Fall of Heroes (4 page)

4
GHOSTS OF THE PAST

G
age and Amp followed Lone Star through dark paths in the Gloom. The boys explained to him all they knew of the place, which didn't take very long and raised many questions that they couldn't answer. Lone Star shook his head.

“It's a relief to hear that this is just some other world, or whatever you called it. We'd had our suspicions. Photon was the first to connect the Umbra Gun to Phantom after seeing her powers at work. He'd studied the weapon, of course.” The Ranger lowered his voice. “Honestly, I thought we were dead until Phantom showed up. And even after that, I wasn't certain we were alive.”

“She came to collect Photon?” Gage asked.

“Yes. I don't know how long after everything at Justice Tower that was—a few days, maybe? Time doesn't mean much here. There are no days or nights. We'd lost our powers by then. It was like her every thought shaped this place. The ground and air and shadows moved at her whim. We didn't stand a chance. She forced some sort of energy into him and then they were gone.”

“She marked him,” Gage said, nodding. “So she could carry him in and out of the Gloom.”

“Why Photon?” Amp asked. “Why not Lux, or you, our leader?”

“Strategic purposes, for one,” Lone Star said. “Lux and I are strong and can fly and control light in different ways, but Photon's powers are much more versatile.”

“It's not just a matter of controlling metal,” Gage added. “With his powers he has sway over electronics, communications—I'd even go so far as to say he could endanger Earth itself if he was strong enough to alter the planet's magnetic fields.”

“You're a smart one, aren't you?”

“He's more than that,” Amp said. “He got us in here and figured out a way to home in on your energy and track you.”

They continued in silence for a while as Lone Star led them deeper into the Gloom. Gage didn't bother explaining that the reason he had notes on the Ranger's energy signature to begin with was because he'd been helping with Cloak's attack on Justice Tower. Gage had hoped that their current mission might balance that fact out in some way.

“It's so cold here,” Amp said. “How can you stand it?”

“I guess you get used to it,” Lone Star said. “After a while, you forget you're supposed to feel cold.”

They came upon a clearly defined road that led between two huge, gate-like structures of darkness crafted to look like wrought iron. Inside was something of a ghost town—rows of half-built structures made of shadows, and occasionally doors and glass from the real world. A little village Phantom had created at some time or another and then abandoned.

“When we first got here, we stayed in a cave for a while, until Phantom came,” Lone Star said. “After that, we started exploring. We made for the big castle you probably saw, but it's only accessible by a crumbling bridge that's covered in strange, thorny tendrils. We didn't even bother trying to cross it. We happened upon this place by chance.”

He led them to the sturdiest-looking building. It was a simple two-story design, symmetrical with four shuttered windows and a real, wooden front door. The walls were made up of the same oily shadows that Phantom controlled, only these had been carved to resemble bricks.

“Another playground from when Phantom was a kid?” Amp asked.

“Possibly,” Lone Star said. “But she hasn't been back in at least a decade.”

“How do you know?”

Lone Star hesitated at the door. He turned to the two boys.

“Wait here for a minute,” he said. When Amp looked anxious, the man's ears moved back slightly, giving his face a commanding appearance. “I'll only be a moment.”

Amp nodded, stepping back. Lone Star disappeared into the house.

There was noise from inside, but it was muffled. Gage looked at Amp, trying to decode his expression.

Amp's eyebrows knit together. “I can hear them. Lone Star. Lux. But there's something else. There are other people in there, but their voices are . . . strange. I can't make out their words.” He glanced at his watch. “We're fifteen minutes in.”

“We need to head back,” Gage said. “By the time we reach the portal again we'll have been in here for half an hour. I don't want to risk staying in longer than that if we don't have to.”

Lone Star appeared again, but closed the door behind him.

“We have to go,” Gage insisted.

“Just one moment,” the man said. “Amp, there's something you should know. There's something about this place—”

“They're here, aren't they?” Amp asked. “The others. The ones who fell to the gun at Victory Park.”

