Strike 3: The Returning Sunrise

by Charlie Wood

  Tobin looked up into the lens.

  “I just want...I just want your help in keeping everyone safe.”

  Tobin looked down. When he didn’t speak for a few seconds, Wakefield turned off the camera.

  “Okay. We’re off. It’s out there.”

  “How’d I do?” Tobin asked.

  “About as good as anyone could have asked. Now we just gotta see if anyone listened.”

  ***

  Soon, with the sun setting, Tobin, Wakefield, and King Ontombe stood in the main square of Ruffalo Rock, with their eyes turned to the large, closed wooden gate in between the hillsides that led to the plains of Ruffalo Rock.

  “You know, we’re pretty far out here, Tobin,” Wakefield said. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. It’s gonna take a while for people to reach us, if they come at all.”

  “I know,” Tobin said, his eyes focused on the gate. “But I need to wait. I need to just wait here and see if anyone comes.”

  Wakefield nodded. He, Tobin, and King Ontombe stared at the doors. It was silent for a long while.

  Finally, one of the elephant guards standing on the other side of the doors shouted out.

  “Someone is approaching Ruffalo Rock! If they are allies, open the doors!”

  Tobin stood up straight, his eyes widening. He turned to Wakefield. The white-haired man smiled, surprised.

  Slowly, the wooden doors opened. Tobin stood on his tippy-toes and craned his neck to see who was coming through.

  It was Aykrada—Orion’s old friend, and the woman who had helped Tobin fight off the invading Hoplites in Gallymoora, almost a year ago. Wearing her familiar long, brown dress—and with the sunset shining in her green eyes—the beautiful, brunette, forty-year-old woman smiled when she saw Tobin standing with Wakefield and King Ontombe.

  Tobin quickly walked to her, and they shared a hug.

  “Hi, Tobin. I hope you know I would help you no matter what you asked for, whenever you needed it.”

  “I wasn’t sure. I know it’s a lot to ask, especially considering it’s for the other world, but—”

  They parted and she looked Tobin in the eye.

  “For you, Tobin, anything. I just wish you would have asked me sooner.”

  Tobin smiled. He was about to say something, but then the elephant guard interrupted him.

  “Someone is approaching Ruffalo Rock! If they are allies, open the doors!”

  Surprised, Tobin turned to the gate. He and Aykrada eagerly watched to see who was being let into Ruffalo Rock.

  It was a tall, muscular man in a blue costume, with a yellow cape flowing off his back, and a yellow ‘X’ across his chest. He looked like a dashing movie star, with dark hair and blue eyes.

  “Who’s that?” Tobin asked.

  “That’s Captain X-Treme. I was hoping he would come.”

  “But I’ve never even worked with him. I don’t think I’ve even met him.”

  “Tobin, with that call you sent out, I don’t know what hero of Capricious isn’t going to come help. You said it yourself: it’s what we do. Even if it is the other world.”

  “Someone is approaching Ruffalo Rock!” the guard shouted again. “If they are allies, open the doors!”

  For a third time, the wooden doors opened. This time, they revealed not one, but six heroes waiting there. Five of them were wearing identical ninja costumes and motorcycle helmets, which were only distinguishable from each other by the helmet’s color: one was red, one was blue, one was yellow, one was purple, and one was black. The sixth hero, the only one not wearing a motorcycle helmet, was an eight-foot-tall, orange-furred, shaggy beast, with large blue eyes, pointy ears, and fangs protruding from his mouth.

  “Hey, where’s the party at?” the orange beast shouted, his voice booming through Ruffalo Rock. “Are there cheeseballs? I basically only came for the cheeseballs.”

  “That’s Mad Dog John,” Tobin said. “And the Shigeru Knights. The entire team.”

  Aykrada smiled. “Mentioning your dad didn’t hurt. I don’t think there’s one hero alive who didn’t call him a friend. Or at least owe him a large sum of money.”

  Tobin laughed. He watched, relieved and amazed, as the various superheroes greeted each other in the main square of Ruffalo Rock with handshakes and slaps on the back.

