The Strike Trilogy

by Charlie Wood

  “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.”

  “Luckily,” Orion said, “King Ontombe and his animal warriors protect Capricious’ largest natural supply of Zeddtrified Ore, and they were gracious enough to allow us to use it, because they knew how drastic the situation was.”

  “And the bigger the portal, the more powerful it is?” Tobin asked.

  “Usually,” Orion replied. “We’re planning on this one being big enough and powerful enough to counteract whatever technology Rigel is using that stops us from teleporting into the Dark Nebula. If all goes how we think it will, this portal will be able to teleport everybody here right into the center of Boston. Unfortunately, there’s no way to test it beforehand.”

  Tobin grinned. “So we’re just gonna wing it and hope for the best.”

  “Not really,” Orion replied. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll just end up right back here where we started. And then we move on to Plan B.”

  “Which is?”

  “Well, we find whatever portal Rigel has been using to get supplies in and out of the Dark Nebula from Capricious, and we forcefully take over that one.”

  “So let’s just hope Plan A works out for everyone. That sounds good.”

  “Exactly.”

  Tobin looked in the reflection of the portal. Behind him, he could see some of the heroes who had come to Ruffalo Rock to help him. “So when are we using this thing?” the boy asked.

  “Tomorrow,” Orion replied.

  Tobin spun around. “Tomorrow?!”

  “Yup,” the old man said. “No more waiting. No more going on the defensive. We went through all that trouble of discovering Rig
el’s plan to use the trigulsaurs on Earth, and now we have to act. We cannot allow Rigel to move along with his plan for invasion any further. If we do, the Earth will be doomed, and there will be no second chances. Tomorrow, we go on the offensive.”

  Tobin looked up at the portal. “And we’re just gonna send everyone we have here—the heroes, the rebels, King Ontombe’s warriors—through the portal and into Boston, hoping to draw the Daybreaker out.”

  “Exactly. And when he comes out of the Trident to see what is happening, he’s gonna go after you. And when he does, you’ll hit him with this.”

  Wakefield reached to a table and handed Tobin a dark blue, metallic, shimmering bo-staff. Tobin noticed the middle portion of the staff was thicker than normal, and when he turned the weapon over, he saw that the Chrono-Key was now embedded in the center of the staff.

  “That weaponized Chrono-Key bo-staff will send the Daybreaker right back where he came from,” Orion explained. “Whether he wants to or not.”

  Tobin inspected the pocket watch stuck into the middle of his staff. “No more Daybreaker.”

  “No more Daybreaker,” Orion replied. “No more Rigel. No more New Capricious.”

  Tobin thought it over. “So, all we gotta do is hope that this giant, never-before-attempted portal works, then we hope our super-team of superheroes draws the Daybreaker out, then we hope we survive his attack, and then we hope I can somehow get close enough to him to hit him with this reverse Chrono-Key bo-staff.”

  A silence. Orion and Wakefield looked at each other.

  “Well, when you say it like that...” Orion replied.

  “The good news is at least we know the Chrono-Key can still send people back after being here for a long period of time,” Wakefield said. “‘Cuz it worked on your dad.”

  Tobin rolled his eyes. “Oh, that makes me feel so much better.”

  Orion laughed. “I know, Tobin. This is almost going to be impossible. There are more variants and things that can go wrong than I can imagine. But it’s our only chance. We have to hit them and hit them now. We can’t allow them any more time to prepare or unleash another horrible attack.”

  “Oh, I know,” the boy said. “I like the plan. I mean, I like it as much as I can like it. I just want to make sure everyone knows it’s all kinds of insane.”

  Orion nodded, smiling. “It is, that’s right. But I have faith in you, and I have faith in all of our friends to fight to the end. No matter what. And that’s all I can ask for.”

  Tobin turned around. Adrianna, the Shigeru Knights, and Captain X-Treme were inspecting Wakefield’s various inventions spread throughout the workbenches in the hangar, laughing and eagerly showing each other the bizarre devices.

  The boy turned to Orion and chuckled. “We’ve come a long way since we went up against Vincent with just me, you, Keplar, and Scatterbolt, haven’t we?”

  “Yes, we have. But I warn you, Tobin, this is like nothing we’ve ever faced. We just encountered the Daybreaker on Earth, and we barely escaped with our lives. The more and more I think about it, the more and more I realize that it has all led to this moment. Everything has led to this, since the moment I first introduced myself to you at the supermarket. It’s this moment here, and everything that happens tomorrow. We have to be ready, and we have to be aware of the implications of failure.”

  “Okay,” Tobin said with a nod. “We will be. But what do we do till then? Get a good night’s sleep?”

  “No,” King Ontombe said. “We party.”

  Tobin and Orion looked up. King Ontombe was standing on a walkway above the workbenches.

  “It is tradition to celebrate and feast when we welcome new friends to Ruffalo Rock,” the majestic eagle king said, his voice echoing in the airplane hangar. “The celebration has already begun outside. You will join us now. This is not optional.”

  King Ontombe turned and exited through a door, closing it behind him. Tobin looked to Orion and Wakefield.

  “I guess we better join him,” Wakefield suggested.

