stunning. It was rebuilding. Getting itself back to full strength, as was everywhere else.

  I hovered to the right, past a few more ULTRAs I saw playing in the street. It was strange seeing ULTRAs just going about their lives and people accepting them. For so long, being an ULTRA had been such a secret thing. A thing to be paranoid about. But now it was much more normal. More mainstream, after Adam re-distributed powers.

  The irony being that the most famous ULTRA of all—yours truly—was still keeping his identity under wraps for the most part.

  Until now.

  I floated down by the apartments right near San Francisco University. I’d found out where Ellicia was living now. She hadn’t moved in long ago, but she’d left her details and told me to get in touch when I was ready.

  Well I was ready now. I was here and I was ready.

  But I wasn’t going to tell her what she wanted to hear. Not exactly.

  I was going to tell her the truth. The whole truth. About who I was. Who I still was.

  And what I had to do.

  I landed by the entrance to her apartment block and pulled my hood up. As much as I accepted who I was going to be—Glacies—this visit was personal, and I didn’t want to get hounded right now. I walked up to it, and realized there was a student ID required. I scratched the back of my neck. Typical. I wanted to come here, and I wanted things to go as smoothly as possible, and already obstacles were mounting up in my way.

  I saw a girl walking between the apartments.

  “Scuse me?” I called.

  She looked around and smiled.

  I pointed at the card reader. “Lost my keycard. Can’t get in. You mind giving me a hand?”

  She walked up to the glass, smiling.

  Then she shook her head.

  “It’s girls only in here,” she said. “Nice try, creep.”

  She turned and walked away, leaving me a little embarrassed.

  I sighed, trying to battle my blushing cheeks. I’d have to use my abilities to get inside. But that’d just make me look even more of a creep if this girl saw me again. I had to watch my step.

  I held my breath and walked right through the glass.

  Then I made myself disappear and crept up the stairs toward Ellicia’s apartment. Apartment 8.

  When I was outside, I saw the girl who’d called me a creep at the door walking inside. I sneaked in, quickly, remaining invisible. So this girl lived with Ellicia. Interesting. Oh well. It was weird she hadn’t recognized me. It was rare for me to not be recognized these days. I kind of liked that she hadn’t, though. But at the same time, I was kind of pissed that if I hadn’t been recognized, I’d just be regarded as a creep. Yeah, that wasn’t so good at all.

  I headed down the corridor and looked in each and every room, feeling particularly creepy at seeing girls inside each of them. I started to get nervous that maybe I’d ended up in the wrong apartment when I turned and saw the dark-haired girl who’d stopped me at the door standing right opposite me, and looking right at me.

  “Nice try with the invisibility, Glacies,” she said. “I can see right through you.”

  “If you could see right through me then—then that’d mean the invisibility’s working.”

  She paused, clearly taken aback by my nervous outburst. “Well. Not technically. The opposite to that. Whatever. Doesn’t have the same ring to it. But anyway. I suggest you get the hell outta here.”

  I debated keeping my invisibility active just in case she was calling my bluff in some way.

  But in the end, I dropped it and realized right then that someone in America now knew I had my powers for sure.

  “Didn’t think you had your powers anymore,” the girl said, smiling smugly. “Anything else you’ve lied to Ellicia about?”

  “Look,” I said, my cheeks blushing again. “I just want to see her.”

  “Well, you had your chance to see her. That chance has gone now. So I suggest you turn around and—”

  “Kyle?”

  I heard her voice and immediately felt every inch of stress in my body melting away.

  I turned and saw her standing by the kitchen area. She looked into my eyes and I looked into hers, and it felt like we were meeting for the first time all over again. Connecting like we’d never connected before. Like it was all so fresh but all so familiar at the same time.

  “It’s okay, Ellicia,” the girl said. “I’ve told him to leave.”

  “Ellicia, I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t listen to—”

  “Kerry, just give us a second. Okay?”

  The girl—Kerry—looked taken aback by Ellicia’s frankness. She shook her head and walked away. “Your funeral.”

  We both waited until Kerry’s footsteps had disappeared before we started talking.

  “Ellicia, I—”

  “Kyle, I didn’t mean to—”

  “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “You still have your abilities?”

  “I still have my… wait. How did you—”

  “It was obvious, Kyle.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, maybe not to everyone. But I know you. I know when you’re acting differently. I know when you’re hiding things.”

  I lowered my head and looked at the floor. “I guess you do. But why didn’t you confront me if you knew?”

  Ellicia’s eyes broke contact with mine. “Because… because I wanted to believe you were doing the right thing, too. I wanted things to work out for you. I wanted you to find some kind of normality, even if it meant living a lie.”

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I’m sorry you felt you had to keep it a secret from me.”

  “Well, it’s out now. And here we are. Both on different paths, but together. Right?”

  She smiled at me, and I smiled back. And for a moment, I thought about just joining Ellicia in this life. Turning my back on the Resistance, on pursuing Catalyst, on seeking out the Failsafe.

