Fall of Heroes (6 page)

“We'll figure out what to do at the lake house,” he said. “Let's go home.”

6
SKI CHAIR

L
one Star and Lux slept as they were jettisoned underground across the city. The others grinned at one another, trying to talk over the roar of the air shooting past them but settling for giddy shouts and screams. Amp sat silent the whole way. He just closed his eyes and leaned his head back. Whether he was pretending to be asleep or actually tired, Alex wasn't sure. It seemed like
something
was wrong, but as they flew through the tunnel, it was impossible to really communicate.

Once they finally got to the secret lake house base, they could hardly get the sleeping Rangers to open their eyes, much less climb the ladder and stairs to the basement. In the end, Misty had to take the two heroes up, placing them on one of the first-floor beds.

There was a lot of ruckus as everyone tried to figure out what to do while they waited for the Rangers to wake. Amp refused to leave Lone Star's side. Misty wanted to throw some kind of party. Alex found himself dragged into Gage's garage, where the young inventor swabbed his cheek with antiseptic and filled him in on everything that had happened inside the Gloom.

“This cut is much better-looking cleaned up,” Gage said when he was done with Alex's wound. “I thought we were going to have to give you stitches. It may scar a little.”

“Thanks,” Alex said. “How are you doing? I mean, after the Gloom and all.”

“A little tired. But that's never stopped me from getting work done before.”

“And Amp? How's he? I mean, he didn't really say anything the entire way home.”

“Can you blame him?” Gage asked. As he spoke, he began unloading his pockets with the various gadgets and equipment he'd taken into the Gloom. “He just lost his parents for the second time, and his
other
guardians are both so drained they can't even stay conscious. If you're wondering how he'll deal with all this, I can't really say. Besides, strange family relationships are more your department than mine. No offense intended.”

“None taken,” Alex said. “I just left my dad in a telekinetic bubble behind the museum.”

“Your power would have faded away as soon as you were gone. I wouldn't worry about it.”

But this did nothing to make Alex feel any better. He'd never been concerned about his father getting out of the force field—he was worried what he might do
after
he was free. What everyone might do. The ragtag team at the lake house was probably easy to overlook or underestimate, even if they
had
managed to defeat the Omegas. But now . . . Alex shuddered as he wondered what form Cloak's vengeance might take.

“As for Amp,” Gage continued, “I'm guessing he needs time to figure out exactly how he feels.”

“Amp will be okay,” Kirbie said from the doorway. “Bug told us what happened. Before he led the Junior Rangers, Amp was like Lone Star's sidekick. They have a pretty long history together. I think he just needs to see Lone Star and Lux up and planning and back to their rightful places so he knows that everything that happened in the Gloom was worth it.”

“Right,” Alex said. “And Gage, you did say that you don't know what happened after the portal closed. Amp's parents could have defeated Ghost. We could maybe find them again once the real Rangers are back in power.”

“Anything is possible,” Gage said. He tapped on the electronic screen of the device he'd used to track down Lone Star in the Gloom. “That's what makes not knowing so terrible.”

“Don't be such a downer, Gage,” Kirbie said. She smiled as she flicked her blond ponytail to one side. Behind her, Alex caught sight of Misty and Bug running down toward the dock, excitement practically radiating off them. “We got the Rangers back. We've won.”

But Alex could detect an uncertainty in Gage's eyes as the inventor stared at the screen. Gage might have been the expert at reading other people, but Alex had known him long enough to see when something was not right.

“What is it?” Alex asked.

“Hmmm? Oh, I'm sure it's nothing,” Gage said. “I'm probably just fatigued from having been in the Gloom for so long today.”

Alex wasn't convinced. As he wondered if he should press this issue, Misty appeared on the other side of the garage, beside the boat they'd used during their attack on the Omegas. She didn't say anything—or even acknowledge that there were other people in the room. Instead she kept her eyes high on the walls and ceiling, searching for something. Alex was just about to ask her what, exactly, she was doing, when her face lit up and she disintegrated. She reappeared again near the top of the garage, where a pair of old water skis hung across two ceiling beams. Her hands shot out and grabbed the equipment, and she was gone again, this time filtering out through the open door.

