Strike 2: Dawn of the Daybreaker (18 page)

“Stop!” Nova yelled, as the searing, golden light from his hand hit the ground and exploded. Instantly, the control room was washed out in the blinding light, and no one—except Nova—could see a thing.

When the golden nothingness finally faded from his blinking eyes, Orion looked across the pyramid: Nova was now standing behind Junior, holding the bald man’s arm behind his back, while using his other arm to hold his samurai sword across Junior’s neck. The entire room—Orion, Keplar, Scatterbolt, Adrianna, Rigel, and the Gores—stopped and stared at Nova and his hostage.

“I think we can all agree,” Nova said, bringing Junior towards the Daybreaker’s throne, “that we are all accomplishing absolutely nothing here. It’s clear, to me, at least, that the only way to end this fight would be to ask our new friend here to get involved.” Nova motioned toward the Daybreaker, who was sitting silent and still. “And we don’t want to do that. Not yet, anyway. So, let’s say we settle this another time, huh? Seems the rational thing to do. If you want to keep fighting...well, then Baldy here gets his throat cut.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Adrianna said, lying on the pyramid floor, bruised and bleeding from the Gores. “He’ll do it anyway.”

Rigel stomped over to Adrianna. “Enough from you,” he said, before spitting on her. “You have chosen very unwisely, Adrianna. You have aligned yourself with the losers in this battle for Earth—a place you hold no allegiance to, a world that would destroy ours the moment they discovered it. You will be the first to die, but not until—”

“Wait,” Adrianna said. “I have a question for you.”

Rigel growled. “Enough. No more of your games.”

“No, no, listen,” she said. “Didn’t you send two of those Gladiator beasts down there to kill Tobin a little while ago? Don’t you think we would have heard, I don’t know, something from them by now? Don’t you think they would have come back?”

Rigel thought it over, his eyes looking away from Adrianna. Suddenly, footsteps were heard, echoing through the pyramid control room. The footsteps were coming up the stairs from the dungeon—
THUD…THUD…THUD.
Rigel—and everyone else in the room—turned toward the stairs.

The echoing footsteps stopped, and Tobin appeared at the top of the dungeon stairway, standing in the doorway that led into the control room. He was beaten; the top half of his costume was torn completely off, exposing his waist and chest, and his arms and face were streaked with blood. But, he was standing tall and confident as he stared out at the group of friends and enemies gathered in front of him. In each of the boy’s hands, he was holding the golden helmet of a Gore Gladiator.

Rigel was stunned, his jaw dropped open.

“So,” the boy said, stepping forward. He tossed the two helmets to the ground, and they clanged on the stone floor. “What did I miss?”

Rigel walked toward him. “You...you can’t stop us, Tobin. Look at what we’ve done to your friends. I’ve...I’ve fought you before, and I smashed you to the ground. You can’t—”

Tobin waved him off. “Yeah, I’m not much in the mood for talking.”

The boy walked toward Rigel, and passed by Keplar. The husky had brought Tobin’s bo-staff with him, so he removed the weapon from his back and held it out for the boy.

The boy shook his head. “No.”

Keplar was shocked. “No?”

“No,” the boy repeated.

Tobin stared at Rigel. His eyes snapped with blue lightning. The electric, cobalt energy then burst from his exposed arms and swarmed around his chiseled body.

Rigel backed away.

Tobin grinned.

Before the red giant could escape, the boy sprinted across the control room, leapt into the air, and tackled Rigel. Rigel fell onto his back with Tobin on top of him, and the giant was able to land a few defensive blows, but soon Tobin had Rigel pinned to the ground, with the boy’s knees pressing against the giant’s arms. After cocking his fist into the air, Tobin brought it down and pummeled Rigel’s face, over and over, smashing the giant’s head against the ground. With his eyes glowing blue and his jaw clenched, Tobin connected with his fist again and again, cracking Rigel’s nose and sending blood spattering. The boy was in a fury, merciless and unstopping, his coiled hand rising up and down in a blue flash:
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

Finally, Keplar approached Tobin.

“Tobin, Tobin, okay...” the husky said, shocked by Tobin’s attack.

Tobin stopped his flying fist, but leaned down and grabbed Rigel by his neck. He lifted the giant’s head off the ground and spoke inches from the giant’s pummeled face.

“I win,” the boy said simply.

Tobin felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up.

“That’s enough, Tobin,” Orion said. “C’mon.”

The old man helped Tobin stand. The boy was breathing heavily, trying to calm down. His blue eyes were flickering and he appeared confused, as if he was unsure of what had just happened.

As Keplar took Tobin by the arm and led him away, Orion walked to Rigel. The red giant was now in his human form, lying on the ground on his side, spitting blood, trying to stand. Orion looked down at him, sad.

“It’s not over,” Rigel said. “It’s not...”

“It is, Marcus. Give yourself up. Let me help you.”

Rigel looked up at the old man, his eyes burning with rage. “No, never.” He turned back to his giant form and looked toward the Daybreaker’s throne. “Now, Daybreaker: rise from your sleep and greet the universe that so deeply needs you to set it on its destined path.”

Orion turned to the metal throne. The quiet hum that was emitting from the chair faded, and the glow in the eyes of the Daybreaker’s helmet darkened. For the first time, the Daybreaker moved: his fingers clenched the armrests of his chair, and he stood. As he moved his head from side-to-side, he inspected the strange group of costumed people scattered throughout the control room.

