Fall of Heroes (5 page)

Somewhere in the darkness there was laughter.

“Run!” Lone Star shouted.

They barreled through the crevice, half tripping over one another on the way out. Once in the clearing, they ran across the wastelands and up a sloping mound of shadow that ended in a steep cliff, dropping off into a sea of darkness. And at the very top of the cliff, a light began to shine. Just a pinprick at first, and then suddenly a diamond portal looking out onto the roof of the Rook. Bug was there, as was Misty, their silhouettes distorted, like they were being seen through a veil of water.

Behind them, there came more laughter. Gage and Amp turned to see a figure running out of the shadows of the mountain path. They recognized him immediately.

Ghost.

“Oh no,” Amp whispered.

“He's with Cloak,” Gage shouted. “Everyone, get through the portal. Now!”

Ghost moved with a quickness that shouldn't have been possible. His skin was even paler than the last time Gage had faced off against him—when the inventor had turned Ghost's powers against the Omega and banished him to the Gloom. His silver, clawed glove shone as it caught the light from the portal. The metallic sound they'd heard earlier suddenly made sense. Lone Star swung his spear at Ghost, who caught it, and with one squeeze splintered the wood into hundreds of pieces. He kicked the Ranger, sending him soaring backward. Lone Star would have tumbled off the edge of the cliff and into the abyss had Amp not managed to stop him.

Ghost locked eyes with Gage.

“
You
,” he seethed. “You're the reason I'm here. That weapon you had put me in this prison.”

“I guess it hasn't been Phantom's top priority to break you out of here,” Gage said. He kept one eye on the others, trying to distract Ghost long enough for them to make their exit.

“The darkness of the Gloom has made me so much stronger.” His gray lips spread over sharp white teeth. “You've only made me more powerful.”

Ghost lunged at Gage, his clawed hand outstretched. Storm Lad intercepted the attack at the last moment, pushing the young inventor up and back, toward the portal. In a flash, Amp's father was there, too, trying to restrain the Omega.

Lux started after them, but Gage grabbed her arm.

“Come on,” he shouted. “Now's our chance. We have to go while he's occupied.”

Lux hesitated, but nodded, and the two of them ran through the portal.

“Stop!” Lone Star shouted, taking a step toward Ghost. “We've done nothing to you.”

“You idiots,” Ghost said, laughing. He sent the Guardian tumbling backward with an elbow to the chest. In one swift move, Ghost was holding Storm Lad over the edge of the cliff by his neck. “You think I care what happens to any of you? I just want
out
. Why do you think I let you get this far? Phantom's kept me in here long enough. I've learned my lesson. I'm ready to take on the real world.”

Ghost released his grip. Storm Lad plummeted into the darkness far below, a terrifying howl escaping his lips.

“No!” Amp shouted.

Amp's father tackled Ghost. Amp started toward them, but his mother blocked his path. She gave him a long look, and then raised one hand to the starburst on her chest. After a pause, she moved her fingers to her son, pressing down on the space above his heart.

“Amp!” Lone Star started toward the portal as the Guardian wrestled with Ghost. “Go. Now. That's an order.”

“Good-bye,” Amp said softly, afraid that any hint of power in his voice might force his mother away from him.

The Sentry mouthed a few words to her son. Then she pushed him with a surprising amount of strength, sending him falling through the portal.

The sun was blinding as Amp spilled out onto the roof of the Rook. His mind was spinning. Someone was at his side, pulling him to his feet. He tried to get his bearings, but everyone was yelling at once. He finally focused enough to see Bug tapping away at the electronic screen. Zip flew in quick, frantic-looking circles above his head.

Lone Star tumbled out of the portal.

“Close it,” he choked. “He's right behind me.”

They watched in horror as Ghost's clawed hand emerged from the rift between worlds.

“Finally,” Ghost said as his head came into view, his voice a rasp. He was halfway out of the gateway as it began to close around him, one foot on the ground. Amp focused and tried to loose a sonic blast at the Omega, but it was no use. His powers hadn't fully returned yet.

And then, just before Ghost's body was completely in the real world, he stopped and jerked back. A thin gray hand latched on to one of his biceps, then another on his neck, and an entire arm around his waist.

“NO!” Ghost screamed as his body was pulled back into the Gloom. “I won't—”

But whatever he shouted was cut off as the portal melted away, leaving nothing but bricks in its place. Amp ran forward, but his hand met with solid wall. He leaned his head against it. His breathing was fast and deep.

“Was that Ghost?” Misty asked. Bug was on his feet beside her. The light from his eyes faded as Zip alighted on his shoulder.

