by Charlie Wood
“Who are you?” the boy asked.
“I’m sorry,” the man replied, “but I can’t tell you that, either. Just make sure you remember that I gave you this, okay? That’s all you need to know.”
“Sure,” Tobin said, frustrated.
The man laughed. “Okay. Now you can go back to sleep.”
The man stepped away from the bed. Tobin could feel electricity running over his arms and legs. But he didn’t want to leave yet. He reached out and grabbed the man’s hand.
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “You have to go now. I have to go.”
But Tobin wanted to stay. He watched as the man walked to the woman and pulled her close.
Blue electricity sparked around Tobin. He and the man looked at one another.
Then, with a blue flash, Tobin was gone, and the bed was empty.
The man held the woman in the dark room.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Tobin saw a blue flash and realized he was floating down to Middle Street. When his feet hit the ground, he looked over the area. The street was quiet and nobody was near, but nearly everything had been destroyed—buildings were smoldering, trees were burning, and cloaks of Gores were littered across town. The ground itself was pockmarked with huge, gaping crevasses.
Tobin realized how much better he felt; his body was still achy, but his wounds were mostly healed, and his costume was repaired. Reaching back, he found the blue duffle bag over his shoulder. “Where the heck did I get this thing, anyway?” he wondered.
But, before Tobin could open the bag, he saw a body down the street. It was slumped against the ground, and its cowboy hat was covering its face.
“Keplar!”
Tobin ran to his friend, but found the dog unconscious. A laser blaster was still in each of his paws, and the barrels of the guns were smoking.
“Keplar!” Tobin yelled, kneeling near him and shaking him by his jacket. “Keplar, can you hear me? C’mon! C’mon!”
But the dog didn’t move. Instead, Tobin was surprised to hear a different voice calling for him.
“Tobin...Tobin...Here.”
Tobin’s head snapped up and he spun to the other side of the street; Scatterbolt was sitting against a building, with his metallic arms limp against his body. His white eyes were flickering.
“Oh, no…” Tobin ran to him. “Scatterbolt, are you okay? What happened?”
The robot’s voice was one monotonous stream—devoid of any personality. His mouth barely moved as he relayed the information.
“tobin lloyd seventeen years old father scott lloyd a-kay-a scott webber a-kay-a strike mother catherine lloyd maiden name richards born long island new york...”
Tobin knelt down, looking into the robot’s eyes, trying to get any recognition. “Hey, Scatterbolt, hey, I’m here now.” The boy could hear the gears inside the robot whirring and cranking, like a train running out of steam. He lifted him and placed him in the Robo-Pod, which was sitting nearby. “What happened, Scatterbolt? Where is everybody?”
“There were too many of them. We could not win. It was mathematically impossible. I am sorry.”
The robot’s eyes dimmed and his head slumped over.
“No, Scatterbolt, it’s okay, you did your best, buddy. I’m here now. Where’d Orion go? Where’s Vincent?”
The robot raised a shaking arm. With his hinges groaning, he pointed across the street.
“He. Smash through window. He. Chase Orion. Vincent.”
“Who? Who chased Orion? Vincent?”
“Yes. Hurry. Through window.”
Scatterbolt then shut down, his eyes turning off, and his body freezing in place. His hand was still pointing across the street, so Tobin turned and looked in its direction.
The boy couldn’t believe it. He stood up and walked to the broken window that Scatterbolt was pointing at, then looked up at the sign hanging over the building’s main entrance.
“You gotta be kidding me,” the boy groaned.
The building was Bridgton High School.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Inside Bridgton High School, a group of students were fleeing as a black-and-green monster stomped through the halls.
“Rarrrrrgghh!” Vincent yelled. “Where are you, Orion? Come out here and face me! Now! Face me, old man!”
As the students dashed into a classroom, Vincent ripped a locker from the wall and tossed it down the hallway.
“Where are you?” the monster screamed. “Where are you?”
Joel Manuel, the school security guard—a fortyish, chubby man—suddenly stepped in front of Vincent, summoning up every last bit of his courage. As he pointed his stun gun up at the monster, his hands were shaking.
“Stop,” Joel said. “Stop or I will stun you.”
Vincent looked down, growled, and then grabbed Joel by his neck, lifting him into the air.
“You better come out here, Orion! Because if you don’t, I’ll get impatient, and let’s remember what happens when I get impatient: I start ripping people’s limbs off.”
The monster reached down and gripped Joel’s arm, squeezing it in between his giant, green fingers. The security guard looked down at his shoulder, gulping.
But then a red arrow whistled down the hallway in a perfectly straight line and struck Vincent in the chest. The monster dropped Joel, grunted, and stomped off in the direction of where the weapon had been fired.
Stunned, Joel jumped up, grabbed his stun gun, and ran in the opposite direction of the monster. When he reached the school’s lobby, he passed by a seventeen-year-old boy in a superhero costume.
“Hey, Joel,” Strike said. “How’s it going?”
Joel ran out the front door.
“Oh, cool,” Strike said. “See ya later, Joel.”
