Fall of Heroes

by Jeramey Kraatz

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Let’s just make it through the next few days,” Alex said. “Then we’ll have all the time in the world to figure out where we all belong in this city.”

  When they weren’t collecting data and research and evidence, they were training. Nothing that would give them away—there would be no giant, flailing trees or window-breaking bursts of sound—but they could shoot targets in the backyard and spar.

  A few hours after watching the video with Kirbie, Alex sat against a wall in the basement with Amp. They watched Lux and Lone Star train. The two Rangers had very different ways of fighting. Lux was an acrobat, lithe and agile, twisting her body at lightning speeds as she jabbed forward with a bladelike palm. Lone Star was a brawler. He was all fists and grunts, throwing his body at the swinging sandbag in the room with seemingly no regard for himself.

  Alex had never been especially good at fighting hand to hand—that was always something Titan and Julie had excelled at. He was impressed by how naturally it seemed to come to both of the Rangers. Alex kept a few things he’d brought down from around the house darting about through the air, giving them plenty of moving targets. They seemed in high spirits.

  “Remember that time the robber dressed in a weird animal costume got you in a headlock at that jewelry store?” Lux asked. “You know, the one in the modified mascot costume.”

  “That wasn’t my fault,” Lone Star said. “I was flying. How was I supposed to know he could jump that high?”

  “He did call himself the Jackrabbit.” Lux tossed her pale hair back as she slammed her leg against a floating couch cushion in a swinging kick.

  “I thought he could punch really fast.” He smiled and loosed a mighty right hook on a decorative pillow zigzagging in front of him. “I didn’t expect him to have gas-powered springs in his boots.”

  “You’re just lucky Photon was there to rip him off you.”

  Alex smirked at the exchange and willed the soft targets to dive and move at a faster pace.

  “Hey,” Amp said to him. “Can you hear anything weird?”

  Alex turned to the Junior Ranger, who was pointing a finger out in his direction. He shook his head.

  “How about now?” Amp moved his finger so that it was in line with Alex’s chest.

  Alex shivered. Suddenly it was like he had a silent drum pounding in his ribs.

  “Whoa, weird,” Alex said. “I can’t hear it, but I can feel it. Is . . . this safe?”

  “Totally,” Amp said, looking pleased with himself. “Just trying to work on making the most focused audio stream I can.”

  He got a mischievous look in his eye, and before Alex could say anything, the Junior Ranger flicked his wrist, drawing his finger in a quick line across Alex’s face.

  Alex felt like he had his head shoved into the world’s most powerful speaker for a split second.

  “Gah!” he shouted, clutching his ears. Near the center of the room, one of the pillows exploded as he lost control of his telekinetic powers.

  “Hey, hey,” Lone Star said, his voice low and chastising as feathers floated in the air all around him. “What are you two up to?”

  “Dude, Alex, I’m so sorry,” Amp said. “I didn’t think it was that bad. It was half the power I’ve been practicing with.” He lowered his voice. “That should be enough to throw Shade off, at least.”

  Alex took his hands off his ears and narrowed his eyes. Amp started to speak.

  “Whatever it is you’re think—”

  He was cut off by a series of five cushions and pillows smacking against his body.

  “Alex, that’s hardly fair,” Lux said, trying not to smile.

  Amp was just starting to climb out from under the pile of cushions when Gage swung open the door at the top of the basement stairs.

  “We’re done with the footage,” he said, rubbing the dark bag under one of his eyes. “We’ve got everything we can. The plan can move forward as soon as you’re ready.”

  17

  REBELS

  After the sun had been down for several hours, Lone Star and Lux squeezed into the backseat of Carla’s SUV while Misty and Alex sat in the far back trunk. Fortunately, the windows were already darkly tinted, meaning that if they kept their heads down, they might be able to make it to the other side of town without rousing any suspicion. Maybe.

  “Please don’t let this end up being some sort of high-speed car chase,” Carla said as the garage door opened. She tightened her hands around the steering wheel. “I really like this car.”