“Yes,” Gage said, staring at Amp.

“So, whose arms were those that pulled him back in?”

“Heroes from another time,” Gage said as he shoved the Gloom Key into a small bag.

Lone Star stared into the sun, his arms out, palms up, as if absorbing its energy. Lux stood near him, in a similar pose.

“The sun,” she said quietly. “I never thought I'd feel it on my skin again.”

“How are you?” Gage asked.

“Tired,” Lone Star said.

“Your powers, though. What about them?”

“I . . . I can't feel them,” Lone Star said. He stared down at his hands.

He looked over to Lux. Before they'd been in the Gloom, her hair had always shone as if it were made of moonlight, silvery strands of pure brilliance. Now it was simply a dull, near-white color. She shook her head.

“Don't you feel them returning?” Amp asked, stepping away from the wall. “I mean, I'm already absorbing sounds and feel stronger. It usually only takes me a few minutes to get back to full power. Aren't you recharging? We can go fight Cloak right
now
. This can all be over in minutes.”

Lux and Lone Star said nothing. They didn't have to.

“Your powers will come back,” Amp said, though more to himself than to them. His voice was verging on panic. His eyes were bleary. He pounded a fist against the wall. “We rescued you. They
have
to come back.”

“Until then,” Gage said, “Misty, if you'll—”

Misty stared at Lux and Lone Star for a beat before giving them both a slight curtsy.

“Mr. Lone Star, Ms. Lux—I'm the Mist. Take my hand and I'll get you off the roof. Then I have to go save the rest of our teammates.”

Reluctantly, the two adults put their hands in hers, as the rest of them touched her shoulders and arms.

“I hope the others are safe,” Bug said.

“We'll know soon enough,” Gage replied as they all began to break apart.

5
TRAPPED IN A BUBBLE

A
lex tried to orient himself as he flew backward, but the air was full of smoke and debris. Somewhere near him, Kirbie was screaming, but he couldn't find her. He couldn't even tell which direction was up. He curled himself into a ball like he'd been trained to do in situations like this, surrounding his body with a telekinetic shield. The next thing he knew, stone was breaking against his back as he smashed through one of the few pieces of the Stonehenge replica that were still standing. His body slammed against the grass on the other side of the display. Kirbie rolled to a stop beside him. The blast had caused her to change back into her human form.

“You okay?” Alex asked, scrambling to stand and looking for cuts on himself. Kirbie did the same.

“I think so,” she said. “What
was
that?”

Alex's ears were ringing, making Kirbie sound muffled and far away. His eyes scanned the cloud of dirt and debris in front of them, looking for his mother. She was nowhere to be found.

“Concussion grenade.”

“Your cheek,” she said, looking worried. “You're bleeding.”

How sweet.
Shade's disembodied voice rang clear in his head.
I'm glad to see someone's been looking after my son in my absence.

From somewhere across the lawn, Alex could hear the sound of a fight continuing: the cracking of thick wooden limbs and pings of metal alongside shouting that was just distorted enough by the ringing in his ears that Alex couldn't distinguish who was yelling.

There was a pounding noise behind him, low and resonant. Someone was trying to get through the sealed-off museum exit. Deputies.

You probably think that was a clever move, what you did with the doors,
Shade's voice came again.
But I control the one who has mastery over metal. You're not keeping anyone out. You're trapping yourselves in.

“Make sure the others are okay,” Alex whispered to Kirbie, who nodded and disappeared into the wall of dust.

There was a glint of silver amid all the debris, and the outline of his mother's head. Alex wrapped his thoughts around a Gasser in his back pocket—one of Gage's inventions that emitted a nearly invisible cloud of knockout gas—and sent it flying toward Shade. But there was a small burst of light and a high electronic sound and then the Gasser was in pieces, shot out of the air by one of his mother's laser pistols.

“Still relying on that Uniband's inventions, I see,” Shade said, stepping into view. She aimed her gun at him. “Is that the best you can do?”

“You're one to talk,” Alex said, nodding at his mother's weapon.

Shade looked puzzled for a moment, and then realized what he meant. She looked down at the laser pistol and chuckled, holstering it.

“You've got a point.” Her eyes went silver. “But you have to admit I've been making the most of my abilities lately.”

Alex noticed the movement beside him too late, and suddenly he was in the air. Photon held him by the coat. Alex started to focus a telekinetic blast, when the brainwashed Ranger smacked the back of his head, causing his thoughts to go fuzzy.

“Ow,” Alex yelped.