“It is them!” Rigel shouted, pointing at Orion. “These are the ones I have told you about, Daybreaker! The ones that I have showed you! They are the ones that have killed your family, the ones that are threatening to destroy the universe!”

The heroes looked to the Daybreaker, confused. The Daybreaker looked back at them, cocked his head in curiosity, and then raised his hand. A searing blast of black fire—snapping with white lightning— suddenly shot from the Daybreaker’s armored hand and struck Tobin. The boy fell to the ground and screamed, his fists clenched.

“Arrrrggghhh!” Tobin bellowed, squirming on the floor, his body contorted.

Orion quickly strung an arrow in his bow and pointed it at the Daybreaker, but the Daybreaker blasted the old man with another stream of black fire. The old man fell, screaming.

“Grrraaarrrrggghh!” Keplar growled, as he charged at the Daybreaker and fired his plasma cannon, with the gun’s setting turned to full power. But, the green blasts broke away into nothing before they even reached the Daybreaker. When the armored man held out his hand, Keplar was immediately stopped, frozen and hovering four inches above the ground, his body infected with the black fire. It was running over him and digging into his veins.

In a desperate frenzy, Scatterbolt, Junior, and Adrianna all attacked the Daybreaker at once, but the silent warrior defeated them easily—one-by-one, he enveloped them in black fire and flung them around the temple. His posture never changed, and he never spoke. He simply held out his hand and doled punishment to anyone showing him aggression.

Walking to Rigel, Nova helped the red giant stand. Rigel—limping and wheezing from his fight with Tobin—pointed across the control room.

“Daybreaker,” Rigel said, “don’t forget about him.”

The Daybreaker turned to where Rigel was pointing; with a flick of his neck, the Daybreaker telepathically moved a control tower out of the way. Jonathan—the pale man in the purple suit—had been hiding behind the control tower, crouching and leaning against a wall.

“Oh, hello,” Jonathan said. “I was hoping to just kind of hang out here until everything died down. Is that not cool?”

“Kill him,” Rigel said.

The Daybreaker approached Jonathan, raising his hand, but Jonathan quickly jumped up and ran toward a nearby wall.

“No!” Rigel shouted, watching Jonathan. “Daybreaker, stop him!”

But Jonathan reached the wall and slammed his hands into a glass box—the box broke, and Jonathan pushed a large, red button that had been hidden behind the glass.

“Too late,” Jonathan said, wiping the broken glass from his hands.

The pyramid began to quake. A growling came from the floor in the center of the control room. It sounded like the wails of an enraged animal.

Rigel and Nova looked around at the quivering walls and ceiling of the stone pyramid.

“You idiot,” Rigel sneered.

The Daybreaker walked and stood with Nova and Rigel, and the black fire around Tobin and his friends dissipated. They were able to get to their feet and regroup, but they could barely stand from the earthquake under their feet. They scanned the pyramid around them, confused.

Rigel walked to the security station of the control room and grabbed a portal pistol.

“We need to get out of here, now,” the red giant said.

“What about them?” Nova asked.

“They became footnotes the moment the Daybreaker arrived. We will leave them here. Even if they survive, it means nothing now.” Rigel turned to the Daybreaker and showed the silent man his portal pistol. “Daybreaker, freeze them. And if any of them are carrying one of these, remove it.”

The Daybreaker glanced at the portal pistol, then turned to Tobin and his friends. After the Daybreaker held out his hand, the heroes were encased in black fire, unable to move, while Orion’s portal pistol was suddenly drawn out from his coat pocket. The portal pistol flew across the room and stuck to the Daybreaker’s hand like a magnet.

“Thank you,” Rigel said, before holding his own portal pistol in front of him and pulling its trigger. As a swirling portal of black energy snapped into the air, Rigel turned to Tobin and his friends.

“As we leave here,” the giant said, “know that everything you have dedicated yourselves to is meaningless. Not just today, but for the entirety of your lives. You all have had one goal—to stop Vincent from carrying out his vision for the universe—but that vision is here now, in the form of him.”

The Daybreaker stared at the frozen heroes as the rumbling of the pyramid grew stronger, and the growling from underneath the floor turned into a roar.

“You have failed,” Rigel continued. “Vincent has won. Your lives have been pointless. Please keep that in mind as you die.”

Rigel, Nova, and the Daybreaker stepped toward the black portal that Rigel had created.

“No!” Tobin shouted, floating off the ground, encased in the fire. “No!”

The Daybreaker stopped and turned around. The black fire around Tobin faded and the boy fell. Holding his arm across his stomach, grunting, he crawled across the floor toward the Daybreaker. When the boy reached the Daybreaker, the armored man looked down at him, confused. Tobin stared back, with his fists glowing, but the boy was too weak to attack.

After studying Tobin a moment, the Daybreaker turned and followed Rigel and Nova into the portal. The three of them disappeared, and the portal closed after them.

When the villains were gone, the rest of the black fire around the heroes faded, and they were able to move again. However, the earthquake was still rising in intensity, and pieces of the pyramid’s ceiling were beginning to fall. An entire wall crashed to the floor, blocking the entrance to the pyramid that Scatterbolt had cut out with his laser torch.

“Why the hell did they take off so fast?” Keplar said, trying to regain his footing. “What the hell is going on?”