Strike 3: The Returning Sunrise (13 page)

“No one will die who does not need to die. Those that stand with us will not perish.”

Tobin shook his head again, smirking. “My god, that’s not how you talk. I
know
that’s not how you talk, because that’s not how
I
talk. Now you’re just repeating Rigel. You don’t have a single thought that belongs to you, do you?”

“Yes, I do. This is all mine. All of this belongs to me. I’m in charge of this entire operation.”

“That’s what you think, huh?” Tobin asked with a grin. “That’s cute.” Tobin thought it over. He couldn’t beat the Daybreaker with brute strength, but the mirror image of himself was clearly distracted by his anger. He would have to exploit that weakness with all that he had. “Seriously, it’s so obvious now what’s happened: you’ve bought into all their crap, just like they thought you would. I just didn’t realize I was so stupid. I mean, really, if you’ve decided to be a super-villain, at least get your own personality. I can’t believe I basically became the fat-free version of Rigel, with better skin.”

“Rigel is not telling me what to do.” The Daybreaker pounded his fist against his chest. “I am in charge. They have shown me that it’s my destiny to rule over Earth and Capricious. To protect it, with my powers. To protect it from people like you.”

“So to do that,” Tobin said, “you’ve encased
Boston
in a huge dome and now you’re scaring the crap out of the entire world.” He gave the Daybreaker a thumbs up. “Sounds like you’re doing a great job so far, buddy, keep it up.”

The Daybreaker smirked. “They told me you would do this, if we ever met. They told me you would make jokes and try to get under my skin to distract me.”

“You should have listened to them. They were right.”

Tobin unleashed a stunning blast of lightning from his bo-staff. It barreled into the Daybreaker like a freight train and exploded in a burst of blue light against his chest, finally knocking him off his feet.

Tobin walked toward his downed opponent, readying another blast in his staff.

“I don’t know what they are teaching you in that skyscraper,” the boy said, “but you’ve clearly got a lot left to learn. Don’t you know that the longer we store our energy in objects, the stronger the blast? You seriously just stood there and let me charge my staff for like five minutes. You know, I keep thinking that you’re really stupid, but then I realize that means
I’m
really stupid. You’re indirectly giving me low self-esteem here.”

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 getaway 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.”