by Charlie Wood
The screens then showed what was happening outside: as a police officer tried to escape from the invaders, he was firing his handgun at them. After he was shot by a green laser, though, he dropped to the ground and froze. Two Eradicators lifted him and brought him into a building.
“You cannot prevent this,” Vincent said, “so please do not force me to take actions that I do not wish to take. This is a transition—from one era to another—and I only wish to make this new era safer, more educated, and more humane. Your leaders were given their chance to guide this world; for eons, you have been left alone to grow and evolve, but the people in charge have failed you and sent you on the wrong path. I only wish to reverse this while there is still time, and show you the true way you should have been living all these years.
“This is all a part of what we are here to help you with: starting over. Together, we will create a world the likes of which this universe has never seen. This is what has to be done, and I am willing to work with those who accept it.
“It begins here, in this town, and will then move on to all others, in every part of the Earth. Thank you, and long live our new world.”
The TV screens, computers, and cell phones were then turned off. The people of Middle Street were left to wait and hide, until the robots came to their doors to group them with the others. It was now time to wait for their turn.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IN THE MUSEUM OF THE Heroes, Tobin was sleeping in a bed. His wounds were partly healed, but he was still covered in bruises, and parts of his costume were showing tears and gouges. Next to him, Orion was sitting in a chair, with his elbows on his knees and his hands against his mouth.
Finally, after nearly four hours, Tobin woke up. Orion ripped the covers off of him.
“Get up,” the old man said.
Tobin looked around the room. “What?” He found that his throat was raw and his head was pounding. The world seemed to be awash in smoke. “What’s going on, what happened?”
“Get up,” the old man said again, pointing to the floor.
Tobin stood up, unable to remember what had happened and unsettled by Orion’s anger. His legs were shaking and he felt like he was going to vomit.
“Put your mask on,” the old man said.
Tobin grabbed his mask from a table. “Why? What’s happening?”
Orion pointed to a monitor; Tobin could see Middle Street covered in fire and darkness: overturned cars, robots marching through town, demons ripping apart everything that they saw. And the people. The screaming, horrified people.
“Oh my god…” The boy fell forward, catching himself. “No,” he said. “No…”
Orion stared at him. “Put your mask on.”
Tobin tied the piece of cloth around his face. His eyes never left the screen.
“Vincent made his move a little past ten o’clock this morning,” Orion began. “The first part of his invasion was to create a toxic, poisonous cloud that formed in the sky and then drifted downward, creating a dome around Middle Street that is now blocking it off from the rest of the world. This dome is called the Dark Nebula, and Vincent has been waiting to use it for decades. He wasn’t planning on calling on it for another month or so, but when he learned that you could travel back to Earth, and he saw how ill-prepared you are…the destruction began.”
“This isn’t happening,” Tobin said. “We can stop this, right? This hasn’t happened, we can—”
Orion pointed at him. “Do not speak. Listen to me. Do not say a word.”
Tobin nodded, swallowing a lump in his throat and fighting back tears. He could not believe what he had done.
“No one outside the Dark Nebula has any idea what is going on inside of it,” Orion said. “It is better that way. Behind its walls, people are screaming, crying, and begging for their lives. They are being captured, separated from their families, and put into groups. Whole buildings are gone, with nothing in their place but smoking, burning shells. Nothing can be heard except gunshots, explosions, and screams.
“But the rest of the world doesn’t know this. They are simply at home watching the outside of the dome on their televisions—billions of them around the globe—watching as medical and emergency teams try to get through the poisonous cloud that fell from the sky in Massachusetts. The rest of the planet is frightened, looking out their windows to see if another death cloud is going to come down and surround their town, too. And soon, one will. All over the planet, people are thinking that today is the End of the World. And they are right.”
Orion looked at Tobin.
“Vincent is waiting for you, Tobin. He’s taunting us. He’s gloating and he thinks he has already won. He hasn’t.”
The old man took Tobin’s bo-staff from the table.
“You screwed up, Tobin. More than any of us will ever be able to comprehend. Now all you can do is try and fix it. With everything that you possess. That’s all we have left now.”
The words rang through Tobin’s ears.
“It’s your time,” Orion said. “You aren’t ready, but you have to be.”
Tobin took the bo-staff, but Orion didn’t let go of it. The two of them held it together.
“I’m sorry, Orion. I don’t know what I—”
“Go,” Orion said. “Just go now.”
Tobin stepped away. He watched as Orion handed him a portal pistol—it wasn’t the red one Tobin had stolen earlier, but instead was one made from blue chrome.
Tobin squeezed the pistol’s trigger, and it created a blue-and-white portal in front of him. As he stepped forward, he glanced at Orion, moved into the portal, and disappeared. When he was gone, the gateway closed.
Orion stood in the middle of the room. He listened to the static remnants of the portal, and the little pops of energy it had left behind. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and covered his face with his hands.
