The Last Hero (Book 1): Ultra

by Blake, Matt

  But it didn’t have to be that way.

  It really didn’t have to be that way.

  I let out the final air bubbles from my lungs. There wasn’t any air left inside me anymore. I could feel my brain crying out for me to open my mouth, to swallow the water, to inhale it all in. But I told myself I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t let the water in. My brain was tricking me. Breathe in and I died. Hold on for as long as possible…

  I saw the sunlight above getting brighter and it felt warm. My muscles weakened. I wanted to hold on, but I wanted to relax more. Relax here at the bottom of the sea, with the stillness, with the humming music.

  I wanted to drift away with the water.

  I felt like I’d been here before. Like I’d been submerged underwater when I was very young, a long time ago.

  Voices muffled.

  Someone standing over me.

  I wanted to close my eyes.

  I wanted to slip away.

  I wanted to…

  I saw my sister right in my mind. Clearer than I’d ever seen her before.

  I saw the explosion Saint set off when Orion hit him. I saw the blast, and then I heard my parents’ screams.

  They became the screams of everyone else. The screams of children like Walt, who just wanted to know where his dad was. The screams of parents, desperate to keep their children safe.

  The screams of innocent people.

  Of my friends.

  I couldn’t give up on them. I couldn’t just throw the towel in.

  As my vision blurred, as the strength slipped out of my body completely, I found one final ounce of strength inside me to tense my fists, squeeze my eyes together, grit my teeth together, embrace every bit of love and hate I’d ever felt inside me, as strong and as powerful as I possibly could.

  And then I…

  44

  Ellicia felt Nycto’s grip tighten around her neck even though he didn’t have his hands anywhere near her.

  She was in her living room. It was completely pitch black, the curtains pulled over. It was never usually this dark, so Nycto must’ve done something. He was called Nycto after all, which apparently meant “night.”

  She could hear talking on the streets. Police cars blaring sirens. Cries and whimpers. And she just wanted to scream. To cry out, beg someone to come in here and help her.

  But every time she tried, Nycto’s invisible grip just got stronger.

  She was trapped. She was alone.

  And she was going to die in here.

  “You know, things could’ve been different,” Nycto said. It was strange hearing him speak with that deep voice of his. He had his mask on again, taking the Daniel Septer away, turning him back into that stronger version of himself. Because Daniel Septer was always a weak kid who’d been bullied. Ellicia never really had anything against him. He was just a year younger, so she didn’t have much to do with him. She kind of felt sorry for him, in truth. Wanted to see him stand up for himself.

  But not like this. Not like this at all.

  “I gave him a choice,” Nycto said. “A choice between backing down, letting me get on with my work. Or… well. This.”

  Ellicia didn’t know what Daniel was talking about. She wanted to be able to ask, but she couldn’t even breathe. She could feel her legs starting to shake. Feel her lungs gasping for air. She knew it was almost over. She was ending here.

  But what was this all about?

  What was any of this about?

  He’d mentioned Kyle earlier. But what did Kyle have to do with anything? Maybe he’d upset Daniel although Ellicia didn’t think so. Kyle wasn’t the kind of guy who upset anyone. He’d been through crap himself, not exactly gonna start making another guy’s life a misery.

  “Oh. You don’t understand, do you? I mean, you really don’t know the truth?”

  Ellicia’s vision started to fade. She wanted to hold on. To hold on so she could hear what Nycto had to say. To hear what the “truth” Daniel spoke about was.

  “Our new friend. The one fighting me. You’ve seen him, right?”

  Ellicia’s mind drifted to the second ULTRA from today’s mayhem. The one who’d been fighting Nycto, who’d saved so many people. She felt calm when she thought of him. She’d heard so many good things. Maybe he’d be able to help people in the long run. Maybe he’d be able to fight Nycto. To stop him causing more hell.

  But her time was up.

  Her life was over.

  She was terrified. Sad. Angry.