  “Someone is approaching Ruffalo Rock!” the guard yelled. “If they are allies, open the doors!”

  Tobin turned to the gate. It opened.

  A stunning, pale-skinned, twenty-one-year-old girl with pin-straight black hair stood there.

  It was Adrianna, dressed in her purple costume, black cape, and black boots. Her double-sided spear was on her back. Looking across the square, she saw Tobin and smiled.

  “That was pretty cute,” she said, walking to him, “sending out that message to everyone. Pathetic, but cute.”

  “You’re here,” he said with a smile.

  “You seem surprised.”

  “Well, considering I haven’t seen you in about a month, I wasn’t expecting you to come.”

  “And miss all this?” She motioned to the castle and the gathering of heroes. “This is right up my alley. A suicide mission? I never pass up those.”

  Tobin laughed.

  “Plus,” Adrianna added, “someone who really helped me once needed me to return the favor. It was the least I could do.”

  “How’s your mom?”

  Adrianna glanced to the ground. “She passed. About two weeks ago.”

  Tobin’s face fell. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Thanks.”

  Tobin looked toward the castle doors. “Wanna go inside and talk about it?”

  “Sure.”

  As Tobin and Adrianna walked across the drawbridge, he turned and looked back, at the superheroes gathered in Ruffalo Rock’s main square.

  “Someone is approaching Ruffalo Rock!” a guard shouted. “If they are allies, open the doors!”

  Tobin smiled. He turned back to the castle and walked toward the building with Adrianna, holding her hand.

  Maybe, he thought to himself, they actually had a shot at this.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  On the front steps of the Trident skyscraper in the Boston Public Garden, Rigel and Nova stood surrounded by over a dozen shouting news reporters. The green-skinned reporters, dressed in their suits and hats, pressed nearer to the front of the building, as each of them desperately tried to get their microphones as close as possible to the men who led the city of Harrison.

  “Where is he now?” a reporter shouted at Rigel. “Does he have a statement on all of this?”

  Rigel squinted his eyes and held up his hand against the blinding popping of flashbulbs. “We read you his statement and provided you with his answer last night. There is nothing else the Daybreaker has to say about—”

  “But are we safe?” another reporter asked, extending his microphone toward Nova. “How do we know we are safe? If Orion and his team were able to break the dome, who’s to say they won’t do it again?”

  “There is nothing to be concerned about,” Nova replied. “This was a one-time occurrence and no one will ever be able to—”

  A female reporter pushed to the front of the group. “We want to hear this from the Daybreaker. We want to hear this from him, and see him while he’s saying it.”

  “The people are getting impatient,” a photographer from the Harrison Times shouted over the crowd. “Almost nobody has actually seen the Daybreaker, and now our city has been attacked—and the attackers were the people you’ve always been telling us to fear.”

  “There is nothing to fear,” Rigel replied sternly. “I can’t say that enough: there is nothing to fear and—”

  “Was it Orion? And the dog? Was it them who attacked us?”

  “We have no reason to believe—”

  “We have all seen the dog. Has it been confirmed Orion was with him?”

  Rigel shook his head and held up his palm. “No suspects hav
e been identified yet. We are going over all of the evidence and we will—”

  “Can you deny that it was Orion?”

  Rigel didn’t answer.

  “Can you deny that it was Orion that breached the walls?”

  Rigel thought it over. “We don’t know. We don’t know that yet.”

  The mass of reporters erupted into a fit of hysteria, with the entire crowd rushing toward the front steps. As the flashbulbs popped by the second, the group’s questions could barely be heard over all the shouting.

  “If it was Orion, are we in danger?”

  “Is he as dangerous as all of the reports say?”

  “What will Orion and the other villains do if they try to enter the dome again? Does the Daybreaker have a plan for all this?”

  Nova stepped toward the frantic crowd. “The Daybreaker is, right now, working to ensure everyone is safe. His number one priority is the safety of the people of Harrison.”