Strike continued down the hall, but then saw a classroom door open. He darted behind a locker and hid there.
Chad Fernandes peeked out of the door. “Is everybody gone? Is it safe, do you think?”
Jennifer Robins looked out of the room. “I don’t know. What should we do, Chad? What is going on?”
Walking out from behind the locker, Strike approached them. “Um, hello.”
Jennifer and Chad turned around. They locked eyes with Strike as he looked back at them over his mask.
Then, Jennifer and Chad walked back into the classroom and closed the door.
“Oh, great,” Strike said, looking down the hallway, tossing his arms up. He knocked on the door and tried again, this time using a deep voice. “Hey, kids. I’m, uh, a good guy. I’m gonna…save…you.” He shook his head. “Yeah, that’ll work.”
Chad yelled from inside the room. “Who are you? How do we know it’s safe?”
“Just, uh, open the door and trust me, son,” Strike said, in his very-much-needs-practice superhero voice. “Everything will be okay, I promise.”
Chad thought about it, then answered with a swift, “No.”
Strike leaned toward the classroom. “Just open the door, Chad!” he whispered angrily. “C’mon!”
After a moment, Jennifer and Chad slowly opened the door. Strike motioned for them to come into the hall.
“C’mon, close the door, close the door! C’mon!”
The three friends stood in the hallway and looked at each other.
“You need to get the other people out of the school and get out of here as fast as you can,” Strike said.
“No, we can’t,” Chad replied. “It’s—it’s not safe.” He looked at the hero. “Who…who are you?”
“Um…”
Strike thought a moment.
“It’s me. It’s Tobin.”
A silence.
“Yeah right,” Chad laughed.
“No wa
y,” Jennifer added.
Strike threw his arms out, frustrated. He made sure no one was near, then pulled down his mask and pointed to his face.
“Look, it’s me. Hi. I dress weird now. How are you?” He put his mask back on. “Okay? Now get the hell out of here, please.”
“What…the…hell?” Chad asked.
“What are you doing?!” Jennifer demanded, scanning Tobin’s outfit. “What is all this, Tobin? Where have you been?”
“And why the hell are you talking like that?” Chad wondered.
“So many questions, so little time.” Strike pushed his friends toward the classroom. “Look, all I can tell you is that you need to get out of here and get far away. Now.”
“But we can’t,” Jennifer said. “There’s all kinds of monsters out there, Tobin—these things, they’re taking people away, and—and—we have to hide in here.”
“I know, but they’re gone now, Jen, trust me. The most dangerous place to be right now is here. Are you the only ones left in the school?”
“I think so,” Chad said. “Everybody else got out, but we were stuck. What’s going on, Tobin, honestly? Where have you been?”
“I can’t tell you right now, I already told you way too much. Just double-check the rest of the school and get out of here, okay?”
Chad opened the classroom door. “Dude, this is weird. And it just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
“Tell me about it,” Strike said. “One of my friends is a talking dog now. He’s cool, you would like him.”
Jennifer looked into the room. “Uh, guys, we’re gonna leave now. C’mon, it’s safe. Follow me.”
The students stepped into the hallway, all of them very frightened. Strike turned to Jennifer, with a hand on each of her arms.
“Just stay with the other kids now, okay, Jen? And don’t be afraid. I’m gonna take care of all this.”
“You are?” she asked.
“Um…I give it about a thirty-five percent chance. But go now, everything is gonna be okay. Go ahead. Go.”
Standing near the open classroom door, Strike watched as his friends led the other students down the hall.
“So,” he said to himself. “This is my life now.”
Past the science labs and past the gymnasium, Vincent ripped a metal door off its hinges and entered the courtyard in the middle of Bridgton High. Immediately, he saw the target of his search.
Orion was leaning against a tree, hunched over and breathing through his nose. One of his arms was clutching his ribs, while the other was dangling uselessly at his hip. He coughed and spat blood, which landed in a clump on his chest. His bow was on the ground next to him, in splinters, and his quiver was empty. He had stayed on this world, and fought an impossible fight, for too long.
Vincent walked to Orion, lifting him by his coat and pressing him against the tree.
“I saw more guts from you today,” the monster said, “than I saw in eight damn years of being your teammate. Where was this kind of fight when we were kids, O? Why didn’t you show me this then?”
Orion looked up, but his eyes were nearly closed, and his forehead was furrowed. His head wobbled weakly on his shoulders.
Vincent realized that the old man was dying.
“I know,” Vincent said after a moment. His voice was suddenly once again human. “I know I was never very nice to you, Orion. I gave you a lot of crap, when all you were trying to do was be my friend. That was a horrible way for me to be.”
Vincent remembered: he was seventeen years old, and the others were fifteen years old. They were in their daily training session in the Guardian Headquarters. As usual, Orion was trying to go through an obstacle course, but he was nervous, and he made a simple mistake. Vincent, though, was furious, and he yelled at Orion, jabbing a finger in his face and nearly bringing him to tears. Their mentor, a kind man named Steve, had to step in and pull the infuriated Vincent away.