  But her time was up, and she had to stay strong, just like Mom would’ve wanted her to. She wished she’d gone with her and Dad to Vermont. She’d have felt safer there.

  She wished she’d been able to go with Kyle. To take him with her.

  She hoped he was okay. Prayed that no matter what, he was okay.

  “Of course you’ve seen him,” Nycto said. “Gallivanting around New York and the rest of the world like it’s his playground.” He spat. “I gave him a choice. You have to understand that. I gave him a choice to either join me or back down. So don’t blame me for this. Blame him. He caused this.”

  In her drifting mind, she pictured the good ULTRA swooping in, saving her life.

  “He isn’t coming for you, Ellicia,” Nycto said like he was reading her thoughts. “He isn’t coming for anyone. No-one is. I’m sorry you won’t be around to enjoy the fireworks. But I’m going to create a beautiful world. A new world. A world where no one can stamp me down again. No-one.”

  Her vision blurred.

  Her head spun.

  “So say goodbye,” Nycto said. “Say goodnight. It won’t be long now. The darkness is coming. The darkness is—”

  Then, something happened.

  45

  I didn’t think anymore.

  I didn’t dwell on the past. I didn’t feel love. I didn’t feel anger.

  I didn’t feel anything.

  I just felt an urge. One overriding urge, dominating everything.

  Defeat Nycto.

  Finish him for what he’d done.

  I dragged myself out of the water. Flew right to New York. And even though I didn’t know where he was exactly, somehow, I did. It was like I had a honing device on Nycto, and I knew where he was, what he was doing. I could feel Ellicia’s fear. I could feel her struggling. And he wasn’t going to get away with this. I was going to make sure of that.

  I worried I was too late as I flew faster than I thought was possible through the sky, damp and drenched, towards Ellicia’s. I worried that I’d failed. That I’d let myself, everyone down, all over again.

  But that worry was soon covered up when I crashed through the front of Ellicia’s house.

  Slammed into Nycto’s side.

  Sent him hurtling out of the back of Ellicia’s house, miles and miles into the distance.

  I wanted to know Ellicia was okay. I wanted to know she’d made it. But I didn’t have time for that. Not right now.

  The important thing was, I had Nycto. I’d caught him off guard.

  I was crouching over him.

  He looked up at me as he lay there, broken on the grass. The bottom half of his silver mask had ripped away, and I could see Daniel Septer’ smile underneath. “You’re… you’re strong,” he said. “Stronger than I thought. But still not as strong as me.”

  He powered a punch into my gut and the pair of us hurtled into the sky.

  I punched back. Teleported around him, dodging every hit I could, and he did the same. We dodged planes. We dodged buildings. We even dodged missiles that the military fired up at us. It was like a dance. But this wasn’t just any old dance. It was a dance to the death. A dance that only one of us was getting out of.

  I slammed a fist into Nycto’s face. I felt his bone crunch, and I saw him wobble out of the way. I pounded into his chest, feeling it break upon contact as the pair of us fell from the sky, back towards the ground.

  “You’re wrong,” I shouted. “You aren’t stronger than me. You never will be
stronger than me.”

  I teleported us away from New York City, away to the only location I knew I could go.

  But Nycto grabbed me and teleported us back. I could see Staten Island approaching as we alternated our teleportation. I could see my house. My home, right near us. And then right below us.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Nycto said.

  He kicked me in the stomach and bounced down to Sherman Avenue, right in front of my house.

  His hands turned orange, flames simmering out of them. He looked up at me, half of his mask ripped away. I could see something on his chest. Something burning. Flames, similar to the light that burned from Saint’s chest when Orion powered into him.

  “Can you feel it?” Nycto shouted, his voice echoing into the sky. “Can you feel the power I feel?”

  I saw the ground shaking underneath Nycto. I saw litter, debris, all of it moving towards his hands, just like it moved towards Saint before The Great Blast. Inside the house, I saw Mom and Dad peeking through the curtains. Looking at Nycto. Then looking at me as I hovered over. I saw more terrified eyes in the houses and flats around me. More horrified faces at the truth of what was happening all over again.

