Strike 3: The Returning Sunrise (24 page)

“Please help him,” she said, looking up at Orion with tears streaking down her face.

With his stomach churning, Orion knelt down beside Keplar. The dog’s body was mangled. Over half of the blue fur on his arms was burnt off, and his leather jacket was melted to his back. The raw, exposed skin on his shoulders was bleeding and blistered. As he lay face down in the dirt, he was completely still.

“No,” Orion whispered. “No…”

Orion turned Keplar over. Half of his face was burnt and blackened. The old man lifted the dog’s head off the ground.

“No,” Orion said, his voice wavering. “My boy, my boy…”

Scatterbolt, Ida, and the rebels reached the clearing. Orion looked up at them.

“Scatterbolt! Everyone! Help!”

Two minutes later, the group reemerged from the forest and frantically dashed across the sand. Keplar was now strapped to a stretcher and being carried by the Rytonian Rebels’ medical staff. They had already hooked him up to several IV’s, and as they carried him toward the waiting helicopters, they quickly but methodically tended to him, checking the pupils of his eyes and applying an oxygen mask to his face.

“To the medical chopper!” Ida shouted. “Now!”

The group carrying Keplar’s stretcher ran towards one of the helicopters. Sprinting ahead of them, Scatterbolt zoomed past and opened the door. As the group rushed Keplar’s body into the chopper, the medics continued working on his burnt, smoking body.

Before Orion got into the medical chopper, he looked down the shore. Confused and frightened, Jennifer and Chad were getting into one of the other helicopters with a group of the rebels.

“Jennifer, Chad!” the old man shouted, hanging onto the doorway. “With me!”

Once Jennifer and Chad were aboard the medical chopper, it took to the skies.

***

Aboard the aircraft, as it soared over the Atlantic Ocean and away from the island navy base, it was a desperate race to keep Keplar alive. In the back of the helicopter, Orion, Scatterbolt, Chad, and Jennifer watched helplessly as the medics of the Rytonian Rebels gathered around the dog’s body. Jennifer and Chad were crying.

“What’s his status?” Ida yelled, pushing through the medics and standing beside the stretcher.

“He’s got third-degree burns over half of his body, and he’s going into shock. His heartbeat is almost non-existent. I don’t know how he can survive this kind of trauma.”

One of the machines hooked up to Keplar beeped loudly.

“We’ve lost his heartbeat!” one of the medics shouted. “His heartbeat is gone!”

Ida grabbed two silver paddles from a waiting medic. “Get out of the way!”

As the medic stepped away, Ida placed the silver paddles on Keplar’s chest.

“Clear!” she shouted, before pressing down on the device. Keplar’s body shook and jumped on the stretcher.

“Still no heartbeat!” a medic yelled.

“Ida,” another medic said, approaching her. “I don’t think that—”

“Who was the damn doctor back home, me or you?” Ida shouted. “Now step out of the way and let me do my damn job!”

Standing on the tips of her toes, Ida pressed down on the defibrillator, sending a second jolt through Keplar’s body. Still no response. As Orion and the rest of the group watched, Ida tried again and again, pressing down and sending shock after shock into Keplar’s charred chest. She would not give up.

***

As he extended his armored hand toward a glass trophy case, the Daybreaker screamed and sent a stream of lightning across his office. The blue energy exploded against the case and sent shards of glass and wooden splinters flying toward Rigel and Nova in the doorway.

“Daybreaker, we assure you,” Rigel said, “it must be some kind of trick, they must—”

The Daybreaker spun to them. Blue and white electricity surrounded his entire body, snapping and crackling over his arms and chest. His eyes were now glowing bright white, with his teeth clenched and his hair pulsating with blue energy. When he spoke, white electricity burst from his mouth.

“I saw him!” the Daybreaker shouted, his fists coiled. “I saw Chad with him! I saw him! It was Chad!”

Nova stepped forward. “It’s a trick, Daybreaker. Orion will go to any lengths to try and distract you from your mission. They only want to confuse you so they can attack again and—”

The Daybreaker stomped across the room, his finger in Nova’s face.

“I know my friend, Nova! I know him when I see him! What were they doing with him? How is he still alive?”

Rigel walked to the Daybreaker, placing a hand on each of his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Daybreaker. I know what it looked like, but Chad is dead. You know that. Chad, your mom, Jennifer—they are all gone. Orion killed them all. You know that. We showed you.”

