Strike 3: The Returning Sunrise

by Charlie Wood

  And then it struck Tobin: all of this madness was happening in the middle of Boston, Massachusetts. Even though it had changed nearly completely over the past two months, it was still Boston and always would be—that’s what this was all about. But seeing it being used as a war ground like this—with Boston Common as the main battlefield—made Tobin suddenly sick and angry. This was the city where his mom took him to his first Red Sox-Yankees game at Fenway Park when he was nine. This was where he and Chad went on a field trip in third grade to the Boston Aquarium, with Chad’s dad as their chaperone. This was where Tobin and Jennifer went shopping in the Prudential Center for back-to-school clothes before every school year. And now it was a warzone, with superheroes and super-villains from another world using it as a place to settle the fate of the universe.

  But Tobin put all that out of his head. He had to. He had more important things to worry about. Like staying alive, for one thing, and making sure he was still standing when the Daybreaker showed up. Forcing himself to focus, Tobin dashed forward and headed back into the fray, moving closer to the skyscraper, even amid the scalding explosions and eruptions of dirt, grass, and trees all around him.

  Then, suddenly, as the smoke began to clear, Tobin realized he was now only a few hundred yards away from the Boston Public Garden, and therefore the Trident. Only Zaius Moldron, Songbird, and a few last Eradicators blocked his way.

  Wow, he thought to himself. We’re actually gonna win this thing.

  ***

  Above the battlefield of Boston Common, on the top floor of the Trident, Rigel stood at the window in his office, watching the insane warzone outside.

  “Attacking us with everything they have all at once, weeks before I thought he’d make a move,” Rigel said. “I have to hand it to him: Orion made a wise strategic decision.”

  Nova stood behind the giant, frustrated. “Yes, clearly he did, because clearly they are winning. Why didn’t you send any members of the Rytonian army into the field? We easily could have overwhelmed them in sheer numbers alone.”

  “One of the most useful things in battle is an enemy who is overconfident,” Rigel said. “Let them have their pitiful victories against nameless, robotic soldiers and mindless demons. We know where the real power lies.”

  Nova couldn’t hold it in any longer. He stomped toward Rigel, pointing his finger. “We need to get down there, Rigel, now! I am through with sitting up here and waiting with you, listening to all your excuses about why it’s not time for us to act yet. It is time for us to act—just look out there! I am not going to stare out this window like a buffoon and watch us lose everything!”

  “Things are going exactly as planned, Nova. I will know when it is time for us to get involved. For now, we wait and let them tire themselves and think they are winning. It won’t be long until they learn what they are truly up against.”

  Rigel walked across the office and pressed a button on a communicator against the wall.

  “General Thrace?” the red giant said. “It’s time to unleash our friends from Rhode Island. Release them from their cages and send them into the Common.”

  He walked away from the desk and back to the window.

  “Come on, Nova. Let us watch what we have fought so hard for.”

  ***

  Down the hallway from Rigel’s office, the Daybreaker was laying in his bed in his own office, watching the same chaotic battle in Boston Common outside his window.

  But, as much as he wished he could get up and help save the city of Harrison, the Daybreaker knew that he couldn’t. He was sicker than ever. The procedures with Dr. Brooks were no longer working. He was still dying. Since his latest extraction in the science lab on the fourth floor, he could barely create any electricity or white fire from his hands at all. Even his new powers—the ones he had just developed—seemed to be gone. His entire head seemed foggy, heavy; all he could hear were the screams of battle outside and his own wheezing.

  Yet, still, the Daybreaker had to try. It was his destiny—and his destiny alone—to protect the universe from Orion and the other evil villains who were currently invading Harrison. Weakly turning away from the window, the Daybreaker reached for his helmet, which was resting on a table near his bed. But, he was too weak, and instead he only knocked the helmet to the ground, where it clanged loudly before rolling away. With his arm dangling onto the floor and half of his body hanging off the mattress, the Daybreaker lost consciousness—his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and his face went limp, falling against the baseboard of the bed. He stayed that way for five minutes, until finally Nurse Somerset came to check on him. After picking up his helmet in the doorway, she walked to the Daybreaker and gently helped him back into bed, resting his head on the pillow.