“It's not—”

“My parents are in there,” Amp said.

Lone Star lowered his eyes. He paused before speaking again.

“In a way, yes.”

Amp pushed past the Ranger and swung open the door.

The inside was one big, dark room. Fortunately, Phantom had built a huge fireplace into one wall, where tall flames burned pale silver, casting a flickering light across the house. Lux stood near the fire, her mouth hanging open and eyes wide with happiness.

“Amp!” Lux shouted, running to him. She wore a uniform similar to Lone Star's, but without a cape and with a gold sash around her waist. Her light green eyes were encased in the same dark circles Lone Star had developed since his time in the Gloom. Her once-shimmering hair was now a dull, whitish blond that fell just below her shoulders. Amp gave her a half embrace. His eyes were focused elsewhere, and Lux turned to follow his gaze.

Sitting around the room on strange benches and stumps made of shadows were four things that Amp might not have registered as being human were it not for the outdated Rangers of Justice uniforms that they wore—and even those were mostly in tatters. They were little more than skeletons, their skin gray and stretched thin over the bones, eyes sunken in and dark. A man was missing his right hand and had a bandage tied across his face, obscuring one eye. A woman had what looked to be opera glasses hanging from her neck and a swath of cloth tied around her mouth. Based on the way the fabric hung, her jaw must have been missing.

The other two figures stood close together. The shorter of the pair was a woman who stared at Amp with as expressive a look as her face could muster. The man was taller, with a sturdy frame. He stared at Amp, and then lowered his eyes to the floor. He looked embarrassed, or ashamed. Under the circumstances, it was difficult to tell which, exactly.

“Mom?” Amp whispered, stepping toward them. “Dad?”

He started to say more, but his words caught in his throat. His knees shook.

The Sentry and the Guardian. His mother and father.

“They can't speak,” Lux said quietly. “They can make sounds but not form words. There's something about this place. It drains the life out of you slowly, but at the same time keeps you preserved. It's a sort of living . . .” She struggled for the right word.

“Purgatory,” Gage said from the doorway. The word fell out of his mouth before he could stop it.

“Like I said,” Lone Star murmured grimly. “I thought we were dead.”

“I never dreamed you'd still be alive,” Amp said quietly, moving toward the two skeletal figures.

“They're so
proud
of you, Amp,” Lux said. “We've told them all about the leader you've become.”

“It's been ten years,” Amp said quietly, his eyes shifting between his parents. “I was only four the last time I saw you. I know your faces more from pictures and statues than I do my memories.”

Amp's mother stared back at him. She held out a hand. For a moment, Amp stood there, staring down at it, the only movement in the room the soft licking of the flames against the shadowy walls. Then he was on both of them, his arms wrapped around their fragile frames, face buried in what remained of his mother's dark hair.

Lone Star turned to Lux, trying his best to give Amp and his family some privacy. “Lux, this is Gage. He's the one who figured out how to get in here.”

Gage held out his hand.

“Is it true?” Lux asked. “You can get us back to the real world?”

“Yes. But we have to hurry. In fact, we should really be—”

She cut him off with a quick hug. Gage stood motionless, finally using one hand to pat her on the back.

“Of course,” she said. “But we have to give them a moment. What about our powers? Will they come back? Do you know?”

“I don't have powers myself, but Amp and I have spent some time in this realm. His powers always seem to bounce back once we're in the real world.”

“Gage, this is Storm Lad and Aria,” Lone Star said, gesturing to the two seated figures. They nodded to him but made no movement to stand.

“There were others who fell to the Umbra Gun that day,” Gage said. “Are they here, too?”

“They were,” Lone Star said. “But it became too much for them. This place
took
too much of them, and they just became husks. By the time we got here, almost everyone was gone.”

“I'm sure you're feeling it already,” Lux said, picking up on Lone Star's thought. She ran her fingers through her hair. “This place sucks the energy out of you. If you stop fighting it, you're done for.”