  There was going to be another Great Blast.

  It was the only way I could defeat Nycto.

  “You see, you could end it,” Nycto said. “You could end everything right here. But you won’t. Because you’re too attached. Too attached to your family. Too attached to the people around you. You could end me, right here. But you’re too weak.”

  “I’m stronger than you’ll ever be.”

  “Then prove it,” Nycto said. His voice grew louder. Lightning flashed in the sky above. The fireballs in his hands were twice the size of basketballs now, and getting bigger by the second. “Prove you have what it takes. Prove you’re willing to give up everything to take me down. If that’s what being an ULTRA really means to you, then prove it.”

  I looked through the window of my house again. I saw my parents. I knew they’d be terrified. And I knew that if I threw myself at Nycto, used all the power I had, I’d not only destroy Nycto, myself, but I’d kill thousands of people, too. Maybe millions.

  Was that the legacy I really wanted to leave behind?

  Was that really what I wanted people to remember me by?

  “You don’t have it in you,” Nycto said, laughing now. As he laughed, his voice cracked, and I heard Daniel underneath. Daniel, enjoying this, corrupted by power.

  “You know, you were right about one thing,” I said.

  Nycto smiled. The fireballs were beaming electricity now. The sky had turned jet black as a whirlwind spun around the street, making the electricity flicker everywhere. “Go on.”

  “Back at Krakatoa. You told me we weren’t so different. I didn’t believe you at the time. I didn’t want to believe you. But now I see what you mean. We aren’t so different. Not underneath our masks.”

  Nycto smiled. “If you’re trying to talk your way into allegiance, you’ve missed your opportunity.”

  I smiled back. “Don’t worry. It’s not allegiance I’m looking for. It never was.”

  I took in a deep breath and let every emotion fill my body, shake my core.

  I felt cold ice build at my hands. I felt it cover my body. I felt it freezing around my chest.

  “We’re the same in that we’ve both been trodden down by the world. We were both losers, before all this. But you know what the difference between us is?”

  Nycto smiled some more. I could barely hear him through the intense barrage of noises we were both creating. “Enlighten me.”

  I pointed my hands forward. “I’m Glacies,” I shouted. “And I gave up crying like a little bitch at the way the world treated me. You never did.”

  I threw myself at Nycto.

  Held my breath.

  And at the last moment, the last instance before we collided, I looked my parents in the eye and felt pure raw love.

  “I love you,” I said, tears rolling down my cheeks.

  And then, without touching Nycto, I felt the environment around me change to the only place I could think of.

  “Hey, Daniel?” I said.

  His fireballs weakened. He looked around, startled. “What—”

  “Thanks for showing this place to me. Enjoy your time here.”

  I slammed into Daniel and sent him flying down into the mouth of Krakatoa.

  I felt him try to fight. Try to shift his way out of my hands, away from my grip. I felt him try to teleport us out of here, back to New York. I felt him try to explode.

  But I held on.

  I held on with every ounce of power I had.

  I held on as we flew down into the volcano.

  As the heat intensified.

  As the lava pit approached.

  I held on as rocks fell around us.

  As debris flew at my face.

  I held on right until we hit the lava.

  And then, only then, did I release every single ounce of power inside me.

  The blast of ice ruptured the volcano.

  Rocks flew everywhere, destroying the natural wonder, closing the entrance.

  But I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t afraid. Not anymore.

  Because I was Glacies. And Glacies couldn’t be afraid.

  I saw the light surround me.

  Felt coldness cover my every inch.

  And as the volcano collapsed around me, shattered by my blast of power, I felt truly proud. Truly at peace.

  Truly Heroic.

  46

  “Man, you slept through this shit? How the hell does anyone sleep through this shit?”