  “If we just stick to the plan and all stay calm, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Lux said, though Alex couldn’t help but wish she’d sounded more sure herself when she spoke.

  “Besides,” Lone Star added, “you did a great job jetting us away in that van the other day. I’d say you’ve got a knack as a getaway driver.”

  Carla stared at her brother, not amused, before starting the car.

  The city was eerily quiet and seemed darker than normal, even with the streetlamps back on. Rain had fallen earlier, and heavy clouds still floated thick in the sky, obscuring the moon and stars. Alex watched the wet street pass by through the back window of the SUV, illuminated every few blocks by the vehicle’s brake lights. The streets around them were ominously serene.

  “I’ve got Deputies up ahead,” Carla said as they drew nearer to town, driving through the financial district. “But they’ve got a couple of kids or something with them. I think they’re making an arrest.”

  As they got closer, the scene began to make sense. Two Deputies had three college-aged citizens lined up against a wall, laser pistols drawn. One of the civilians wore a shirt that said WE DIDN’T VOTE ON PHOTON. Above them was one of the giant posters of the New Rangers. Horns and mustaches had been drawn on all the figures. In neon-green letters, someone had spray-painted over parts of the text so that it read NO RANGERS. JUST US. And in the white space on the side of the poster was a giant skull painted in dripping silver.

  Everyone but Carla kept their heads down as they drove past, slowly.

  “Should we help them?” Misty asked.

  “That’s a bad idea,” Lone Star said. “The best thing we can do for them is continue on our mission.”

  Alex pressed a finger over his lips to Misty and concentrated on the two laser pistols pointed at the civilians. He waited until their SUV was a few blocks away, then pulled the weapons out of the Deputies’ hands with one thought and pushed the two lackeys to the ground with another. The three kids made a break for it. Carla turned a corner, and Alex couldn’t see them any longer.

  “That was a Cloak skull, right?” Alex asked. “That can’t be coincidence.”

  “They’ve adopted it as a symbol of rebellion against the Rangers,” Lux said. “It’s not exactly uncommon in a situation like this. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ and all.”

  “Great. Cloak groupies.”

  “Will you all please stay down back there?” Carla commanded more than asked as she noticed Alex’s head in the rearview mirror. “I thought you were supposed to be masters of stealth.”

  They continued in silence for a few more blocks as they drew closer to the heart of the city, where the streetlights and building marquees kept the roads better lit. An electronic billboard on the side of a building flashed a single message: CURFEW IN EFFECT. AS YOUR EVER-VIGILANT PROTECTORS, WE ARE WATCHING.—THE RANGERS OF JUSTICE.

  “Well, that’s comforting,” Alex muttered.

  “Misty,” Carla said, her voice steady, but with a slight edge. “You’re on deck. I’ve got a roadblock up here.”

  “Got it!” Misty said. She reached over the backseat and grabbed Lone Star’s and Lux’s shoulders, while Alex held on to the sleeve of her coat. “Ready.”

  The car stopped in front of a female Deputy standing in the middle of the street and waving a glow stick. Her partner approached the driver’s side of the car, one hand on his belt holster.

 
; “Now,” Carla said, as she began to roll down her window.

  The four people in the back atomized, until they were nothing but a thin haze that settled on the seats and floors in the dark of the car.

  “You’d better have clearance to be out here, ma’am,” the man said in a thick Texas drawl, “or else you’re going to be meetin’ a bunch of new friends soon. Or I guess I should say ‘cell mates’ instead.”

  He smiled a wide, self-satisfied grin, looking positively giddy to have stopped someone. Carla pulled a leather rectangle from her jacket pocket and shoved it in the man’s face.

  “I’m chief assistant district attorney of this city, young man,” she said, her voice firm and annoyed. “I have full clearance to be out.”

  “Well, well, well, now,” the man said. “I don’t know about that. You did say assistant, right? Not the district attorney. Maybe I need to call this in to the Rangers and make sure that an assistant is high enough on the food chain to be out at night.”

