by Charlie Wood
Tobin blasted the Daybreaker again with his bo-staff, but this time the Daybreaker erected a wall of white fire in between them, blocking the blue electricity.
“I was gonna try and talk to you,” Tobin said, “but, instead, I’ll just kick the crap out of you and take you to Orion myself, so then we can tell you what’s really going on.”
The Daybreaker’s white wall of fire disappeared, and the armored teen stood up. “I used to be like you,” he said. “I remember, before everything changed, before Rigel told me the truth. But now, I see the world as it truly is. And I know people like you and your friends must be eliminated, for the better of the world.”
“Look, I tried to be nice,” Tobin said. “I did. But now you’re just pissing me off. And you should know what happens when we lose hold of our temper. We do really stupid things.”
The Daybreaker smiled. “I know why I have these powers, you know. I know why I’m better than everyone else. Rigel showed me. I have these powers to destroy people like you. It’s only a matter of time. And I’ll destroy the others, too. The robot, the dog. You will all die, and it will be because of me.”
Tobin charged up his bo-staff. “Yup. Here comes something really stupid.”
Tobin ran at the Daybreaker, and they clashed on the rooftop, with their bo-staffs erupting in an explosion of blue-and-white electricity.
***
Only a few blocks away, Keplar and Scatterbolt dashed down a dead-end street toward a black, inconspicuous getaway car. Orion was waiting for them there.
“You made it,” Orion said, walking toward them. “Where’s Tobin?”
“He was headed down here before we were,” Keplar said, huffing and puffing with his hands on his knees. “He should be here already, we thought he was here. You haven’t seen him?”
“No. Did you talk to him?”
“Yeah, when we were escaping,” Scatterbolt said. “But he said he was on his way here, so we—”
An explosion of white light and heat erupted from a rooftop back near the skyscraper, behind Keplar and Scatterbolt. Startled, Orion and the others looked in its direction.
“I think we know where Tobin is,” Scatterbolt said, watching the white fire on the rooftop burn.
Orion opened the car door. “Get in.”
***
On the rooftop, Tobin had given the fight his all, but he was now overwhelmed. White fire was everywhere, and the boy was beaten to hell and bloodied, with his costume and skin burned. As he lay on the roof with his nose broken and his face smeared with soot, he looked up at the Daybreaker. The armored teen was now hovering over him, surrounded by fire, his eyes burning white.
“This is what happens,” the Daybreaker said. “This is what happens to people like you. This is what will happen to Orion. I will rain down death upon all of you.”
“Yikes,” Tobin said, rolling over with his arm clutching his ribs. “Someone has been practicing that line for months. But B-minus on the execution. Sorry, DB.”
“Enough!”
The Daybreaker opened both palms and sent a river of fire rolling toward Tobin. The boy screamed in agony.
“I am the protector,” the Daybreaker said over the noise of the fire. “I am the ruler of all. I am Tobin Lloyd. I am the Daybreaker.”
The fire finally stopped, and Tobin got to his feet, stumbling against a wall. “You’ve got it all wrong,” Tobin said. “I tried to tell you. I don’t know what else to do. But you have to stop. They are letting you—they are turning you into a monster. They’ve turned—they’ve turned me into a monster.”
“They have only showed me my destiny,” the Daybreaker said. “They have only showed me what I really am.”
The Daybreaker clenched his fist tight and sent a white lightning bolt down at Tobin from the sky, but the boy blocked it with his blue bo-staff and rolled out of the way. Jumping up, he flung his electrified weapon at the Daybreaker, then lightning-jumped to the rooftop of a nearby high-rise hotel.
“Surprised, aren’t you?” Tobin said, breathing heavy. “Surprised that I’m not just giving up? Doesn’t that show you I’m telling the truth? That there’s more about this that you need to know?”
The Daybreaker hovered up into the air and flew to Tobin. “I know all there is to know.”
