Fall of Heroes

by Jeramey Kraatz

“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.

  “Uh-uh, Alex,” Mallory said. She held a hand out, heat radiating from it. “I know what you’re thinking. If those things come anywhere near me, you’ll find out how fast I can melt a foot of ice under you.”

  “That’s assuming I’m on the water,” Alex said. As he spoke, he raised the raft—and himself—until he was floating several feet above the surface of the cove on his own personal flying carpet.

  “Are you forgetting?” Kirbie asked, taking off her jacket. Her face was hinting at transformation, lips and nose jutting forward, beakish. “You’re not safe from us in the air, either.”

  Somewhere inside Alex a voice was telling him to enjoy himself. Have fun while you have the chance. Forget that you’re now targets, just for this one hour.

  Alex grinned. The raft started forward. Mallory reared back, ready to strike. Kirbie jumped into the air.

  And then a voice from the patio stopped them all.

  “They’re awake!” Amp’s words boomed.

  There was a pause on the ice, and then all at once they scrambled across the lake as fast as they could. The time to play was over.

  7

  LEADER OF THE RANGERS

  Despite his sunken eyes and pale skin, Lone Star had an imposing presence, tall and barrel-chested. He stood in the Rec Room, staring at the wall covered in note cards and lists and yarn that mapped out the Cloak Society’s reach and resources. Lux sat on the arm of a chair beside him, looking run-down but with a dignified posture. As the Junior Rangers introduced the other residents of the lake house, Lone Star took an interest in Alex. The man towered over him, looking down at the boy with his chin jutting out. For a moment, Alex thought that the great Ranger might hit him, or yell at him—after all, it had been his fault that Justice Tower had fallen so quickly, and that Lone Star had been trapped in the Gloom for the last month.

  “Alex Knight,” he said. “I know your parents.”

  Alex stared up at him and nodded slowly.

  “Well, we have much to discuss,” the Ranger said, turning his attention to the rest of the group.

  The others methodically spelled out everything that had happened in the heroes’ absence—the crumbling of Justice Tower, infiltrating Cloak’s underground base, the ordeal with the Omegas, the sudden rise of the New Rangers. Amp spoke the most, the words spilling out of his mouth so fast that they were at times half-garbled, and Lone Star or Lux would have to ask him to repeat things. He didn’t seem to mind. There was something about the way that Amp interacted with the adult Rangers that brought out a side of the boy Alex had never seen. He wanted to impress them. He wanted to make sure they knew he’d been fighting for them.

  “This is incredible,” Lone Star said. He finished the last of a granola bar and pulled another from a box on the billiard table. Both he and Lux had hardly stopped eating since they’d woken up. It seemed like the Gloom had drained them of so much. “It’s remarkable you’ve been able to put all this together and make so many jabs at Cloak’s plan without our help.”

  “The plans we knew about,” Kyle said. “Ever since they appeared as the New Rangers, I keep thinking we have no idea what their next move might be. So we’ve really just been focusing on getting you two out of the Gloom.”

  “What are these?” Lux asked, picking up a set of sketched blueprints from a side table. “This looks like . . .” She trailed off.

  “We found them at the underground base,” Kirbie said. “We think they’re plans for Cloak’s new headquarters. For the New Rangers.”

  “On the ruins of Justice Tower,” Lux said. “It certainly makes a statement.”

  “Let’s go over the safety of this base,” Lone Star said, walking over to a map focusing on Silver Lake and the area around the lake house. “I want to know everything. What kind of security do we have?”

  “Motion, infrared, a veritable truckload of cameras set up around the premises,” Gage said. “Access to the cove is protected, which should take care of any boats wandering in.” He held up an electronic screen. “There are alarms in here and in my garage, and everything can be adjusted and controlled from here or one of the laptops.”

  “I’ve got scouts out every hour on the hour when I’m awake,” Bug said. “Which is more often than I should be, probably.”

  “It’s been years since we sanctioned this place as a safe house, but if I remember correctly, there’s a long path from the yard that leads to a gate somewhere off a dirt road,” Lone Star said.

  “There was,” Kyle said with a hint of pride in his voice. “But I’ve overgrown the old path to the point that no one would be able to find it, much less drive anything down here. If we’re attacked, it’ll probably be from Phantom’s transportation or the air.”

  “Oh yeah,” Kirbie chimed in. “Cloak’s got a helicopter now, too. It’s what brought the New Rangers to the museum.”

  “We haven’t come across the resources to install any antiaircraft measures,” Gage said. Alex couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not.

  “As soon as I can fly again, the helicopter will be no problem,” Lone Star assured them.

  There was
a cockiness in the man’s voice that—combined with his hulking body and brassy blond hair—couldn’t help but make Alex think of Titan.

  “And you’re sure your mother didn’t figure out where we are while she was in your head?” Lux asked.

  “Positive,” Alex said.

  “But that brings up a good question,” Mallory said, twisting a few strands of her brown hair between two fingers. “Why haven’t we been attacked yet? Photon must know about this place, right? Amp said you guys went through psychic training or something, but it doesn’t seem to be doing him much good against Shade.”

  “After Victory Park, we didn’t know who had survived on Cloak’s side, but we were pretty certain Shade was still alive,” Lux said. “We’d heard her shouting after the explosion. Knowing there was an enemy with such powers on the loose, we sought out other telepaths across the world, who taught us how to protect ourselves in the event of psychic attacks. We hadn’t thought the Junior Rangers were in danger of needing such training yet.” She took a glance at Kirbie. “Obviously we were wrong.”

  “So why isn’t Photon fighting back against my mother’s powers?” Alex asked.

  “He is,” Lone Star said. “From what you’ve told me, it sounds like Shade has to be near him at all times to keep him in line. A lesser mind would just be her drone and follow her blindly. Don’t doubt the power of a Ranger for a second. There are levels to these kinds of things. Up against her powers, he may give his body over to her control, but that’s just so that he can focus on keeping important things locked away inside his mind.”

  This made sense to Alex. It wasn’t unlike what he did with his telekinesis.

  “He’s still in there,” Kyle said, his hazel eyes looking soft. “When I yelled at him today, there was a moment where I could tell he recognized me. I could see it in his eyes. Then Shade touched him and he was a zombie again.”

  “My mother once told me it was difficult for her to control strong minds,” Alex said quietly. “Even if it’s within her power to break down every barrier in Photon’s head, with everything going on she must not have had a chance to interrogate him and completely rewrite his brain. That’s good news, at least.”