  Carla pulled her ID back inside the car and narrowed her eyes.

  “I’m sure Photon and Lux have nothing better to do than field the questions of a Deputy who didn’t bother to learn who does and does not have the right to be on the streets tonight. Especially when the person you’re asking about is a city official who specializes in the prosecution of criminals, making every second you keep me here an obstruction of justice. So by all means, call this in and find out if you’re doing your job or not. I can wait. I’ll just make sure that when a Cloak henchman goes free because my time was wasted at this checkpoint, you’re the person who gets to explain why to the Rangers.”

  The Deputy stuttered for a bit before taking a few steps away from the SUV and waving them on. As they drove away, the others began to materialize in the backseats.

  “You were amazing,” Misty said as she put everyone back together again. “Even I was kind of scared of you.”

  “Now you see why I wanted Starla as a Ranger,” Lone Star said with a grin.

  Carla glared at him in the rearview mirror, and then let out a long breath.

  “If that’s who we’ve entrusted the city’s future to, we’re doomed,” she said.

  “They’ll learn,” Alex said. “My mother will whip them into shape. Trust me. I’ve seen her do it with the unpowered Unibands back at the Cloak base. We’re just lucky she hasn’t had time to devote to these guys.”

  They drove on, until finally they came to police headquarters. Carla parked in the alley out back, far from the lenses of any security cameras, her SUV blending in with the shadows.

  “All right,” Alex said. “Misty, you know the way around inside?”

  “Please,” Misty said. “Thanks to Carla’s help, I know this place inside and out.”

  Everyone in the back grabbed on to one another. Lone Star held a hand out to Carla. She looked skeptical for the first time that night.

  “Don’t worry,” Misty said. “I do this all the time.”

  “I just don’t want to come out of this on the other side with my head on someone else’s body,” Carla said, taking Lone Star’s hand.

  “Huh,” Misty said as she began to break apart. “I wonder if I could do that.”

  Before Carla could protest, they were shooting out of a cracked car window, flying over the parking lot and through a vent in the top of the roof. It was dark and hot as they sped through the ventilation system and into a hallway, where they paused just briefly before traveling to a room at the end of the corridor.

  They rematerialized in the commissioner’s office. Alex closed the blinds on the windows looking out into the hallway with a flick of his thoughts. Carla doubled over, staggering, reaching out to the wall for support.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” she muttered.

  “What in the—,” the commissioner started, jumping up from his desk. Alex recognized him from photos and news broadcasts, an older man with dark, wrinkled skin and salt-and-pepper hair slicked back neatly. He reached for his desk drawer, but when his eyes fell on Lone Star, he paused, staring at the Ranger.

  “Commissioner, please don’t be alarmed,” Lone Star said, raising his hands up in front of his chest to try and calm the other man down. “It’s Lone Star. You know me. I’ve just come to talk.”

  “Don’t be alarmed? You tell me that after you just appear in my office? I saw the look-alikes on the news. How am I supposed to know you’re real?”

  The man eyed Lux, who was dragging a chair over for Carla. Alex could see him doing calculations in his head and wondered if he might call for help or try to pull a weapon on them. Not that it would matter—he could have the man immobile in an instant, but he didn’t want to have to resort to that.

  “I can vouch for him, sir,” Carla said, but the man’s face didn’t look very relieved by that. Instead his eyes drifted over to Alex and Misty. He gave them curious looks.

  “Not only have you shown up after having no word from you for a month, but you’ve brought a missing little girl and a boy wanted on suspicion of being a Cloak agent with you. And I’m supposed to remain calm.”

  “I believe Alex is wanted in connection to my disappearance, too,” Lone Star said. “Which is obviously not the case.”

  The commissioner turned his gaze back to Lone Star and regarded him with suspicion.

  “All right,” he said. “If you’re really Lone Star, prove it. Tell me something only you would know.”

  “You once gave me a bronzed version of the official Lone Star action figure as a birthday gift, only on the base’s engraving you misspelled my name. L-O-A-N. Loan Star. You realized the mistake right after you’d given it to me and took it back to be corrected.”