  “C’mon, sir,” she said. “You have to stay in bed. You’re not well. You have to rest.”

  “No,” he said, his voice scratching against his throat. “I’m the Daybreaker. I’m the Daybreaker.”

  ***

  Down on the ground outside, the battered, exhausted heroes finally reached the western end of Boston Common. Now, the only thing separating them from the Trident was a deserted, four-lane street that marked the end of Boston Common and the beginning of the Boston Public Garden.

  Tobin looked around. Stunningly, the battle seemed to be almost over. The unstopping, deafening sounds of war were gone, replaced by only the spare ZING! of a laser and the random shout from a Rytonian medic as they tended to the wounded. The grounds of Boston Common were still covered in a haze of smoke and littered with the motionless casings of Eradicators, but there were remarkably few injuries among the superheroes, animal warriors, and rebels from Ruffalo Rock. As Tobin looked ahead, he saw the few remaining super-villains of the New Capricious Council hurriedly retreating back into the skyscraper.

  “Um, am I crazy,” Tobin said, “or did we just win this thing?”

  With his goggles strapped to his eyes, Wakefield stared at the top of the Trident. “We haven’t won anything until the Daybreaker shows himself and we send him back.”

  “But there’s almost nobody left to fight,” Tobin said. “I hate to say it, but that was almost easy.”

  “The kid’s right, O,” Keplar said. “This doesn’t make much sense. This can’t be all they have to throw at us, can it?”

  “No,” Orion replied. “I still expect Rigel or Nova to show themselves at any minute. This was only their first wave, so the next thing—”

  A piercing, screeching ROAR! interrupted Orion. It came from the north of the park, towards the buildings around Boston Common, in the Boston neighborhood known as Beacon Hill. The sound was so loud that it vibrated in Tobin’s chest.

  The heroes all turned toward the north.

  “I think,” Tobin said, “that the next thing is on its way.”

  Then, over the tops of the buildings on the horizon, Tobin could see them—three silhouettes of flying beasts, gigantic in the sky, coming closer. Turning to his right, the boy saw three more massive creatures, soaring through the air and making their way towards Boston Common from the east.

  As the beasts flapped their wings and grew closer, Tobin could make them out more clearly—they were the trigulsaurs. Full-grown, dark green-skinned, long-limbed dinosaurs over sixty feet tall, with wings under their front arms and three large horns: one on their snout and two growing off the top of their head. They had spikes running down their backs all the way down to their tails, and their red eyes were filled with fury.

  Before the screeching trigulsaurs even reached Boston Common, they began to unclench their jaws, unleashing waves of orange, scorching fire to the buildings around the park. Whatever structures the dinosaurs didn’t engulf in flames, they simply tore down with their clawed, razor-tipped limbs and swinging, heavy tails.

  The city around the Common was suddenly set ablaze, and the air was filled with the wild, furious screams of flying beasts.

  The war had only begun.

  “Good god,�
� Keplar said, watching the six trigulsaurs approaching over the burning rooftops.

  “Stand your ground, people,” Orion said, with his eyes cast toward the sky. “This was only a warm-up. Things just got a lot more interesting.”

  With her camouflaged fatigues covered in black scorches and her face streaked with dirt, a war-ravaged Ida approached Orion. She held her laser rifle pointed towards the trigulsaurs in the north.

  “I’ve been watching you fight bad guys and win since I was in college,” she said to Orion. “Please tell me we are going to survive this.”

  “As long as we give it our all, we will be fine,” Orion said. “The only reason we are here is to give Tobin a chance to face the Daybreaker and send him back. We have to remember that. We’re not done here until that happens. We can’t give up. I’m not ready to give up.” He looked to Ida with a smile. “Are you?”