  “Isn’t this the time when you tell me to go to bed so I’m rested and ready for tomorrow?” Tobin asked.

  Orion smiled. “Usually. But this isn’t a usual situation.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  As Tobin, Orion, and Wakefield stepped outside, the boy was shocked to see that Ruffalo Rock’s main square had been turned into a giant, raucous street festival. Streamers and ribbons were draped across the roads, hanging from building to building, and a band near the wooden gated entrance was playing a rocking, rhythmic tune on their drums, trumpets, and guitars. Tented booths were set up along the sidewalks, and animals inside the tents were handing out cups of bright red punch, steins of beer, and all sorts of delicious, carnival-style food, like green-and-yellow popcorn, hamburgers dripping with mustard, ice cream, cotton candy, pulled pork sandwiches, and many other kinds of foods that Tobin didn’t recognize, but still smelt delicious. As he looked to his right, Tobin realized the middle of Ruffalo Rock’s main square was now one huge dance floor, with many of the superheroes and citizens of Ruffalo Rock already taking part in the festivities and shaking the night away to the sounds of the Ruffalo Rock band. Most shocking of all, Tobin discovered, was that King Ontombe was the band’s lead saxophone player.

  “What the heck is this?” Tobin said with a laugh. He watched as a group of acrobatic giraffes near the wooden gate juggled a series of flaming wine bottles for an applauding audience, tossing them back and forth between each other. “This is insane.”

  “I’ve heard of this before,” Orion said, looking at the hundreds of balloons floating up from the windows of the city. “It’s how King Ontombe and his people welcome new friends to their home. It’s not conventional the night before a mission, I’ll say that. But I guess we better blend in.”

  In front of them, Aykrada emerged from the crowd around the dance floor and took Orion by the hand.

  “That’s right,” she said. “Come here. You’ve been owing me a dance for the past fifteen years. Ever since Junior’s first wedding.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Orion stammered, trying to move away. “I don’t think I—”

  Aykrada pulled him onto the dance floor. “Don’t even try to get out of this. Your wife was always bragging about what a good dancer you are. Let’s see it.”

  As Aykrada forced Orion into the dancing crowd, the old man turned back to Tobin and mouthed, “Help me.”

  Tobin laughed and shrugged, holding up his hands. No matter how long it had taken him to get to Ruffalo Rock, or how many times he had almost died in the haunted caves on the train from Holdenshmirth, as Tobin watched Orion dance with Aykrada, awkwardly trying to snap his fingers to the rhythm of the music, the boy realized it had all been worth it.

  Looking across the festival, Tobin spotted Jennifer and Chad; they were standing near a booth that was handing out roasted bremshaw on a stick. Tobin’s friends from Bridgton still looked completely overwhelmed, but at least they were no longer petrified with fear. Well, not as much as they were before, anyway.

  “So, guys,” Tobin said as he walked to them. “What do you think of my other life?”

  “It’s insane,” Chad said, taking a bite of the pink-and-green, spoiled-ham-smelling bremshaw. “More insane than I could ever imagine.”

  “You’ve told us so much about it,” Jennifer said, “but nothing can prepare you to see a giant, talking eagle for the first time.”

  Tobin laughed. “I still can’t believe you guys are here. Are you okay? What the heck happened back on Earth?”

  “C’mon,” Jennifer said, motioning toward the rest of the festival. “Let’s talk about it. It might help me to regain some of my sanity.”

  As the friends walked toward a booth passing out fudge-drizzled marshmallows the size of basketballs, C
had reached out and grabbed a purple, shining candy apple from a tray.

  “Dude,” he asked Tobin, “do you think they have games here like the fair back home? And do you think Orion will be mad if I have some of that punch?”

  Meanwhile, on a bench against the edge of the town square, away from the dance floor, Keplar was sitting and watching the festivities from afar, with his crutches lying on the ground next to him. His arms were still wrapped with tape and his shoulders were still missing large chunks of fur, but the bandage on the left side of his face was now replaced with a single black eye patch.

  “From what I’ve heard about you,” Ida said, approaching the dog with two frothy steins of beer, “I’m surprised you’re not in there right in the thick of things.”

  Keplar snickered. “Not really in the mood tonight.”

  “Here,” Ida said, handing the dog a stein. “At least drink with me. You can’t be too out of it to turn that down.”

  Keplar clutched the beer in his paw. “No, definitely not.”

  As the dog took a big swig from the stein, Ida sat down next to him.

  “How you feeling?” she asked.

  “Like hell. But better, considering I’m pretty sure death was knocking on my door there for a while.”

  “It definitely was. I don’t know what would’ve happened if we didn’t get to you as soon as we did.”

  Keplar nodded. A silence passed.

  “Orion told me what you did on the chopper,” Keplar said. “How you didn’t give up on me, even when maybe some people thought you should. Thank you.”

  “Of course,” Ida replied. “You don’t have to thank me. I just did what I had to. I wasn’t losing anybody out there. I don’t do that.”

  Keplar looked to the ground. “I’m sorry for the crap I said before at the camp. I swear I’m not like that, it’s just—”

  Ida waved him off. “I get it. I don’t appreciate it, but I get it. It’s not the first time someone has judged me because of how I look.”