“You must be very desperate if this is your sad attempt at a last stand,” Shade said, grinning. “I expected more from you, Alexander.”

“The story of my life,” Alex muttered.

Static crackled out of a walkie-talkie on Alex's belt, followed by Bug's voice.

“Everyone's out of the Gloom. We've got the Rangers. Retreat to the Rook.”

Everyone froze, even Titan and Volt, who battled the other members of Alex's team on the other side of the now-demolished area. They'd heard. Shade could probably feel the joy now surging through Alex's mind. The mission was a success. They'd rescued the Rangers. Everything was going to be okay.

Alex's grin threatened to take over his entire face as he used the moment of surprise to wriggle out of his coat. He landed gracefully on the ground, in a crouch, and then stood tall, beaming.

“Well,” Alex said, “I guess I wasn't as much of a disappointment as you thought.”

Shade's lips peeled back, her teeth clenched so tightly Alex thought they might break.

“You're decoys,” she spat.

“Impossible,” Volt shouted from behind her.

Shade's eyes went silver. Photon rushed to her side and picked her up. Titan let out a sharp cry of surprise as his body flew off the ground under Photon's powers.

“What about—,” Volt started.

“I can't carry all of us,” Shade said. And then they were gone as Photon flew at incredible speed in the direction of the Rook.

Volt turned to his son, a stunned and confused expression on his face. Alex held out one palm as he walked toward his father and poured all his excitement and relief into constructing a bubble of blue energy around Volt. The first time he'd ever created such a force field had been only a few weeks before, when his mother and father had shot rubber bullets at him in the name of power training. His father's electricity had been unable to pass through Alex's telekinetic powers—something Alex had not forgotten. Inside the sphere, Volt shot off a crackling arc of energy, but it bounced off the invisible bubble, lighting it up in sparkling blue as it ricocheted around. Finally Volt absorbed the electricity again.

“Nicely constructed, son,” Volt said.

“Looks like she abandoned you,” Alex said, ignoring the compliment.

The crashing against the museum doors grew louder. It was only a matter of time before the Deputies made it through, or scaled the walls with hooks and ladders. Alex didn't worry. It wouldn't be long now before Misty got there.

“So what are you going to do now?” Volt asked. “Kill your father? The public already thinks you're in some way responsible for the disappearance of Lone Star and Lux—which isn't
exactly
a lie. Do you really want to add the death of one of their New Rangers on top of that?”

As his father spoke, his voice grew slightly more panicked, as if he actually thought that Alex might execute him then and there. Alex's eyebrows knit together.

“I'm not a killer,” Alex said firmly. “That's not who I am. That's who you
wanted
me to be.”

“Besides, didn't you hear?” Kirbie asked, barely able to contain herself. “We've rescued the Rangers.”

Volt was laughing now. A soft, quiet laugh.

“Your mother's on her way to the Rook with two powerhouses,” Volt said. He tapped on the communicator around his ear. “Phantom and the others have been alerted and are probably there already. It was a good plan, Alex, but not good enough. Your friends are done for.”

“They would be,” Alex said as he narrowed his eyes in concentration. Inside the bubble, his father's communicator floated from his ear, sparked with blue energy, and then broke apart. Alex smiled. “If they were actually still
at
the Rook.”

“But—,” Volt started.

“‘Retreat to the Rook' is just code. For
you
to hear. It means they're long gone by now.”

“We figured anything radioed in would be intercepted or overheard,” Mallory said. “We're not stupid.”

“Another deception,” Volt said.

“Our Cloak training's paid off.”

Alex picked his coat up from the ground and shook a few bits of rock and dust off it.

“It's over now,” Alex said, taking a few steps toward the bubble, until he was only a foot away from his father. “Why not tell us what else Cloak has been doing? I'm sure there's a lot we haven't uncovered yet.”

Volt began to laugh once more.

“Even if that's true, do you think that pulling them out of the Gloom really changes anything?” he asked. “You think we haven't factored that remote possibility into our plans?”

“It changes
everything
,” Kyle said, taking a step forward.

“You're all so naive,” Volt spat. “Your mother may like to talk and play games, but I'm a much more straightforward parent, Alex. Trust me when I tell you that there's no defeating us. Let me out of this bubble and come back to the base with me. It's only going to get worse from here, and when the time comes that we see each other again, I can't promise that you'll survive. You've had your fun, your little act of rebellion. But this isn't training. There are no more practice rounds. Come back, and we'll fix all of this.”