Alex turned to Kirbie.

“What are they doing out there?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Kirbie said, turning to the door. “Everyone's so excited that the Rangers are back. I don't blame them for . . .” She trailed off as she stepped outside, staring down toward the dock. “Wait, what?”

Alex hurried outside, where he found that the water in the small, private cove was completely still. Frozen. Mallory lay at the end of the dock, half her body over the side and palms flat against the newly formed ice.

“Uhh . . . ,” Alex started, unsure of what question to ask, when Kyle darted past him, holding a lawn chair above his head.

“Here!” the blond boy shouted. “We can use this!”

In a flash he was at the edge of the ice, where Misty and Bug were huddled over the skis. Alex and Kirbie met the others on the shore. Gage followed behind, more hesitantly.

“Perfect!” Misty squealed.

Kyle wiggled his fingers. Vines twisted and grew from a seed packet, securing the skis to the aluminum legs of the chair. When he was done, he picked up the new ski chair and shook it, smiling at the firm attachment.

“Milady,” he said, setting it down in front of Misty. “Your throne.”

“Mal?” Misty called.

“You're good to go.” Mallory stood up on the dock, stretching. “It's a foot thick, at least. Just don't go flying out of the cove or anything.”

“You've got to be kidding me,” Alex said, but he couldn't hide his grin.

“This is very important training,” Misty huffed as she took a seat. “What if we have to sneak up on someone who's hiding out on a frozen lake?”

“We live in Texas,” Gage stated flatly.

“We do
now
. What if we end up teleported to Russia or something? You're going to thank me.”

“Actually, Russia does have a history of using its cold climate as a strategic advantage in wartime.”

“All right, let's go,” Misty said to Bug and Kyle. “He's starting to sound like the Tutor.”

The two boys lifted the chair and set it carefully on the edge of the ice. On the count of three, they pushed, sending the chair-on-skis flying across the lake. Misty screamed at first, which quickly devolved into a fit of laughter as she spun around on the frozen water. When the chair finally came to a stop, Misty floated it back over to the edge of the beach.

“Who's next?” she asked, catching her breath and grinning from ear to ear.

“I'll go,” Mallory said, running across the dock.

Alex stood at the edge of the ice, staring down at it.

“You look scared,” Kirbie said.

“I've never actually been on ice before, I don't think.”

He stuck a foot out and tapped.

“At that rate you'll never learn how to walk on it,” Kirbie said. She pushed him.

Alex took a few awkward steps forward before he stopped moving anywhere. Instead his feet just continued to slide without traction every time he tried to move, like he was running in place. Finally his legs went one way and his body went another, and he found himself sitting on the frozen lake water.

“OW!” he said loudly, exaggerating for Kirbie.

“Graceful.” She grinned.

Alex started to retort, when something yellow caught his eye, half-hidden behind the garage. He smiled and wrapped his thoughts around it. Suddenly a huge inflatable raft was sailing toward him through the air—the raft that Kirbie had tried to carry several of them in when they were first planning on storming Cloak's base, when everything had felt so hopeless. Kirbie recognized the mischievous look in Alex's eyes a second too late. The raft hit her, sweeping her legs out from under her as she fell backward into the cushiony yellow plastic with a small scream. Alex could hear her shout the word “jerk” as the raft sailed out to the middle of the cove, Misty chasing after it.

Gage started back up to his garage, but something caught his leg. A vine shot out of the earth, thick and strong, and pulled him a few feet off the ground.

“No way,” Kyle said from the ice. His hands were held out in front of him. “You're not having enough fun. You just spent half an hour in the Gloom. Take a break.”

Smaller vines started poking around in Gage's pockets, pulling out any tools and electronics.

“I've got all sorts of tests I should be running and—Hey, be careful with that.”

“What do you say, Alex? I think he needs to take a little ride on the ski chair.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, grinning wide as he carefully stood up on the ice. “He's right, Gage. Live a little.”