***
Underneath the high-rise hotel, a crowd had gathered, looking up in confused shock at the battle between Tobin and the Daybreaker on the roof. The Harrison police force were also on the scene, trying to back the people away from the hotel, but the curiosity of the crowd was too much, and the hectic scene was only causing more citizens to stop their cars and look up at the chaotic fight.
Nearby, at the edge of the crowd, Orion, Keplar, and Scatterbolt pulled up in the getaway car.
“Crap,” Keplar said, looking up at the white explosions of fire on the hotel rooftop.
“We have to get up there,” Orion said. “He can’t take on the Daybreaker alone. Scatterbolt, do you think you could helicopter us up there?”
“I don’t know, it’s awfully high. But I’ll try, I think I can—”
Something beeped inside Scatterbolt’s chest. Opening his chest compartment, he retrieved his faker. The button on its top was blinking.
“Guys, I think our fakers just ran out.”
Orion looked in the rear-view mirror. He saw his own reflection. “Dammit. Looks like we’re exposed. It makes no difference now, anyway. Scatterbolt, get ready to get us up there and—”
“Look!” the robot shouted, pointing to the roof of the hotel.
Tobin and the Daybreaker were now fighting on a sky bridge that connected the high-rise hotel with a nearby shopping center. They were over three hundred feet in the air, trading blows high above the street.
The crowd underneath them gasped with fear.
***
Knocked back by the Daybreaker’s bo-staff, Tobin rolled over and crawled to the edge of the sky bridge. As he looked down toward the crowd of people far below him, blood dripped from a gash across his forehead.
The Daybreaker stepped toward Tobin, with his staff at his side. He didn’t have a mark or wound on him. “You fought pretty good, whoever you are. You’re just as tough as they warned me you’d be. But this ends now.”
“It doesn’t,” Tobin said, looking down at the street. He rolled over and faced the Daybreaker. “That’s the thing. Whatever happens here, it’s just going to get so much worse for you. It’s going to get so much worse, if you don’t listen to me.”
“There’s nothing to listen to. It’s finished. It’s done. I am going to rule over the universe. That’s why I have these powers, it’s why I have this gift. For moments like this. You won’t be here to see it, but I am going to protect and rule over everyone.”
“No, you’re not,” Tobin said. “You’re just going to become a murderer, just like Rigel and Vincent. You’re going to become a murderer, if you aren’t already.”
“No, I won’t. I’m going to be a hero.”
The Daybreaker hit Tobin with one more blast of fire. It pushed Tobin closer to the edge of the bridge. The boy’s legs were hanging off the side now, and he was barely conscious, gripping onto the sky bridge with his fingertips.
The Daybreaker walked over and placed his boot on Tobin’s forehead. “I’m a hero now,” he finished. Then, with a swift push from his foot, he sent Tobin off the side of the sky bridge, and the boy plummeted down towards the street.
***
In the getaway car below the high-rise hotel, Orion and the others watched in shock as Tobin fell from the sky bridge. The crowd on the street screamed as the boy’s lifeless body tumbled toward them through the air.
“Oh my god,” Orion said, opening the car door.
“Give me your portal pistol,” Keplar snapped.
“But you can’t, it will—”
The dog held out his hand. “Just give it!”
Orion tossed Keplar his portal pistol, and the dog jumped out of the g
etaway car. Running full-speed down the middle of the street, he pushed the people of the city out of his way and dashed toward where Tobin’s body was going to land.
However, as Tobin continued to fall, the crowd in the street turned toward the commotion Keplar was causing.
“It’s him!” a green-skinned man shouted, pointing at Keplar. “It’s one of them! From the posters!”
The man’s wife let out a blood-curdling scream. “Somebody help!”
The Rytonian people that were gathered around the hotel erupted into even more of a frenzy at the sight of the giant dog, but Keplar didn’t pay any attention to them. He only ran faster forward and kept his eyes pinned upward, locked on Tobin.
But, the boy was falling faster and faster. The dog wasn’t going to have enough time. Unless he pushed himself. Unless he ran faster than he ever ran in his entire life.