  But I knew that wasn’t an option. It was just pulling the wool over my eyes a little longer.

  “There’s something I have to do,” I said, walking up to Ellicia and taking her hands in mine. “Somewhere… somewhere dangerous I have to go. And this time I… I’m not sure I’ll make it out alive.”

  Ellicia leaned in and kissed my lips and in that moment I really believed this moment would last forever.

  Then she pulled away, rested her forehead on mine, looked up into my eyes. “You will come back. Because you always do. And when you do, the world will be a better place again.”

  I stood in the corridor with Ellicia, holding her, resting my head against hers, for what felt like forever.

  “Now go on,” she said, backing away. “There’s people waiting for you.”

  She walked back to one of the other rooms inside the apartment. And I couldn’t help feeling proud of her. So proud. She’d done so well to make it this far. She’d succeeded so much to make it to college. “You’re going to do amazing here,” I said.

  “I’ll need your help,” she said, flickering a smile my way. “Especially if I’m gonna get top grades.”

  I smiled back. But this time I had to wipe my eyes. Because it felt like we were pretending. When in all truth, both of us knew things were never going to be the same again, if I ever did
make it out of my battle with Catalyst, which I was doubting more by the second.

  “Go do what you have to do,” Ellicia said.

  “And you too.”

  I watched her walk into her friend’s room.

  “I love y…”

  I didn’t get to finish what I was saying.

  Ellicia was already gone.

  I teleported myself back outside her apartment and drifted into the air, high above, hovering right over San Francisco Bay.

  I looked across the bay at the warm, bright sun and I thought of Ellicia.

  “You going to be moping here all day, or…”

  I jumped, almost falling out of the sky.

  When I turned my head, I saw Roadrunner looking right at me, smile on her face.

  “When did…”

  “Doesn’t matter when. What matters is why.”

  She handed me a phone, which had a map on it, and a red dot.

  “What is this?”

  “Let’s just say I’ve picked up a few new tricks in my time away. And let’s just say I’ve gone on a little journey while you’ve been saying bye-bye to your girl.”

  I frowned at the phone, at the map. “I still don’t get what I’m looking at.”

  She pointed at the dot and tapped on it with a long, painted fingernail. “This, my friend, is Catalyst’s location.”

  I looked into her eyes, adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream. “How do you…”

  “Again, that’s irrelevant. But we’re going to have to act fast if we want to get to him. This place is the Source. It’s where he activates the Failsafe and, well. Relieves us of our duties. He won’t stick around forever. So are you ready?”

  I looked down at SFU. At Ellicia’s apartment. I imagined the life she’d be going ahead to live. The fun she’d be having.

  But all that seemed so alien to me.

  Because it was.

  I clutched my fists and felt ice cover my body.

  I looked at Roadrunner, and I nodded.

  “Ready,” I said.

  “Good,” she said, smiling. “Then let’s go finish this.”

  36

  “Seriously, man. What is it with you and volcanoes?”

  The Resistance and I flew toward Mount Vesuvius in Italy. It was night, and a cold night at that. Specks of rain lashed down on us the closer we got to this volcano, which Roadrunner had tracked Catalyst too using… well. I wasn’t totally sure what she was using. Just that she was certain that volcano was where he’d headed, and also she’d seemed to have changed quite a lot since we’d last met. I expected her to be furious about how things had gone down. How I’d been forced to leave her in Adam’s company, totally weak and powerless.

  But she was back, and she was different. And for all her secrets, she seemed determined to help.

  I saw the mountains approaching in the distance and I felt sick to my gut. We were getting close to the volcano, no doubt about that. I wasn’t sure why I was so nervous. I was still strong. I was still Glacies, after all. I had no reason to worry or panic. I was strong, even if I’d tried to convince myself otherwise for so long now.

  But something was niggling at me. Something was telling me that this was a bad decision. That there was just something so… off about all this.

  Still, I didn’t have any choice but to progress. And it seemed like Stone, Vortex, Roadrunner, Cassie and Damon were all sticking by my side too.

  Because Vesuvius had to be the Source.

  The Source where the Failsafe could be activated.

  “You know, I could kinda get used to this whole hero thing.”

  I turned to Damon, slightly bemused. “Say that again when you’ve been involved in a massive battle.”

  Damon grinned. “Oh I will. I mean, it’s gotta beat normal life, right? Reality and all that. Boring reality.”

  “You shouldn’t take normality for granted.”

  “Hell, I just love this. I love that I’m stronger than I thought I was. I love that I can do things I never imagined I’d be able to in my wildest dreams.” He shot a burst of electricity into the sky, the beaming grin on his face as he got to grips with flying infectious.

  “Yeah, well,” I said. “You just be careful. Watch yourself. Y’know?”

  “Oh, I will. I’ll…”

  I saw the flash of light in the corner of my eye in slow motion.

  A burst of energy coming toward us.