The energy around the Daybreaker faded. His eyes no longer glowed with white electricity. He fell against his desk and gripped onto the edge.

“No, no,” he said, stammering. “They can’t be dead. I saw him. I saw Chad. Orion must be holding him captive.”

Rigel helped the boy stand up. “I’m sorry, Daybreaker, but they are gone. You will never see them again. They must have a false version of Chad, just like how they have a false version of you. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”

The Daybreaker closed his eyes, upset. “It was him. It looked just like him.”

“Remember?” Rigel said. “You saw your clone with your own eyes. You fought with him. And their clones are very convincing. But they are not the real thing. They have a clone of you, and now they have a clone of Chad. It’s the only explanation. You know Chad is dead.”

The Daybreaker slammed his fist onto his desk, his face grimaced. “Dammit. Dammit. Why couldn’t I save them?  Why couldn’t I have been there to save them? My mom. My poor mom. Jennifer. Jennifer. Dammit...”

The Daybreaker fell into his office chair, tears streaming down his face. Rigel and Nova exchanged a look.

“I know,” Rigel said, stepping toward the desk. “I know it’s difficult when we lose the people we love. I know firsthand what that’s like. But that is why we must keep fighting. Why we must keep going.”

“This is what they want, Daybreaker,” Nova said from the doorway. “They want to confuse you. If you are confused because of their clone of Chad, they know it will allow them to attack again and hurt your people. You couldn’t protect your family, but you can protect Harrison.”

The Daybreaker sat at his desk, seething, his armored hands clasped in front of him. His face was still wet from crying.

“We need to destroy them. We need to destroy them all. I want them gone. Now. No more people will get hurt because of them. No more people will ever get hurt.”

“Yes, Daybreaker,” Rigel said. “You are right. Because of you. You will save everyone. To honor your family.”

“Get the council ready,” the Daybreaker replied. “Get everybody ready. Get the beasts ready. We are going to find them and we are going to kill them. I will even destroy Old Capricious if I need to. I will fulfill my destiny and I will kill them.”

Rigel gripped the Daybreaker’s arm. “Yes, you will, Daybreaker. We all believe in you and will follow you wherever you command. But we must ensure you are ready for the final battle. Look—Dr. Brooks is here, and he is going to take you to your next procedure now. We need to finally get this sickness out of you before you face them for the last time.”

The Daybreaker looked up. Dr. Brooks was standing in the doorway.

“Come on, sir,” the doctor said with a smile. “You will feel much better after this.”

Dr. Brooks walked to the Daybreaker, offering him a hand. After helping him stand up, the doctor led the shaking, confused Daybreaker out of the room and closed the door.

“Orion must have Chad with him,” Nova said, when the Daybreaker was gone. “We can’t let the Daybreaker see him again. If he sees Chad or anyone else from his old life, it will ruin everything we have built up to this point.”

“Don’t worry,” Rigel said, standing at the desk. “None of that will matter soon, because soon there will be nothing left of his old life for him to see. It is almost time for us to begin the next phase of our invasion across the U.S.”

“Finally,” Nova said. “Boston is starting to feel much too small. Are the trigulsaurs ready to be deployed?”

“Yes. Now we are only waiting on the process to expand the Dark Nebula to be perfected. But my men tell me this will be in only a few day’s time. As the Nebula covers the rest of the U.S. and the trigulsaurs attack the major governments of the world, we will use the power we have built up in the Daybreaker’s extraction chambers to take out Orion and the others ourselves. We will have the power of gods.” Rigel turned to Nova and snapped his fingers. “Then, with the U.S. under our control, and Orion gone, the rest of the world is ours to take. Soon, Harrison will only be a small part of New Capricious.”

“But the Daybreaker must still appear to be the leader of New Capricious, as we spoke about,” Nova said. “We’ve come too far now. Look at this.” The grey-masked man rifled through the stacks of papers on the desk and showed Rigel a newspaper, sliding it toward him. “This is the latest edition of the Harrison Times, with the photographs from the reporter you allowed to be on the scene of the navy base.”

Rigel looked down at the newspaper. The photograph on the front page showed the Daybreaker as he hovered in the air above the navy base, surrounded by fire. The headline read: OUR PROTECTOR. OUR HERO.