Soon, Tobin was only seconds away from smashing into the street. The crowd in that area ran away and dispersed, not wanting to be near the site of the horrible impact.
Ten feet away, Keplar left his feet, jumped into the air, and slid forward across the asphalt like a baseball player. Coming to a skidding stop directly underneath Tobin, the dog pointed his portal pistol up into the air and pulled the trigger. With only milliseconds to spare, Tobin’s body hit the red, swirling portal floating above the barrel of the gun, and the gateway popped with a loud SNAP!, before disappearing in a flash of red light.
When Keplar let go of the pistol’s trigger, all was quiet. Lying on his back in the middle of the street, the dog opened one eye and looked up. Tobin was gone.
With a groan, Keplar pushed himself off the asphalt and stood up, wiping off his hands and very pleased with himself. But, then, he looked around.
He was no longer a 300-pound blonde woman. He was now a six-and-a-half-foot-tall Siberian husky in a cowboy hat, leather jacket, and blue jeans.
“Why, hello everybody,” the dog said to the hundreds of shocked citizens gathered around him. “So, I gotta know: am I public enemy number one, two, three, or four? I’m really pushing for at least two.”
A green-skinned man pointed at him and screamed. “Police, help!”
As the crowd burst into a panic, Keplar ran back toward the black getaway car. With Orion driving straight toward the dog, Scatterbolt flung open the back door and Keplar jumped in.
“So,” the dog said, as Orion drove away from the fleeing crowd, “this car is supposed to be able to teleport us back to Capricious, right?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Even though we’re inside the Dark Nebula?”
Orion jerked the wheel and drove on the other side of the street, dodging an oncoming police car. “I hope so.”
“Well, let’s give it a try, then. ”
***
Up on the hotel sky bridge, the Daybreaker watched as the black getaway car sped through the streets of Harrison. To his right, a door on the sky bridge opened, and Rigel and Nova dashed out of the hotel and onto the bridge.
“Daybreaker, what happened?” Rigel shouted. “Why didn’t you alert us?”
“Where’s Strike?” Nova asked.
“He escaped through a portal,” the Daybreaker replied.
“Where are the others?”
The Daybreaker pointed downward. “There.”
Rigel and Nova looked to the street; within seconds, a red electrical energy spread across the roof of the black getaway car. Then, in a bright red flash and loud CRACK!, the car disappeared, leaving in its wake only burning tire tracks across the asphalt.
Rigel stared at the empty street, in shock. “They escaped. They escaped back to Capricious.”
“Yes, they did,” the Daybreaker said. He turned and walked toward the door on the sky bridge. “I expect all of our energy and resources to be focused on finding them. They’ve become a nuisance. They must be punished for invading our city and frightening our people.”
“Yes,” Nova replied. “Yes, sir.”
The Daybreaker opened the door on the sky bridge and exited into the hotel.
When the armored teen was gone, Rigel looked down at the crowd of people underneath the bridge. “We can no longer rely on him. He has become completely uncontrollable. We have no choice. The extractions of his powers have to be increased.”
“We can’t increase them anymore than we have,” Nova said. “It will kill him.”
“I will not let Orion and Tobin embarrass us like this again,” Rigel said. “As soon as we are back at the Trident, ready the Daybreaker for another extraction. And tell the doctors to increase the severity.”
Rigel walked toward the hotel door, leaving Nova alone.
“It’s up to us now, Nova. Things have changed. We are in charge now.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
High in the mountaintop above the green, leafy trees, all was quiet on the sky-ship landing platform of the Museum of the Heroes.
That is, until a black getaway car appeared through a snapping red portal and screeched its tires across the platform’s brick surface. Eventually, the car came to a stop, resting at the very edge of the landing area, with its roof and hood smoking.
“Well,” Keplar said, his body contorted into a pretzel in the backseat, “we made it. Kind of. Did anyone follow us? ‘Cuz then we are really screwed.”