  Everyone was silent for a moment. Finally the commissioner spoke.

  “That was the engraver’s fault, not mine.” He sat slowly back down in his chair. “It’s good to see you. I hadn’t let myself get up too much hope that it was actually you after seeing how things went down at the press conference. Lux, I assume this is the real you, too.”

  “You never misspelled my name, but you did once ask me on a date to the Mayor’s Ball. I said no.”

  The commissioner winced a bit.

  “Well, now that we’ve gotten all that out in the open, someone tell me what’s going on in this city. It’s been a rough few weeks, and I’m guessing that two missing superheroes showing up in my office looking like they’ve been put through the wringer doesn’t mean things are going to start looking up anytime soon.”

  Lone Star and Lux briefed him as quickly as possible, leaving out the Gloom entirely and simply explaining that Cloak had them trapped and a group of Junior Rangers and former Cloak kids had managed to rescue them. Alex finished up the rundown, explaining who Novo was and exactly how they’d managed to have two Luxes at the groundbreaking ceremony.

  When Alex was done, the commissioner sat back in his chair, sighed, and rubbed his temples with thick fingers.

  “I appreciate you coming here to tell me this,” he said slowly. “And I really am glad you’re alive. But I just don’t see what I can do. My hands are tied as far as the New Rangers go. The mayor and city council have handed them the city on a silver platter. I’ll happily tell everyone I know that you’re the real Rangers, but it sounds like I wouldn’t get very far before being silenced.”

  “We’re going to make a move against Cloak,” Lux said. “To right all of this.”

  “Good. Do it. Then I can start trying to get this city back to normal.”

  “We need officers,” Lone Star said. “Men and women with an allegiance to you, not to the New Rangers. We’ve heard that there are some among the police force who aren’t exactly happy with the way the Rangers have taken over security in Sterling City.”

  “That’s an understatement,” the commissioner said, getting up from his desk and walking toward the front windows of his office. He peeked through the blinds as he spoke. “I’ve got officers who’ve had badges for decades suddenly outranke
d by people barely old enough to drive. A lot of these men and women weren’t even happy about the Rangers when you were in charge, much less now.”

  “Could you find out who they are and mobilize them if you had to?” Lone Star asked. “Soon.”

  The commissioner let the two blinds he held open snap shut, turning to Lone Star.

  “What exactly are you planning?”

  “A battle for the fate of Sterling City,” Alex said. “More or less.”

  “We need to take these Deputies out of the equation,” Lux said, stepping toward the man. “But it would have to be a fast operation. We don’t want to give Cloak time to retaliate. We need your men and women to take them into custody.”

  “On what grounds?” The commissioner spread his arms wide. “I don’t like this any more than you do, but I’m not putting my officers at risk just to have them all dragged out of their homes in the middle of the night and thrown into some secret prison.” He crossed to a window near his desk, glancing down at the parking lot below with a wary eye. A long sigh escaped his lips. “Do you have any idea how many of my people I’ve lost just because they questioned a Deputy’s actions?”

  “If our plan fails, this city is doomed anyway,” Alex said.

  “We don’t need them to actually be arrested,” Lone Star added. “They just need to be detained for a few hours.”

  “You know they’re getting their orders from criminals,” Lux said. “What more do you need?”

  “Proof that they’re criminals,” the commissioner said, his voice growing louder. “I can’t just call in a couple dozen officers and tell them Lone Star visited me in the middle of the night and told me the New Rangers are actually supervillains.”

  “Here.” Alex tossed a small USB drive onto the commissioner’s desk. The commissioner raised an eyebrow. “That’s proof that there’s a link between the Cloak Society and the New Rangers.”

  “All right, kid, you’ve got my attention. What’s on it?”

  “Surveillance footage. On that drive you’ll find all sorts of video showing known members of the Cloak Society and the New Rangers hanging out together. Buying groceries together. Pictures, too. It should be enough to convince your officers.”