“It worked,” Nova said. “Now more than ever, the city is in love with him. The Daybreaker must still appear as our leader.”

“He will,” Rigel replied. “But do not call him that.”

Nova cocked his head, confused. “Call him what? The Daybreaker?”

Rigel walked to a painting hanging on the wall. It was a painting of Vincent Harris.

“We are the Daybreaker, Nova,” the red giant said. “It is what was always meant to be. Vincent was trying to tell me all along. I see that now. It’s why he chose me. It is our destiny to rule this new world. It has always been.
We
are the Daybreaker. Not him.”

Nova watched Rigel. This was now the second time Rigel had spoken about himself being the Daybreaker, and Nova couldn’t ignore it anymore. The red giant was undoing all of the work they had done for the past two months in transforming Tobin into the Daybreaker. “Do you truly believe that?” Nova asked.

“I know it. This is my place, Nova. This is my future. It has always been my future. It’s always been what I was meant for.”

Rigel stood and looked out the window. “This is ours, Nova. Given to us by Vincent, watching down on us. As of this moment, this is ours.”

In the Museum of the Heroes infirmary, Keplar Costello lay in a hospital bed, with half of his face wrapped in white bandages and the rest of his body covered in silver sensors, IV’s, and tubes leading to various machines. Sitting in a chair next to him, Orion waited, with his hands folded against his mouth, listening to the beeping of the equipment and the pumping of the oxygen tank. The old man had been sitting there for over seven hours.

Finally, miraculously, the dog’s nose twitched. He grunted. With a fluttering, his one eye that wasn’t covered by bandages opened.

Orion leaned forward. “Oh, thank God.”

Without moving his head, Keplar looked around the room with his one good eye. Then he glanced over at Orion.

“So,” the dog said, his voice graveled. “Do I look as bad as I feel?”

Orion laughed. He reached out and grabbed Keplar’s hand. “Yes, I imagine you do.”

“Krandor. I must look like a total corpse then.”

With a deep sigh, Orion let go of Keplar’s hand and leaned back in his chair. The two of them sat in silence a moment.

“I’m a terrible leader,” Orion finally said.

Keplar looked over at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I am. I was never cut out for this. Look at what’s happened since I’ve been trying to scramble us together and lead this team: Jonathan got to Tobin and activated his powers. Scatterbolt got kidnapped. Rigel got his hands on the Daybreaker. And now look at what’s happened to you. I’m a terrible leader.”

Keplar snickered. “You’re out of your gourd. Look at what else has happened since you started leading us: you turned Tobin into Earth’s very first superhero. And he is kicking butt. We all know he’s well on his way to being the best hero either Capricious or Earth has ever seen. So don’t be a moron.”

Orion clasped his hands in front of him. “I’ve made terrible decision after terrible decision. I’ve done things that Titan never would have done—ever—when he was leading the Guardians. I watched Titan, and the way he led, for over ten years. He was a leader. I’m not.”

Keplar slowly turned his head toward his friend. “Orion, sure, I might look like hell right now, but I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for you. I’d have been dead by the time I was fourteen. Hell, no one would be alive if it wasn’t for you. You trained Tobin and Tobin took down Vincent damn Harris himself. The kid saved the universe. Because of you. So don’t give me this ‘bad leader’ krandor.”

Orion shook his head. “Yes, and look at us now. Rigel has taken over Boston, and we weren’t able to do a thing about it. With the Daybreaker at his disposal, Rigel has accomplished more than Vincent ever did.”

“That’s true, but you can’t control everything, Orion. You can’t control the universe. No matter what you do, you can’t control everyone. You don’t own all the problems of the world. You know who taught me that?”

Orion smirked.

“You, you old idiot,” the dog grumbled. “So get your head out of your butt and help me out of this bed so we can get going.” He looked around the infirmary. “By the way, are we in the museum?”

“Yes,” Orion replied.

“And are the Rytonian Rebels with us?”

“Yes,” Orion said.

Keplar raised his eyebrows. “Geez. Maybe you are a bad leader.”

Orion laughed. “They saved your life, you know. And now they are coming with us.” The old man stood up and walked toward the door. “As much as you might disagree, Keplar, I’ve made all of these terrible decisions because I’ve been too tentative. Because I was over-thinking. When we were Guardians, Titan told me once that you need a well-thought-out plan, but you also need to know when it’s time to use that well-thought-out plan. You can’t wait for the perfect moment, because that moment will never come. You have to know when to act. And this is one of those times.”