  Ida smiled back, reloading her laser rifle. “Of course not. I was just testing you.”

  Within seconds, the trigulsaurs were upon them. With all of their wild, animalistic rage unleashed and focused on the heroes, the giant green beasts swooped down and attacked. While three of the dinosaurs breathed fire from above and set the trees of Boston Common ablaze, the other three dinosaurs landed on the ground, digging into the earth and swiping at the heroes with their immense claws. As Tobin winced and turned away, one of the beasts took out two of the Shigeru Knights with one fatal, crunching bite from its jaws.

  The superheroes, animal warriors, and rebels began to scatter, their attacks now unfocused and hectic. While some of them continued to blast their weapons and use their superpowers against the trigulsaurs, the lesser-powered heroes and the majority of the rebels retreated into the buildings around the park, ordered there by Orion. Holding a plasma cannon similar to Keplar’s, Wakefield stood next to the dog and fired up at an attacking trigulsaur, but even their double dose of green plasma bursts exploded harmlessly against its scaly hide. As the beast darted forward and swung its fire engine-sized head at them, they were only just able to dive out of the way and take shelter behind a crumbling stonewall.

  With his mind racing and trying to think of a strategy, Tobin watched as Captain X-Treme flew in circles around one of the grounded trigulsaurs. With his yellow cape billowing behind him, the hero tried to confuse the fire-breathing creature and wail on it with his fists when it was distracted, but even the powerful, thunderous punches of Captain X-Treme only managed to create a dull THUD! against the trigulsaur’s snout. Eventually, Captain X-Treme landed on the back of the dinosaur’s neck, hammering at the beast’s eyes with his punches, but the dinosaur simply whipped its head back and sent the blue-and-yellow-garbed hero sailing across the Common.

  “Orion, we can’t take on these things like this,” Tobin said. “In sheer size alone they are overpowering us. We don’t have anyone on our side who’s strong enough to bring one down.”

  “What are we gonna do, O?” Keplar said, firing his plasma cannon at a trigulsaur swooping over them. “Time is running out here.”

  “Just keep hitting them,” Orion said. “They can’t take on all of us at once.” The old man turned to Wakefield. “Where’s Junior? I thought you said he would be joining us. We could really use his help right now.”

  Wakefield’s fists were covered by his bulky, robotic gloves, and his goggles were resting on the top of his balding head. “I don’t know, I tried to look for him this morning, but he was nowhere to be found.”

  Wakefield watched as Orion ran toward one of the trigulsaurs, firing his red-tipped, glowing arrows. He knew that he and Orion were simply too old for this—they wouldn’t last much longer against these beasts. And without Orion’s leadership, the rest of the group would shortly follow.

  “Damn it, son,” Wakefield muttered to himself. “Where are you?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  In the airplane hangar in Ruffalo Rock Castle, Jennifer and Chad sat in front of the giant red portal in the middle of the room, watching the gateway as if any moment Tobin was going to run back through it and tell them that the day was saved and everything was going to be all right.

  But the both of them knew that with every second that passed, that became less and less likely.

  Jennifer turned to the control booth on the second floor of the hangar. “Scatterbolt, I know Orion told you not to let us see the monitor, but we have to know what is going on over there.”

  In the glass-encased booth, Scatterbolt sat in front of a large, flat monitor embedded in the wall. On it, he could see the rampaging trigulsaurs flying through Boston Common and dismantling the heroes.

  “Just—just stay there and wait,” Scatterbolt stammered. “It’s fine. I think...I think they will be back soon.”

  Jennifer could tell Scatterbolt was lying. She wracked her brain, desperately trying to figure out what she could do to help. But she knew she couldn’t. She had to just sit there, and wait—wait and see if Tobin and the others would survive, and wait to see if her and her friends were going to have a home to go back to or not.