Alex had rarely heard his father sound so sincere. The man had never been much for words. He was reminded of the day after his last birthday, when Volt had stopped him in the hallway of the underground base and given him a
family photo from when Alex had been just a few months old. His parents were younger and smiling as they held a baby up. As they held
him
up. It was one of the few things he'd taken with him when he'd left Cloak's underground base to warn Kirbie about the impending attack on Justice Tower. Everything else he'd brought that night was pinned to a wall at the lake house, but he had the family photo with him now in the inside pocket of his coat. He could almost feel it there. It was something he'd kept to himself, had hidden away. He didn't know why, really. Only that he wanted to keep it private. Some small memory that couldn't be touched by Cloak or the Rangers or anyone else.

“Is he . . . frozen?” Misty asked. She'd materialized off to the side of the others, and now stood staring at Volt, who stood completely still, resting his forehead against the telekinetic prison and looking at his son. Waiting.

“I've got him trapped in a bubble,” Alex said quietly.

“You're here fast,” Mallory said.

“The wind was good,” Misty said. “Once they got out of the Gloom—”

“Whoa, whoa. Save it for when we're alone.”

“You know we'll come after you,” Volt said to Alex. “You were just a small threat. A low-priority capture. And now you're prime targets.”

Alex stared at Volt, unsure of what to say. He knew he didn't want to go back to the base, but part of him wanted to trust in his father and make him proud. Or try to talk sense into him and get him to see things from Alex's point of view. From Kirbie and the Rangers' points of view. Volt stared back at him, his eyes almost pleading.

Alex turned away.

“Let's go,” he said. Across the city, the others—the
Rangers
—were waiting on them.

“Alex!” Volt shouted, slamming a fist against the force field. “You should have stayed hidden away. You've brought all this down on yourself.”

“Good-bye, Father,” Alex said quietly.

Volt sneered. His fingers were twitching, sparks falling from them. The bubble filled with brilliant electricity. Alex could feel it knocking against the walls of his telekinetic sphere.

And then they were gone, flying across the city in a mess of particles with Misty as their pilot.

It was an odd feeling for Alex, having his body and mind taken apart and dragged through space. Thoughts got distorted and were hard to put together. But this time he was happy for the fuzz that came with being pulled around by Misty. He didn't want to have to think about the fact that he'd just faced his parents.

The decoy team rematerialized beneath the runoff drain in the underground tunnel, where a short platform led to a metal transport booth that would shoot them across the city. Everyone spoke at once. Bug kept Zip patrolling the park above them. Kyle and Kirbie practically knocked Alex over to get to Lone Star and Lux, who were slumped against each other in the transport, apparently sleeping. Amp sat watching the two Rangers. Misty looked tired and leaned on Mallory.

A wave of relief washed over Alex as his eyes settled on Lone Star and Lux. Then his heart jumped as he realized that the Rangers were unresponsive to all of Kyle and Kirbie's embraces.

“The Rangers—are they . . .” He wasn't sure how to even begin to finish the sentence.

“Just unconscious. Sleeping,” Gage said, stepping up to him. “There's a cut on the side of your face, Alex. You're bleeding.”

“I don't feel it,” Alex murmured. He looked at the two adult Rangers in the metal booth. They were both so pale, the space around their eyes so dark. Amp stared at them and yet somehow through them. He made no motion to celebrate with Kyle and Kirbie.

“That's them,” Alex said. “We really did it.”

They'd rescued the Rangers, pulled them from the Gloom. Somewhere inside Alex, a weight was lifted. The night that Justice Tower had fallen, when he'd woken up in the middle of a field with a handful of people he'd been raised to think of as his enemies, he'd promised that he would make sure the Rangers were all right. Even when he had no idea if that was even possible. And now, they were here in front of him.

Mallory and Misty crowded into the booth with the others, leaving Alex and Gage alone.

“Everything went okay?” Gage asked.

“I kept my mother's attention,” Alex said. “And she was controlling Photon the whole time. The lake house is still a secret. We should be safe for now. Besides, we have them.” He nodded to the Rangers. “Everything's about to change.”

“About that . . . ,” Gage started. Alex turned to him, but Gage wouldn't meet his eyes.

“What is it?”

“Lone Star and Lux don't have their powers anymore. For now, at least. If they
don't
return . . .” He raised his eyes to Alex's. “What should we do?”

Across the platform, Lone Star began to snore. It was only then that Alex realized how fragile he looked among the others. Alex took a deep breath and felt like everything was going to fall apart around him. They'd fought so hard to rescue Lone Star and Lux, but what if they weren't actually useful?

Then he shook his head. They'd done the impossible. They could fix this.