  “So are you saying we aren’t safe? We aren’t safe right now?”

  Rigel turned and opened the skyscraper’s door. “That is all. That is all we and the Daybreaker have to say for now.”

  The crowd shouted angrily at the abrupt end of the press conference. As Nova stepped inside the building with Rigel, he heard one reporter yelling the same question over and over:

  “But when will we see him? When will the people of this city see him?”

  “They’ve never been like this,” Nova said, looking out the glass doors at the shouting, shoving reporters in the Boston Public Garden. “They’re not supposed to be acting like this.”

  “That’s what happens when the normal order of things is disrupted,” Rigel replied. “People panic, and lose all sense. But things will calm down soon.”

  “I don’t think so. Did you see them out there? The papers have never—not once—ran a negative story about our leadership. The top story yesterday was the new pet store that opened on Baum Street. Today? The top story was ‘Where is the Daybreaker?’”

  Rigel stomped toward the elevator. “It’s a minor event. There will be a new story soon.”

  Nova shook his head. “Not this time. Hundreds of people saw Keplar in the middle of Harrison. Hundreds more watched as Strike and the Daybreaker battled on a bridge amid explosions and fire. The city is frightened. They are panicking. And rightly so.”

  Rigel turned to him. “What would you have me do?”

  “Show them. Show them the Daybreaker. As I’ve been telling you for weeks. Let them know he is here.”

  “And then what? Have him give a speech in front of everybody? You know he isn’t ready for that. He barely speaks to us.”

  “He doesn’t have to speak. It doesn’t have to be in front of the press. We just have to show the people that they are safe—that the Daybreaker is here for them and protecting them, always. If they don’t believe that, we lose them.”

  As Rigel thought it over, one of his assistants, a young man named Chris, approached him.

  “Sir? I’m sorry to interrupt, but I believe we’ve found something important.”

  ***

  Eight floors above the main lobby, Chris led Rigel and Nova into the skyscraper’s security room. They looked up at the wall made of dozens of surveillance screens.

  Chris pointed a remote at one of the screens. “We’ve been scouring the footage from the other night, but we haven’t been able to find much because all of the cameras were put on a loop during the breach. However, we were able to get this footage from the cameras outside the building.”

  A video appeared on the screen. It showed the hurried mob of partygoers leaving the skyscraper amid the flashing lights and alarms.

  “And what does this show us?” Rigel asked.

  The video zoomed in on Orion and Tobin in their Rytonian disguises. They were each holding boxes filled with papers and computer hard drives.

  “These match the identities we believe were stolen the night of the breach,” Chris explained.

  Nova studied the screen. “Because later these same people showed up to the party.”

  “Yes,” Chris replied, pointing to the figures on the video. “These two here must be fraudulent, because we know for a fact these two men and a few others were actually at the front entrance of the skyscraper, trying to get in. And look at what they are holding.”

  The video zoomed in on the box in Orion’s hand.

  “Why would these people be fleeing from the skyscraper in the middle of a fire alarm carrying boxes of information?” Chris asked.

  Rigel sneered. “Do we know where they got this information from?”

  “Our records show that there were two unauthorized connections to the Trident network that night. One was in the basement—the one we already know about—and the other was in the Space Travel Research labs on the 105th floor. This leads us to believe Orion, Tobin and the others were on an intel-gathering mission.”

  “And what information were they able to acquire?”

  “We can’t be sure, but much of what was accessed in the computer mainframe dealt with the project in Fairfield, Rhode Island.”

  “The trigulsaur research.”

  “Yes.”

  Nova turned to Rigel. “What would you like to do now?”

  Rigel stared at the screen, angry. “You are right. It is time to show the people of Harrison what the Daybreaker is capable of.”

  ***

  On the top floor of the skyscraper, finally recovered from his latest procedure and once again out of bed, the Daybreaker sat at his desk in his office and picked up a glass jar of pencils in his hand. As he stared at the jar, moving his fingers around the glass, the pencils were suddenly enveloped in blue electricity. Then, with a blue, snapping flash, the glass disappeared, only to reappear across the room, sitting on a small table near the door.