Chaos reigned on Middle Street: smoke was rising from buildings, billowing up and swirling against the domed roof of the Dark Nebula; fires were roaring atop overturned cars, with their alarms pathetically repeating themselves over and over; Eradicators were marching rows of prisoners through the town and toward the giant skyscraper, which had settled itself directly in the middle of the street. The fear seemed to be emanating from this building, and from the man dressed in black standing in front of it.
Among the dark sky, a blue-and-white circle formed. It grew in brightness until it flashed with thunder and Tobin appeared. He floated down to Earth, but to the people watching, they did not see a seventeen-year-old boy who lived only minutes away. They saw Strike.
Strike walked towards the skyscraper, oblivious to the horrors around him. A Gore was crouching on the sidewalk, demolishing a car, when it looked up and saw him. Enraged, it ran at the hero, with its claws raised.
Strike waited. He pulled his bo-staff from his back. When the Gore was only a few yards away, it pounced, and Strike swung his weapon.
CRACK! In a blue flash, the Gore was sent flying, screeching across the street. When it hit the road, it tumbled and burst into a pop of smoke. Nothing was left of it but an empty cloak.
Strike marched on.
It wasn’t long until three Eradicators stepped in front of him. As they readied their laser blasters, Strike held his staff by his side and charged it with lightning. The staff swirled with blue energy.
When the Eradicators moved to fire their lasers, the hero hurled his weapon. It tumbled like a boomerang, slicing through the air and curving toward the robots, before cutting through them as if they were not there. As the weapon made its way back to Strike, the robots fell, crumpled in a pile of armor.
Strike plucked his returning bo-staff from the air and continued.
Behind the hero, a Gore stepped out from behind a tree, following Strike down Middle Street. Tracking its prey like a hunched, vicious jackal, it bided its time, until finally jumping at Strike’s back. But the hero simply stopped, pointed his bo-staff behind his head, and fired a lightning
bolt. The Gore dropped, its cloak smoking and sizzling on the ground.
Strike only had a few more steps before he reached the skyscraper.
Vincent was there, leaning on the handle of a massive, black axe. The blade of the axe was digging into the ground.
Strike realized this was it: either he would accomplish what he came to do, or he would die. As he gripped his bo-staff, he tried to push away the suffocating feeling that his life may be coming to an end.
Vincent breathed in through his nose. “You seem like a smart kid, Tobin,” he said. “You probably understand why I’m dong this. I’m in charge of a large number of people, and these people depend on me to protect them and keep them safe from others who would do them harm. Since that’s the case, I simply could not sit by and do nothing while your species continued on its path toward the destruction of the universe.
“Because sooner or later, Tobin, someone from your world would have discovered our world, and when that happened, we would have been destroyed. That’s what your people do when you find something new—you get excited and frightened, and you take whatever it is that you found and you destroy it. Like animals. I could not allow my people to live among the danger of loose, wild animals.
“This is for protection, Tobin. That’s all. I’m protecting myself and billions of others from a species that can’t even live with each other without killing the very planet they live on. Orion and all the others would do the same, if they could see things the way that I see them. Because, Orion and I, we really aren’t that different, when it all comes down to it.”
Vincent watched Strike. The boy didn’t move.
“Did Orion tell you what I used to be before I became one of the leaders of Capricious? I was thinking about that recently, and I realized he probably didn’t. He has a way of retelling history, you know—of leaving out the parts that he doesn’t like. Especially…he especially does this when he talks about that old superhero team of his, the Guardians. From everything that I’ve read, and from what people tell me, he always says that there were three members of that team. But, if he was telling the truth, Tobin, he would admit that there were four heroes involved in all those adventures all those years ago: there was Titan, there was your dad, there was Orion…and there was me.”
Strike stepped back. Vincent smiled.
“Huh. He didn’t tell you. Well, that’s okay. You know, I bet he went through that whole thing: ‘I knew your father so well, he was my best friend, I only want you to do what he would have wanted.’ Well, guess what, Tobin: I knew your father pretty well, too. He was one of my best friends, too. And this is not what he would have wanted. He was much more interested in chasing girls and cracking terrible jokes than he ever was in ‘saving the world.’ So if you’re doing this because it’s what your dad would have wanted, you can stop right now.
“Your dad wasn’t some big, great, grand superhero, Tobin. To tell you the truth, he was kind of a scumbag.”
Strike looked at his surroundings: hundreds of Gores and Eradicators were gathered around them, watching the confrontation. A few remaining humans had even come out of their hiding places to inspect the two strange, costumed people.
“You know we even had a truck?” Vincent laughed. “It’s true: four super-powered, color-coded teenagers, driving around in a truck and fighting crime—making sure people were safe. So, you see, Tobin, Orion might tell you that I’ve changed, but that simply isn’t true. I’m still protecting people—I’m just doing it on a scale so immense that Orion and the others can’t comprehend it. And it’s what I’m doing right now.”
Vincent stepped forward, only a few feet away from Strike. The boy tried to hide his nerves, but, without realizing it, backed away.
“I know why you’re doing this,” Vincent said. “I can see Orion has gotten to you, and that you can’t see the world as it is. So, okay.”
He tossed his axe to the ground and extended his hands, palms in the air.