“I guess the time for planning is over,” Keplar said. “Considering we almost just got wiped out.”

“Yes, it is. Now that we know what Rigel is planning, we have to act now. Millions of lives are at stake—we cannot allow Rigel to release the trigulsaurs on the Earth. We have to stop him before he can do that. That is our only goal right now. If we don’t stop him now, it will be too late.”

“So where are we going?”

“To Ruffalo Rock, to meet up with Tobin,” Orion replied. “And we’re going to see what kind of army he’s built for us.”

***

In the massive, empty airplane hangar in Ruffalo Rock Castle, Wakefield sat hunched over at one of his workbenches, with his eyes pinned to a magnifying glass, which was currently hovering over the Chrono-Key. Nearby, Tobin lay in a cot, bouncing a small ball off the wall that he had found in one of the rooms of King Ontombe’s children.

“Uugggh,” Tobin said, catching the ball as it came back to him. “I feel like I haven’t done anything in forever. Are we really just gonna sit here and wait until we hear from Orion?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what we are gonna do. And even though I haven’t heard from him in over a day, I learned a long time ago to trust the man. We’ll know when it’s time to make the next move.”

“Where the heck has your son been, anyway?” Tobin asked. “You said Junior’s here in the castle, but I haven’t even seen him once.”

“He’s in one of King Ontombe’s private laboratories, working on a project.”

“And I’m guessing I’m not allowed to know what it is.”

Wakefield pulled his goggles down over his eyes. “Hell, even
I
don’t know what it is. But whatever it is, it’s consumed him like a son of a bremshaw.”

Tobin looked to Wakefield. “I heard he went a little loopy after working so hard for so long on trying to make something that could cut through the Dark Nebula.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say loopy. But he did go without sleep for sixteen days, so let’s just say it’s probably better for everyone if he has some alone time for a while.”

Tobin returned to bouncing the ball off the wall. “It’s gonna be really weird if this entire time he was just working on something to regrow all his hair.”

Then, through an open window, Tobin heard an elephant guard shouting outside:

“Visitors have arrived in Ruffalo Rock! Open the door and allow them inside!”      

Tobin sat up. “Is that more heroes answering our call?”

“I don’t know,” Wakefield said. “It’s been a while now since anyone’s showed up. But let’s go check it out.”

After making their way out to Ruffalo Rock’s main square, Tobin, Wakefield, and King Ontombe stood in front of the wooden gate. When it opened, they saw Orion standing there.

“Orion!” Tobin shouted.

Then, when the door opened further, Tobin saw the Rytonian Rebels.

“And a bunch of Rytonians?” the boy asked.

Then, finally, when the door finished opening, Tobin saw Jennifer and Chad.

“And Jennifer and Chad?!” the boy said, squinting.

Tobin’s friends ran to him and wrapped him in a hug.

“What the hell is going on here?” Tobin asked with a stunned laugh, as Jennifer and Chad tightened their grip on him.

“Oh my god,” Jennifer said, her face against Tobin’s chest. “I’ve never been so happy to see you.”

Chad patted Tobin on the back, trying to hug him and be manly at the same time. “Dude, I don’t know how you haven’t completely lost your mind from all this crap. I really don’t.”

“Again,” Tobin said with a smile, “I repeat, what the hell is going on here?”

“Will someone please explain to me why the enemy Rytonian army is within my city walls?” King Ontombe asked, his voice booming.

Orion chuckled and shook hands with the king. “It’s okay, King Ontombe. They’re with us. I’m sorry I couldn’t call ahead and let you know, but the enemy found us once already, and I didn’t want to take the chance of them intercepting any transmissions.”

“Are these the Rytonian Rebels?” Wakefield asked, looking them over.

“They sure are,” Ida replied with a smile.

“Well, hot damn,” Wakefield said. “I didn’t know if you were just an urban legend or not. Glad to meet ya. Heard good things.”

“Same here,” Ida said, shaking Wakefield’s hand. “Big fan.”

Nearby, Tobin looked at Jennifer and Chad, still in disbelief. “How the heck did you two guys get mixed up in all this?”