In the high school courtyard, Vincent stared at his green hands gripping Orion’s coat. He could not believe they were now both old men.
“I look at the way I was then and I regret it,” Vincent said, relaxing his grip. “I do. Every day.”
Vincent was eighteen years old and Orion was sixteen years old. They were at a high school party. Orion was talking to a pretty girl, which Vincent knew took all of Orion’s courage and all of Scott’s words of encouragement to accomplish. After some initial nerves, Orion was doing quite well, but then Vincent walked over and poured a cup of soda over his head. Vincent laughed, so did the girl, and they walked away. Titan—with his feathered wings hidden—took Orion by the arm and led him to their other friends.
Vincent tried to push the memories away, but he couldn’t. He never could.
“But I acted like that because I couldn’t handle it,” he said. “Being a hero, being famous, having these powers—any of it. But you guys could. You loved it. You savored it. And I hated you for that.”
The Guardians were in their late teens, and they were taking part in a press conference. Titan and Orion were laughing along with the reporters as Strike took control of the microphone and the room, rattling off his rapid-fire jokes. Vincent—transformed into the Rantamede—was standing behind the others, awkwardly smiling and feeling out of place and untrue to himself.
Vincent’s grip on Orion’s coat tightened.
“And then,” he said, “after the others...I thought you would understand, Orion. You were smarter than them, and I thought you would listen to me. But you didn’t.”
Strike, Orion, and Titan were twenty-two years old. They were hanging out on a rooftop, talking and laughing with a couple of other brightly colored superheroes. Vincent, twenty-four years old, was watching them from a doorway, but when they called to him, he turned around and walked back into the building.
“And instead you went against me,” Vincent said. The animal, the fury, was returning. “And what became of you then, Orion? What did you turn into, after our team disbanded? You went and joined Scott and became his sidekick. That’s what sickens me the most about all of this. You became a sidekick.”
Vincent raised his massive claws over his head. They glistened with the moonlight.
“I’m sorry, O. For you and the others. I truly am.”
The claws snapped with black fire.
“But it always ends this way. Every time.”
Suddenly a voice spoke from above them.
“Look, I know why you’re pissed.”
Vincent snapped his head up; Strike was standing on a balcony, overlooking the courtyard.
“I’d be pissed, too,” the hero said. “Your super-villain name is the Rantamede. That’s gotta suck.”
Vincent dropped Orion to the ground and stepped toward the boy.
“There you go!” the monster said. “Now you’re taking after your old man—a joking, goofy lunatic, just like him. Perfect.”
Strike jumped down from the balcony, his cape rippling behind him. “I mean, there’s so many cool ones,” he continued. “Venom, the Joker, Sabretooth—and you get stuck with Rantamede? That’s not a super-villain name. I’m pretty sure that’s a sports drink of some kind.”
Vincent clapped his hands together, laughing. “Yes! You’re so much like him it’s scary! Next are you gonna knock up an Earth chick and be stuck here with her forever, too?”
Strike took his bo-staff from his back, lighting it with electricity.
“Enough. This ends now.”
Vincent held his hands out. “I’ve heard it all before, kid. And I just keep coming back.”
Black fire formed in Vincent’s hand, and he hurled it at Strike. The hero dodged it, cartwheeled to his right, and pointed his weapon at Vincent. A lightning bolt blasted from it, sending the monster to one knee.
/> Strike ran at the monster, standing over him. “Your reign of evil is over, Vincent Harris!”
Vincent knelt on the ground. At first it sounded like he was panting, but he wasn’t—he was laughing. He stood up and laughed loud and hard as he looked at Strike.
“Wow! That was horrible, Tobin! I mean, I have heard some goofy things come out of superheroes’ mouths in my time, but that was the worst! Embarrassingly bad. Top ten, without a doubt.”
Vincent made a fist, and instantly Strike burst into black flames. The boy panicked, trying to put fire out, but the flames only grew.
“Don’t feel too bad,” Vincent said. “That little lightning bolt from your staff hurts. A little. Like when you stub your toe.”
Vincent flicked his wrist, and Strike was immediately whipped up into the air. With another flick of his wrist, the monster sent the boy thrashing around the courtyard, and his body smashed into the surrounding walls and trees. With each high-speed thud, the boy could feel his bones cracking.
Finally, Strike fell to the ground. He lay there, with the air sucked out of him.
Vincent stomped toward him. “Time to finally learn why I’m doing this, Tobin. Time to finally get some answers.”
Strike used the last of his strength and stood, bracing himself against the wall. With a groan, he limped toward the entrance of the courtyard.
Vincent followed the boy, fire rolling in each of his hands. “This is my destiny, Tobin. I deserve this. You’ll see. I know how you think.”
Strike fell against the courtyard doorway. Leaning down, he picked up the blue duffle bag lying there. He turned around, holding the bag.
Vincent stopped. “What—where did you get that? Where did that come from?”
Strike unzipped the bag. “I put it over there before my big balcony entrance. Thought I might need it. Always planning ahead, this guy.”
Vincent stared at the bag. The fire in his hands disappeared. “No. That’s…what—what’s inside it?”