  The Daybreaker stared at the teleported jar of pencils. “Well,” the boy said, his voice still weak from that day’s extraction. “That was interesting.”

  After a knock on the door, it opened, and Rigel and Nova stepped inside.

  “Daybreaker?” Rigel said. “We need your help. Your people are in trouble. It is time to show yourself.”

  ***

  Inside the main tent of the Rytonian Rebels, Orion stood in front of a long black table, showing Ida a map of Ruffalo Rock.

  “Right now,” Orion said, pointing at the map, “Tobin, Wakefield and Junior are here, in Ruffalo Rock. We’ll be meeting them there shortly.”

  “And then what?” Ida asked.

  “We hope other superheroes meet us there and join us. And agree to fight for Earth. Then, when we are ready, when everyone is trained on the plan, we make our move in Boston and get the Daybreaker out of hiding.”

  “Sounds risky. And I don’t know if you’ll ever have enough time to train people on a plan. Or if you’ll ever have enough people.”

  “It’s what we’ve got so far. Do you have any other better ideas?”

  Ida smirked.

  “Will you join us?” Orion asked, folding up the map.

  “You really suppose your super-buddies are gonna be so welcoming to a team of green-skinned rebels from the Rytonian army?”

  “They will be when they see you’re on our side. Give us some credit. We can be welcoming, if it’s someone we can trust.”

  “Your dog friend doesn’t trust us. I know that look in his eyes.”

  “He’ll come around. He’s a hardhead. He’s putting on a tough-guy show to let you know he’s not afraid of you.”

  “I don’t think that’s what it is. I think he’s aware of some bad Rytonians and now he thinks all Rytonians are bad. He looks at us the same way he looks at Rigel or Nova or anyone of them.”

  “Are you saying he’s a bigot?”

  Ida shrugged. “Call it whatever you’d like. I just know he doesn’t trust us. Just because of the color of our skin.”

  “That’s not true. And I hope he proves you wrong.”

  Ida walk
ed toward the exit of the tent. “All I know is what I see. And I know he hasn’t talked to a single one of my men or women. Even when they tried to talk to him.”

  Orion looked across the tent. Keplar was sitting by himself in the far corner, away from everyone else, working on the settings of his plasma cannon.

  “I don’t like this, O,” Keplar said, as Orion approached him. “I don’t like this one bit. We shouldn’t be shacking up with these people.”

  “We can trust them, Keplar. It’s the same group of Rytonian Rebels we’ve been hearing about for months now. They’re on our side.”

  Keplar shook his head. “I don’t believe it. You really think any Rytonians were against the Earth invasion? They all want this place as their new home, or else the invasion never would have happened in the first place. Or at least they sure as hell wouldn’t have elected Vincent as their leader.”

  Orion looked down at him, shocked. “You know that’s not true, Keplar. You know all people aren’t the same.”

  The dog shrugged. “I don’t know. You name me one Rytonian who’s ever done anything good for anyone who’s not Rytonian.”

  Orion closed his eyes and laughed through his nose. “I’m gonna assume,” he said angrily, “that this is the exhaustion talking and it isn’t how you really feel. Because I never thought I’d hear something like this come out of your mouth.”

  As Orion walked away, Keplar sat in his seat and watched a group of rebels as they gathered around a table and ate their ready-to-eat military meals of sticky, grey beef stew and dried fruit. One of them cracked a joke as he poured out the cups of coffee and they all laughed.

  ***

  Outside the main tent, Jennifer sat by herself on a tree stump near the edge of the camp, where the forest began. In front of her, several rebels milled about the area’s smaller tents, but she didn’t pay attention to them. She simply sat hunched forward, with her arms across her stomach, looking up at the night sky, and thinking.

  From one of the smaller tents, Scatterbolt emerged, carrying a small canvas hammock in his hands.

  “Hey, Jen! What are you doing out here?”

  “Oh, just getting some fresh air. It’s a little crazy in there with all the…”