  No, wait.

  Not just a burst of energy.

  A pile of rocks.

  “Watch out!”

  I charged in front of the Resistance and froze the rocks in midair. Wherever they were coming from, I knew for a fact that someone had thrown them at us. And process of elimination made it pretty obvious who exactly had thrown them.

  Some of the rocks slipped through. I watched Stone smash them with his fists, Roadrunner zooming around and swatting the smaller pieces of debris away so they didn’t pierce anyone’s skin.

  Best of all, I saw my best friend and my sister side by side, firing the smaller pieces of rock away.

  “On your right, Glacies!”

  I turned around and saw a huge mass of rock just inches from snapping my head from my neck.

  I lifted my hands and I stopped it. I stopped it, right there in midair.

  I used all my strength to hold it back, biting down on my bottom lip, tasting blood.

  “Do you need a hand?”

  I ignored Stone’s voice.

  I opened up a wormhole right behind the mass of rock.

  And I sent it right into that wormhole.

  I’d opened the other end of the wormhole up right inside the volcano where Catalyst was. Hopefully he enjoyed that gift.

  The moment I threw the rock through the wormhole, I saw explosions to our left.

  “Shit,” Stone said. “Damn good job we didn’t just go teleporting in there.”

  Stone had a point. I had a feeling Catalyst wouldn’t just leave the Source open to teleportation. There’d be some kind of booby trap. Something rigged right at where I’d exit the wormhole.

  “Looks like we’re taking the good ol’fashioned way,” Cassie said.

  I faced the volcano where the explosions had just eased and so too did everyone else. “Looks like that’s the case.”

  I surged toward the volcano. We couldn’t mess around anymore. Sure, there might be other distractions. There might be other traps. But it was the choice between a little recklessness that might kill us, or a lack of recklessness that would definitely kill us.

  I knew which option I wanted to take.

  I hurtled toward the opening of the volcano. There couldn’t be long left. If Catalyst was here at the Source, then that meant he wasn’t afraid to activate the Failsafe, even if it killed him in the process.

  I got closer to the mouth of the volcano, then I saw something rising up out of it.

  “Is… is that what I think it is?” Damon asked.

  “It depends what you think it is,” Stone said. “But to me, it looks a hell of a lot like lava.”

  A mass of lava rose out of the top of the volcano. It moved toward us, slowly. I had no doubts about dealing with it if I had enough time. I just wasn’t sure I had enough time.

  “Um, Kyle?” Damon said. “You actually gonna do something here, or…”

  I looked beyond the lava and I saw Catalyst standing down at the pit of the volcano, the Failsafe in his hand.

  I knew he’d seen me too, even though he was miles away.

  I sensed a smile flick across his face. I thought I heard him speak, as if it was from within me.

  Then the next thing I knew, the lava was inches from my body.

  I rose my hands into the air. Dragged a thick wall of ice out in front of myself, in front of the Resistance. It melted right upon contact with the lava. So I fired even thicker ice. Even thicker and thicker, trying to contain it all.

  But it wasn’t holding. It was still melting. I couldn’t cover the enti
re lava wave.

  “How comfortable are you guys with being icy?” I asked.

  No response.

  “Guys? How…”

  When I looked back, something made my skin crawl.

  The Resistance was gone.

  Every single one of them.

  I turned back to the lava wave and saw a huge gap in the middle of it, leading right down toward Catalyst.

  “What the hell have you done with them?”

  I covered myself in ice and threw myself through that lava hole. I felt myself getting hotter, burning up, but just kept on laying layer after layer of ice around myself, until eventually I was through the lava wave, and I was inside that volcano, Catalyst underneath me.

  “I said, what the hell have you—”

  Catalyst opened up the Failsafe. That bright light peeked out of its sides. “I’d be careful before making your next move. Wouldn’t want to risk anything reckless. Anything that might put anyone you care about at risk.”

  I became aware then of shouting. And when I looked around, I saw that the Resistance—my friends, my family—were all dangling in midair. As was the mass of lava, right above the volcano.

  “One wrong move, I let it drop. Everything.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Try me,” Catalyst said. His hood was down completely. I could see his bald face, empty of eyes. I wanted to know what had happened to him. How he’d reached this state. Part of me pitied him.

  But mostly I just wanted to kick his ass.

  “This can end, right here. You can hand me the Failsafe and we can let it go. All of it.”

  Catalyst studied my face for a second. He couldn’t see me, not visually. But I got the sense he was looking right at me in other ways.

  “Catalyst. This can end. You don’t have to kill all our kind just to prove whatever point you’re trying to prove. Just… just let go.”

  Catalyst was silent for a few more seconds.

  Then he started laughing.

  His laughing gave me the creeps. Especially with the light coming from the Failsafe in his hand, the lava he was holding above, and my friends, trapped underneath it.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You don’t understand, do you?” he asked. “You really don’t understand.”

  “Don’t understand what?”