  “Jen,” Chad said, his voice wavering. “I just thought—through all this, I haven’t even had time to think. But our parents are on the other side of that portal. If Tobin and the others can’t save Earth—if they lose—we’re here. And everyone—everyone we know is over there. What’s going to happen to everyone if Tobin loses?”

  Jennifer thought it over. “We have to—we have to just wait. Tobin will do it, Chad. He will. He’ll save us. I know it. He has to.”

  Chad looked to the floor, hunched over with his elbows on his knees and his hands against his forehead. Overwhelmed, he began to cry.

  Dammit, Jennifer thought. Was this Orion’s plan all along? To bring her and Chad there, to Capricious, where they would be safe, no matter what? That way, even if the rest of the Earth fell to Rigel and the others, they would be safe on Capricious?

  Chad was right, Jennifer realized. If Rigel won, her and Chad would be on Capricious, but everyone else? Her family, her mom and dad? They would still be stuck on Earth, with probably no idea what was happening only 40 miles away from them in Boston. Even now, they had no idea what could possibly be in store for them.

  And it was all because of Tobin. That was the hardest thing for Jennifer to think about. Of all the super-villains fighting her friends on the other side of the portal, the one leading them was Tobin—the Daybreaker. Not the Tobin she knew, a different Tobin, but still, a boy named Tobin Lloyd. A boy named Tobin Lloyd was leading a team of super-villains who were about to take over the world.

  No, she thought to herself. She wouldn’t accept it. She couldn’t accept it. The Daybreaker couldn’t do these things to the planet Earth. He was still Tobin Lloyd. Somewhere, underneath the armor and the pain and the confusion, he was still Tobin. And Tobin couldn’t do these things, not unless someone was lying to him and he thought he was doing the right thing. Tobin Lloyd—her best friend—couldn’t be capable of hurting people like this. Whether he was the Daybreaker or not, there had to be a way to reach him.

  There had to be a way for her to reach him.

  In the control booth, Scatterbolt watched the monitor. The situation in Boston had only gotten worse. The stunning trigulsaurs were destroying Boston Common, setting it and anything inside it ablaze. As the robot watched, eight Rytonian Rebels were almost wiped out in one long swipe of a trigulsaur’s gnarled claws, only to be saved at the last second by Keplar, who dove and pushed them out of the way.

  “Orion, why didn’t you let me go?” Scatterbolt said quietly. “I could have helped you. Somehow, I could have helped you.”

  Suddenly, a speaker on the control board in front of Scatterbolt beeped, startling him. He turned toward the noise.

  Surprisingly, the voice of Wakefield’s son, Junior, came through the speaker. “Scatterbolt, you there?”

  Scatterbolt was shocked. “Uh, yeah. Junior, is that you?”

  “Yeah, it’s me, SB. Are you in the hangar rig
ht now?”

  “Yeah. Where are you?”

  Scatterbolt suddenly heard a metal clanging in the next room through the cement walls, like someone smashing a sledgehammer against a massive stone.

  “I’m in the laboratory next door,” Junior replied. “Clear the area and ready the portal. I’m heading in.”

  ***

  In Boston Common, any kind of advantage the heroes had possessed was gone. The majority of the park was burnt to ashes. They had lost many of their men and woman to the trigulsaurs, who were still rampaging through the sky and on the ground. Even worse, the super-villains of the New Capricious Council had reemerged from the skyscraper, along with a new wave of Eradicators, who were now picking off the decimated heroes as they tried to escape the flames of the dinosaurs.

  “Orion,” Ida said, crouching with the old man and Keplar behind a smoking, crumbling brick wall in the middle of the park. “We can’t take much more of this.”

  “We gotta move away from here, O,” Keplar said, with both his hands and his plasma cannon singed and smoking. “Get to a different part of the city, draw them out of here, confuse them—I don’t know, but we gotta do something.”

  Orion opened his mouth to agree with the dog, but then stopped. He suddenly heard a snapping noise, coming from the eastern end of the Common. It was the unmistakable sound of an inter-planetary portal opening.