“C’mon, Tobin. Take your best shot. A freebie.”
Strike thought it over—was this a trick? Even if it was, it was too much of an opportunity to pass up. He was being underestimated, and he needed to take advantage of it.
Strike ran at Vincent, lighting his bo-staff. But, instead of swinging at him, he leapt, flipped, and landed on the ground behind him. When his boots hit the street, he slashed his staff down Vincent’s spine.
“Argh,” Vincent grunted. He reached back, rubbing the ripped fabric of his uniform. Thunder rumbled. “Not bad, kid. But did you really think, for even a second, that one week of superhero kindergarten was going to be enough?”
Vincent looked up, and his eyes flashed with black fire. His body began to grow, stretching out from a little over six feet tall to nearly eight feet tall. Muscles ripped through his clothes, and his face and arms sprouted green fur. His hands morphed into clawed paws, while his mouth and nose swelled into a broad, protruding jaw. Finally, as he stared at Strike, his hair grew long and black.
“I wanted you to hurt me,” he said. His voice was low, grumbling—inhuman. “I wanted to feel the power of the Guardians, to make sure that what flowed through Matt and Orion and Scott and I, now flows through you. I needed to know, without a doubt, that you are one of us.”
Vincent’s transformation was complete: he was now the Rantamede, an eight-foot-tall, green-and-black monster, with the fangs of a tiger and the body of a mythological beast.
“It feels good,” he said with a smile.
Leaning down, the monster let out a mighty ROAR! Stunned by the sound, Strike stepped back. He braced himself as Vincent ran at him, but the monster sent the hero flying with a brutal punch. Strike crashed against a building and slid down it, falling to the street with the wind knocked out of him.
When Vincent opened his paw, black fire formed in the middle of it. “You came here to play the superhero going up against the bad guy, Tobin. But it’s not like that. It never is.”
Vincent hurled the fire at Strike, and it exploded against the boy and strangled him, running over his body. Strike screamed, trying to free himself from the black flames.
“You’re too young, kid,” Vincent said, watching the boy struggle. “You need more time.”
Vincent turned to the crowd around Middle Street and addressed them.
“People of this world! We can work together to bring this place the peace that it deserves! You have been wronged by the people that say they lead you—they have been lying to you, telling you the universe works in ways that it does not! My people and I can show you the true way to live, and we can—”
Vincent stopped. An Eradicator was staring behind him, over his shoulder.
“What is it, what’re you looking at?”
Strike was standing there, holding his bo-staff.
“Hmm,” Vincent said. “Maybe you’re not as out of your league as I—”
Strike pointed his bo-staff at Vincent, firing a lightning bolt from only a few yards away. The monster was sent backward by the blast, crashing into a pickup truck and causing it to burst into flames. As Vincent struggled to claw his way out, he roared among the wreckage.
Strike ran at Vincent, charging up a lightning bolt. He knew this was his only shot.
But then…Strike was lifted into the air. Looking up, he saw the person holding him.
It was Rigel; the red-skinned giant had grabbed Strike by his cape. As the giant held the boy higher, he moved his hand to Strike’s neck and squeezed. The boy clawed at Rigel’s fingers, but the giant only closed his hand tighter, staring into the boy’s eyes.
Vincent finally crawled out of the truck and walked to Rigel. He looked at Strike.
“Break him,” he said simply.
Rigel punched Strike in the stomach. Once, twice, three times. Then, after lifting him higher, he slammed him down, whipping his body against the pavement like a wet towel against a linoleum floor. Finally, not out of mercy but out of boredom, he tossed the boy away and the boy skittered acros
s the street.
Strike pulled himself up, taking hold of a lamppost, but Rigel walked over and kicked him back down. The boy tried to rise again, but Rigel simply knocked him over with his foot. This time, Strike rolled over and looked up.
Rigel was looming over him. As the giant gripped a massive club with both hands and raised it over his head, he readied it for one, final smash.
But then he stopped. His yellow eyes went wide. He let go of the club and it dropped behind him. Strike rolled out of the way.
Like a rotted, dead tree, Rigel fell forward, his face smashing against the pavement. As he lay there, unmoving, his arms were at his sides.
Strike sat up and looked to Rigel’s back; a glowing red arrow was sticking out of his spine.
Vincent saw the arrow, too. He looked in the direction of the shooter.
A man was standing on the rooftop of a nearby building, dressed in red and holding a bow and arrow. His long coat was billowing in the wind.
Vincent’s lips rose into a snarl. “You.”
Another red arrow zipped down from the building, hitting Vincent in his chest and exploding with a BOOM! It knocked the monster back, and he stumbled to the ground.
Strike looked to the man on the roof; he shot another arrow downward, and this one had a rope attached to it that stuck into a tree. The man then slid down the rope like a zip-line, and when his boots came to a stop, he walked to Strike and knelt down.
“Are you all right?” Orion asked.
“Hmm,” Tobin said. “No. No, I don’t think so.”
“All right. Stay there.”
Orion picked up Tobin’s staff and walked to Vincent. The bo-staff burst with red flames.