“Well,” Chad said, “we came up with a plan to show ourselves to the Daybreaker to prove that we are still alive.”

“Whose plan was this?” Tobin asked.

“Well, Jennifer’s, kind of, but Orion allowed us to do it.”

Tobin turned to Orion. “Really? Are you serious? This coming from the guy who won’t let me take the Bolt Racer out before sundown?”

Orion grinned. “Taking the Bolt Racer out before dark is reckless. This is just necessary.”

“Is it? Is it really? Suddenly I’m questioning your definition of the word necessary.”

Tobin and Orion shared a laugh, then a hug.

“It’s like you’ve always told me,” Orion said, “sometimes it’s better to just do what Jennifer says.”

“Oh,” Tobin laughed, “she gave you the look, did she?”

Jennifer tossed up her hands. “What is this look everyone keeps talking about? Do I have a look?”

Orion turned to Tobin with a smile. “How was the trip here? Was anybody waiting for you when you arrived?”

“Uh, yeah,” Tobin said, raising his eyebrows. “Somebody was. A little heads-up on that would have been nice.”

Orion laughed. “I figured the surprise would be worth it, just for the look on your face. I just wish I was here to see it.”

“Thank you for that, O. It was...I can’t even...I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

“Again, I just wish I was here to see it. So, how’d everything else go, Tobin? Were you and Wakefield able to round anyone else up?”

“You tell me,” Aykrada said from above them.

Orion and Tobin looked up. Aykrada, Adrianna, Captain X-Treme, Mad Dog John, the Shigeru Knights, and a dozen other superheroes were gathered on a second floor balcony, extending out from one of the inns in the town square.

“I think they did pretty well,” Aykrada said, looking at the heroes around her. “What do you think?”

Near the wooden gate at the front of Ruffalo Rock, Keplar stood with Scatterbolt. The dog was on crutches and half of his face was still covered in bandages.

“You and I have seen the Daybreaker,” Keplar said. “They haven’t. I think we’ll need about one hundred times more heroes than that.”

Scatterbolt tried to hide his fear with a smile. “Let them think that’s enough. No need to make them as terrified as us.”

***

A few minutes later, inside the Ruffalo Rock Castle airplane hangar, Orion led Tobin and a few of the other heroes through Wakefield’s makeshift workshop.

“All right,” Tobin said. “What’s the deal, Orion? We got all these heroes to come here. You brought the Rytonian Rebels and Jennifer and Chad here for some reason that I still don’t understand. Now what?”

“Well, Tobin, there’s a couple reasons I sent you here to Ruffalo Rock with Wakefield and Agent Everybody. The first is because of how protected this land is. The other reason is because of this.”

Orion turned around and extended his hand. He and Tobin were now standing in front of the massive, towering device that Wakefield had been working on ever since Tobin had first arrived in Ruffalo Rock. The device—as wide as a soccer field and reaching all the way to the ceiling—was still concealed by a blue tarp.

Standing next to Orion, Wakefield looked up to the ceiling’s rafters. “Okay, fellas! Drop it!”

At the top of the device, two of King Ontombe’s guards untied a pair of ropes and dropped the tarp. When it hit the floor, Tobin could finally see what Wakefield had been working on.

The device was an absolutely gigantic, red, inter-planetary portal, encased in a metal, shining doorway.  The portal’s swirling, mirror-like surface snapped and popped with occasional bursts of electricity.

“Wow,” Tobin said, looking up to the top of the portal, near the ceiling’s rafters. “I’ve never seen a portal so big.”

“Nobody has,” Orion replied. “Wakefield has been awfully busy here the last few months.”

As he stepped toward Tobin, Wakefield reached into a satchel hanging over his shoulder, retrieving a red, shining rock the size of a softball. The pointy rock’s surface swirled in a circular motion, just like the electrified portal.

“This, as you know, is Zeddtrified Ore,” Wakefield explained. “It’s what powers those little portal pistols of yours. The portal pistols only need a little bit of it. But, get together enough of it? And you get one damn big portal.”

Tobin stepped closer to the portal, but then stopped. It was so large that he could already feel it starting to draw him in. “How much rock does it take to make one this big?”

Wakefield smiled. “Just about as much Zeddtrified Ore as there is on Capricious, give or take. Always wanted to see what I could do if I had this much rock.”