The Strike Trilogy (32 page)

“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?”

“Follow us, guys,” Adrianna said. “We have to find a way out of here. Now.”

“Why?” Orion asked. “What’s happening?”

The animal roar thundered from the floor. The heroes jumped, startled. It sounded as if a beast was only inches from the bottoms of their feet.

With a snapping of his head, Jonathan’s eyes turned yellow, and he turned into the bat-creature: translucent wings sprouted from his back, tearing through his suit, and his nose turned upward and his ears grew pointed.

“I know none of you are very knowledgeable about the story of the Daybreaker,” Jonathan said, “but Vincent always told me that when the Daybreaker was ready, the first thing Vincent would do was awaken the Cicatrix to mark the Daybreaker’s arrival. The Cicatrix would then go to Earth before the Daybreaker, to sear the ground and ready it for the reign of the Daybreaker.”

“And I’m guessing that sound we hear is the Cicatrix?” Junior asked.

“Yes,” Jonathan replied.

“And by pushing that button, you just released the Cicatrix?” Orion asked.

“Yes,” Jonathan said again.

A hole dropped out in the stone floor, and the heroes had to jump back to stop themselves from falling into the crater. With a hideous, skeleton-shaking
ROAR!
, the Cicatrix emerged from the cavity in the floor, bellowing toward the sky and waving its arms in a frenzy. The gigantic animal was the size of a two-story house, with the head of an ape, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. It looked exactly like the stone structure outside of the pyramid, except for one important detail not visible in its stone likeness: the razor-tipped tail of a scorpion.

“Rigel was right,” Keplar said to Jonathan. “You are an idiot.”

The Cicatrix climbed out of its hole and swung its tail at the heroes, roaring as its mammoth stinger jammed into the ground. Scatterbolt was quick enough to escape its attack, rolling to his right, but Jonathan was not; the pale man was seared by the beast’s tail, and he fell to the ground, screaming, with one of his wings sliced down the middle.

“You all need to get out of here!” Adrianna said. “Now!”

“Where?” Tobin yelled. “Where’s the nearest exit?”

“Down that hallway!” Adrianna yelled, pointing to a dark hallway across the control room. “Turn left at the end and you’ll find a gate! Blast it and get out of here! Now! I’ll distract it and keep it here!”

“We can’t,” Scatterbolt said. “You’ll be—”

Adrianna threw three glowing discs at the Cicatrix, drawing all of the animal’s attention to her. “If you don’t go now, we’ll all be dead! Go!”

Tobin looked to Keplar and Orion. The dog nodded. Tobin picked up his bo-staff from the ground, while Keplar readied his plasma cannon.

“Junior,” Orion said, stringing an arrow in his bow. “You and Scatterbolt get out of here and bring the ship in as close as you can. We’ll need you to get us out of here.”

“You sure?” Junior asked. “We can stay here and—”

“I’m sure,” the old man said. “Go.”

Scatterbolt and Junior ran toward the dark hallway amid the falling pieces of debris. The Cicatrix was too distracted by Adrianna to notice them escaping.

Dodging a swipe from the Cicatrix’s gigantic claws, the purple-garbed girl sprinted away from the monster and hid behind a control tower. Tobin, Orion, and Keplar joined her.

“What are you doing?” she shouted. “Get out of here while you can!”

“We don’t leave anyone behind,” Orion said.

“Yeah,” Keplar agreed. “Especially someone who’s on our side.”

“What about him?” Tobin asked.

Tobin pointed to his left; Jonathan was hiding behind another control tower. The bat-creature’s wing was torn, and he was terrified.

Keplar shrugged. “Eh.”

Tobin, Keplar, and Adrianna ran out from behind the control tower, followed by Jonathan and Orion, who was firing his red-tipped arrows at the Cicatrix. The beast was blocking the hallway that led to the exit.

“Jonathan!” Adrianna shouted. “Use whatever strength you have left in your wings and get us up to the second floor! There’s a window there, we might be able to make it! Take Tobin first!”