“Alex Knight,” Gage said, a bit flustered, “if you think my idea of fun is jettisoning across a hastily frozen lake in a contraption—”

The vines tossed him toward the cove, where Alex intercepted him with his thoughts. Gage flew through the air wide-eyed, until he was planted firmly in the chair. He yelped as a telekinetic push sent him flying across the frozen cove. Alex watched a smile take over his friend's face as Kyle slid over the ice after him.

There was a flash of silver out on the ice that caused Alex to immediately go on guard, but it was only Mallory. She hadn't bothered to change out of her Beta uniform. The grinning Cloak skull gleamed in the fading sunlight, and as she laughed and conspired with Misty and Kirbie on the lake, Alex's father's words crashed down on him. What would his parents be doing right now? Plotting at the underground base in the War Room? How long before they focused all their resources on finding Alex and the newly rescued Rangers?

He scanned the ice. Everyone was so excited, so
happy
. But their downtime would be short. After this—when Lone Star and Lux woke up—they would return to fighting. Now they were in it more than ever. This was probably the last time they'd get to just play around and be kids until it was all over—and who knew what
that
meant.

His thoughts were interrupted as he watched Bug step carefully onto the ice, placing one foot in front of the other and moving so slowly that for a moment Alex thought he, too, had been frozen. He had a death grip on the dock. He'd pulled his long, dark hair into a short ponytail that stuck out of the back of his head. Alex cautiously took a few steps, found his composure, and was able to move without too much trouble.

“I shouldn't have come out this far,” Bug said warily. “Please tell me you had extensive ice-walking training or something so I don't feel like a total loser.”

“Actually, it's our first time. Well, the Betas', at least. I don't know about Kyle and Kirbie. But I'm sure all our other agility trials and stuff over the years make it a lot easier for us.”

Bug smiled a little, clinging closer to one of the dock posts. Alex smiled, too. It hadn't been long ago that he would have used this as an opportunity to point out how much Bug might weigh the team down or what an amateur he was. But they were well past that now. Bug had more than proved himself. There was no way they would have made it this far without him.

Bug's eyes fell on something between two of the posts on the dock, a glimmer in the breeze. A dragonfly—much smaller than Zip—struggled against the sticky silk of a web. In one corner, a large gray spider looked on.

“Oh, man,” Alex said. He suddenly found himself in a situation that he'd never imagined he'd be in. In the past, he wouldn't have given a second thought to the insect, but he wasn't sure if Bug was going to freak out over the dragonfly's impending doom. “Are you going to help it?”

“Who, the dragonfly?” Bug asked.

“Well, yeah.”

“I could probably get it free,” Bug said, turning to Alex. “But I'd have to take down the whole web. Then the spider might starve. I'd just be punishing it for doing what it was born to do.”

“But Zip . . .” Alex was finding it hard to articulate what he was trying to say.

“Zip actually eats these small dragonflies, too. Different species, though. She's a carnivore, not a cannibal.”

“But you'd rescue her if she was in the web, though, right?”

“Of course,” Bug said, looking puzzled as to why Alex would have to ask such a thing. “She's my friend. I'd destroy every web for her.” Zip alighted on his shoulder. Bug turned to look at her. “But she's too smart to get caught in something like that. Go on, girl. Go find something to eat. You must be starved from the Gloom.”

Misty materialized beside Alex and grabbed his arm.

“This is from Kirbie,” she said with a wicked grin.

Before he could reply, they were swirling dust on the breeze. He was nothing but a consciousness and tiny bits of matter, and then suddenly he was whole again and falling through the air. He landed on the big yellow raft in the center of the frozen cove. Mallory and Kirbie pushed it hard, sending Alex spinning across the ice.

“Hey!” he shouted, wrapping his blue energy around the raft to stop it. He got to his feet, eyes flickering blue as he focused on the two girls a few yards away from him. With his thoughts, he scooped up some of the melting ice that had been dislodged from the surface of the lake by all the skiing and rafting, until two small balls of slush orbited his head. He smirked.