  I sat on Damon’s sofa. Avi was beside me holding on to his new iPad Pro, how he’d afforded it I had no idea. I was completely stuffed after what must’ve been my fiftieth pizza of the week. Yeah, my appetite had grown since I’d taken down Nycto. Saving the world had a funny effect like that.

  I watched the video of the events unfold. Some genius video editor had compiled all the known footage of the battle, edited it together like a movie. In truth, I felt a bit conscious when I saw myself on that screen. Like someone would notice it was me. Figure it out.

  But… nah. To the world around me, I was still just Kyle Peters. Still just the weak-ass who fake-shat himself at school. Still just the idiot who slept through the greatest ULTRA showdown since the last Era of the ULTRAs.

  “And that punch, man.” Damon smacked a fist into his palm. “Ugh! That slug!”

  I watched the final moments of the known footage. The moment where I got all charged up, as too did Nycto. I saw myself fly at him, then the pair of us just disappear for the final time into thin air. The incident that occurred right before the freak eruption of Krakatoa. The most devastating eruption of all time.

  Only, everyone had survived it.

  Some genius blocked the lava flow, redirected it. A miracle, people of nearby islands said. An impossibility.

  Some people said it was God’s work. I felt a little arrogant taking credit for that, so I was just happy they’d made it out alive.

  Nycto, however…

  “Dude, gotta worry about that Glacies, though,” Avi said.

  “Why?” I asked. I was pretty smug that people were referring to Glacies by his name. I figured I’d shouted it before I rammed myself into Nycto. For the first time in my life, I had a cool nickname that didn’t involve my lankiness, my general crappiness, or fake-shitting myself. “He seemed to do a pretty good job of sorting Nycto out. It’s been three weeks since we last heard anything.”

  Avi nodded, chomping down on popcorn. “That’s what I mean. He seemed a straight up guy. Someone who wanted to do good by us. Damn. He mighta been a hero.”

  He mighta been a hero indeed.

  “Whaddya reckon actually happened?” Avi asked. “When those two disappeared. Where’d they go?”

  I didn’t like to think too much about those final moments. I hadn’t enjoyed throwing Nycto into
the lava pit, freezing it over. It was made even worse by the fact that his mask slipped away at the last moment, and I saw Daniel’s fearful eyes staring up at me, just like he used to when he was trodden on and bullied back at school.

  But I’d done what I had to do. I’d dealt with the greatest threat to humanity since the Era of the ULTRAs. It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t pretty. But it was the right thing to do. The only thing to do.

  “I mean, you reckon they’re dead?” Avi asked.

  I shrugged. Stuffed my hand in the popcorn box and crunched some. “Wherever they are, I like to think Glacies won. ’Cause we haven’t heard from Nycto in ages. That’s gotta mean something.”

  Avi dragged the popcorn back. The three of us sat there, watching the footage unfold. “Yeah, that’s somethin’ alright.”

  The weirdest, most unexpected development in all this was the way Glacies was being talked about. Social media were going mad with stories of the people who’d been saved. Even the president, in his speech, thanked Glacies for dealing with the Nycto threat, but urged him, if he was alive, to hand himself in for the good of all mankind. Of course, I wouldn’t be doing that. Not at all.

  But I was going to make sure I was ready in case I ever needed to use my powers again.

  “So, there’s a new Mission Impossible movie on,” Avi said.

  “Another?” Damon said. “Damn. Don’t they ever give up on those movies?”

  “Hey,’ Avi said, raising his hands. “Don’t knock Ethan Hunt, man. Do not knock Ethan Hunt.”

  Damon and Avi play-fought for popcorn, and I just sat there smiling. I could go watching Mission Impossible. I could do normal things. The things a sixteen-year-old guy was supposed to do. I could finish school, go back to being teased again. Why? Because I’d stepped up when I needed to. Because I’d believed in myself, just like the Figure in Black told me to.

  “If you can believe yourself, truly believe in yourself, you can achieve the one thing you’ve been gifted these abilities for.”

  I saw right now that he was absolutely right.

  Wherever he was, whoever he was, I owed it all to him.