Orion let out a sigh. “No, it appears not. No one was in range to follow our portal, thankfully. Now the question is, where the heck did you send Tobin?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t have time to enter any coordinates into the portal pistol while I was running toward him. I just kept entering the same thing, over and over.”
“Which was?”
Keplar turned to Orion. “Lake.”
***
Five hundred miles away, a red portal opened in the night sky above the dark waters of Lake Okanda. With a SNAP! and red flash of light, the portal disappeared, leaving Tobin to float in mid-air above the lake.
However, as Tobin had learned the first time he used a portal pistol, it’s not the best idea to be on the other side of a portal that opens in the middle of the sky.
Screaming the whole way down, Tobin fell toward the freezing water and hit it with a SPLASH! Breaking the surface and reaching the cold night air, the boy caught his breath, gasping and shocked. After regaining his bearings, he quickly swam to the nearby shore.
“Okay,” he said, pulling himself up onto the sand and sitting down facing the water. “What the heck happened? Let’s see: I was fighting the Daybreaker. He beat the ever-living crap out of me. I remember that for sure. I think I fell off the bridge, and then I saw a portal. And now, I’m here. Only problem is...where the heck is here?”
Tobin looked around. Behind him, past the sandy shore, there was a thick forest of tall pine trees.
“Well,” the boy said. “I guess I better get walking.”
After taking off his cape and the blue vest that showed the white lightning bolt ‘S’ on his chest, Tobin rang the water from the items of clothing and then walked into the dark forest.
“Knowing my luck,” Tobin said to himself with a shiver, “something tells me I didn’t end up anywhere near a beach and/or bikinis and/or tropical drinks.”
Twenty minutes later, after hiking through the towering pine trees, Tobin finally saw a smattering of lights up ahead. It was a small town, filled with little log cabins with brick chimneys puffing out white smoke, and tiny, cozy shops, all of which were made out of wood and topped with pitched, shingled, snow-covered roofs. Lights were twinkling from each of the shops’ windows, and red-cheeked people in winter coats were strolling through the main street of town, sipping from cups of coffee and hot cocoa.
“Hmm,” Tobin said, emerging from the forest and stepping onto the snow-dusted street. “This doesn’t look so bad. Now to find a phone. And hope no one recognizes me.”
As Tobin made his way through the sleepy town, thankfully no one seemed to be concerned by his presence. Mostly they ju
st seemed to be confused because it was the middle of winter and he was wearing clothes that were soaking wet. An older woman walking with her husband stopped and gave him a particularly long once-over.
“I don’t like to take off my shirt when I swim,” Tobin said, tugging on his drenched costume. “Self-conscious.”
After passing the bewildered woman, Tobin spotted a pay phone nestled in a little plaza in front of a bakery. He quickly made his way to it and dialed a number.
In the Museum of the Heroes, Orion, Keplar, and Scatterbolt had just finished bringing in the boxes of files and hard drives that Orion and Tobin had taken from the Trident.
“Okay,” Orion said, “before we start looking these over, I want to immediately start figuring out where we sent—” A buzzing came from Orion’s phone. He took it from his pocket and answered it. “Hello?”
“Here I am,” Tobin said. “I think I’m gonna take a short vacation, if that’s all right with you.”
Orion turned to Keplar and Scatterbolt. “It’s Tobin.”
“Oh, thank god,” Keplar said.
“Where is he, where is he?” Scatterbolt asked.
“Tobin, are you okay?” Orion said into the phone. “Where are you?”
“I’m okay,” Tobin said. “Soaking wet, but okay. Only problem is I have no idea where I am.”
“Do you see anything? Anything that looks like a landmark?”
Tobin looked around. “Not really. I’m in some small weird town. It seems really safe and normal—for Capricious, anyway.” Tobin looked to his right. A seven-foot-tall penguin covered in shaggy, brown fur was walking by the payphone. The round, waddling bird’s eyes couldn’t be seen thanks to the hair draped over his face—the only thing visible was his protruding yellow beak.