“And there's something else, too,” Lone Star said. “A monster in the shadows. Something like the old Rangers here have never seen. When we first found this house, there wasn't any danger aside from giving up on life or Phantom showing up to take you away. But now something's hunting us. It killed Ms. Light. And, well, you can see that Storm Lad and Aria have had run-ins with it as well.”

“A monster?” Gage asked. “What
kind
of monster?”

“I don't know. It seems to be hunting purely for sport, though, not for food. None of us have seen it well enough. It sticks to the shadows. I was trying to track it when you stumbled upon me.”

“We're leaving,” Amp said, taking a step back from his parents. His voice was wobbly. “We're going back to the real world. All of us.”

“I . . . don't know if that's wise,” Gage said.

Amp whipped his head around, staring at the young inventor.

“Excuse me?”

“In this state, I don't think it would be . . . safe . . . to bring the old Rangers back into the normal world,” Gage said, choosing his words very carefully. “Their bodies have been through quite a bit of trauma. After ten years, I—I don't know that they would survive the transition, Amp.”

Amp started to take a few steps toward Gage but was stopped by a hand that grabbed his forearm. The fingers were thin and bony, but the grip was strong. His father's. The Guardian looked down at his son long and hard before shaking his head.

“No,” Amp said. “I won't leave you here alone. You can't ask me to do that.”

Amp's father made a few signs to Lux, then wrapped one thin arm around Amp's mother.

“Not alone,” Lux spoke softly. “He says he's not alone.”

Amp's body began to shake, as if he was holding in a great sonic blast that he was ready to loose. Instead, tears began to stream down his cheeks. He took a deep breath and wiped his face.

The Guardian stepped forward and made a few gestures to Storm Lad and Aria. There seemed to be some sort of disagreement among them. A strange bellow escaped from somewhere within the Guardian's throat, like the sound of a rusted machine trying to start. He pounded his fist on the right side of his chest, over his heart, where there was a golden starburst on the old Ranger uniforms. Slowly, the two seated Rangers stood, their bones creaking.

“We should go now,” Lux said. “They'll travel with us to this portal you have. They'll make sure we get there safely.”

 

They made their way back through the gates, over the shadowy hills and dark wasteland of the Gloom, with relative ease. Once Amp's parents and the older Rangers were out of the house, they moved with surprising agility and speed. Gage led the way, his device locked on to the beacon they'd left when they arrived. When they got to the narrow path carved between cliffs, the inventor paused. The road ahead looked like an impossibly black scar on an already terrifying landscape—the kind of route people took and never returned from.

“Is there another way?” Gage asked. “We went through here earlier and it didn't feel like the safest route.”

“I understand your concern,” Lone Star said. “But it's the fastest. We could travel around and over the mountains, but that'll triple our time.”

“We'll hurry through,” Amp said, glancing at his watch. They'd be lucky if they made it back on time already. Even if they didn't tire out, Alex's team was counting on them to be as fast as possible. “We can't afford to take any longer. Who knows what's going on with the others at the museum?” He took a moment to glance at Zip, who flitted her wings on his shoulder. If something had gone wrong, Bug had given them no sign about it.

In the narrow crevice between the mountains, they had to walk single file half the time. Again, the darkness seemed to close in on them. Amp and Gage lowered their goggles, but even they had trouble finding light in the pass. In the worst moments, there was nothing but shadow, and they bumped into one another and the sides of the cliffs. No one spoke. The only sounds were their shuffling and the ragged whistle that wheezed from the mouths of the decrepit old Rangers.

Soon they were almost to the end, where their way home waited at the top of a cliff. Amp took his mother's hand. She squeezed his in return.

“Wait,” Lux said, stopping the others. She was toward the end of the line. “Where's Aria? She was right behind me.”

They turned to look for her, but there was only the black void of the pass. Then a metallic noise—the same one Gage and Amp had heard earlier—and something flying through the air, shiny and trailing a chain. The object landed on the ground at Amp's feet. A pair of broken opera glasses.