Strike 3: The Returning Sunrise (29 page)

However, Rigel did not stay motionless for long. He lifted his head slowly up and looked out at Nova and Dr. Brooks. The red giant was smiling now, and his eyes were glowing with swirling, blue-and-white electricity.      

“Yes!” Rigel bellowed, as his biceps snapped with violent streaks of lightning. “Yes! I can feel it! My god, I can feel it! It’s here! It’s here! I can finally feel it! I can see everything!”

After snapping his wrists and ankles free from the wall, Rigel jumped down to the floor. As he stood there, the dim lights in the science lab slowly pulsed above him, as if the red giant was sucking all of the electricity from the room.

Nova and Dr. Brooks watched, stunned, as Rigel began to transform. His seven-and-a-half-foot-tall body grew even larger, and his already thick and muscular frame expanded, causing tears and rips in his green-and-black uniform. His chest, biceps, and shoulders were now exposed, glowing with a blue electricity that ran underneath his skin and through his veins like blood.

Still shocked by the results of the process, Nova stepped away from the control panel and walked across the lab toward Rigel. When he reached the red giant, he discovered the most shocking development of Rigel’s newly transformed body: while the towering giant’s skin was still red, the physical makeup of his face had changed. He no longer appeared as the yellow-eyed, rough-skinned beast—he now looked like his rarely used human form: the thirty-three-year-old, handsome, dark-skinned young man named Marcus Drake, with bright eyes, a wide smile, and black hair that was shaved nearly down to his skin.

“What’s it like?” Nova asked, watching the blue electricity dart around Rigel’s body. “How do you feel?”

“Like I was always meant to feel,” Rigel replied, opening and closing his hand, staring at his glowing fingers. He looked toward the sky. “The Daybreaker was right. It’s not just electricity—it’s everything. All energy, all atoms, all electrons. I control everything. I
am
everything. The energy in the air—I can see it. My god, I can see everything.”

Rigel smiled. The blue electricity around him grew, with a concentrated ball of it snapping and writhing in his outstretched palm. He laughed, as his eyes turned milky white, churning like storm clouds.

“They are planning for us, in Washington, D.C.,” the red giant said with a laugh. “I can see them, hear them. I am everywhere. In Tokyo, a boy is playing with a toy truck in the dirt, thinking about the dome around Boston. In Tuscany, a young couple is on their first date, kissing in the boy’s van near a vineyard, but the girl is consumed by the dome in America—she’s afraid of me, even from across an ocean. My mother, now a grey-haired old woman, is in Capricious, sipping tea and wondering where I am now. I can see her. I can feel them. I can feel everything.”

From the lab’s control panel, Dr. Brooks stared in shock at the transformed Rigel.

“It worked,” the doctor said, his mouth dropped open. “It worked.” Even from where he stood, he could feel the buzzing of Rigel’s electricity. “My god, what have I done?” the doctor whispered to himself.

Nova turned to the doctor and stepped toward the control panel.

“Doctor, ready the machine for my transfusion,” Nova said. “We need to get out there. With the two of us against them, they won’t stand a—”

Suddenly, Rigel walked up behind Nova and wrapped his massive arms around the grey-masked man’s neck. The red giant’s arms began to snap with blue-and-white electricity.

Nova was startled. He darted his gloved hands upward and grasped at Rigel’s arms, clawing at the red biceps clasped across his throat, but it was no use. Soon, Nova’s fingers went numb from the electricity coursing through Rigel.

Emotionlessly, Rigel tightened his stranglehold, pulling Nova closer. He waited as Nova’s boots shuffled in a panic against the floor, the grey-masked man’s waist twisting as he tried to free himself. Finally, a bright, yellow glow came from behind Nova’s mask, shining out toward the control panel like a spotlight, but then it faded away. When Nova’s arms fell against his body, Rigel let go, and the grey-masked man dropped to the ground, hitting the floor like a shapeless rag doll, his long white cape tangled across his legs.

Dr. Brooks looked down at Nova’s lifeless body, with his eyes wide and his lips quivering.

“Give me the rest of the power,” Rigel growled, stepping over Nova.

Dr. Brooks eyed the containment tank. “I can’t,” he stammered, his voice small. “You could—it’s too much, you can’t—”

Rigel held out his hand, his fingers swarming with blue lightning. “Give me what I was born to have.”

In Boston Common, the war still waged on, but the heroes were once again in control. They had made their way through the defense of the New Capricious Council, and—thanks to Junior—only two of the trigulsaurs now remained. Even more amazingly, the giant dinosaurs now seemed to be afraid of the bald man in the mech suit; they were still swooping down and attacking him with their scorching fire, but whenever they landed on the ground and he stomped toward them, the dinosaurs would immediately retreat back into the sky, screeching and flying in frightened, bewildered circles.

“This is it, O,” Keplar said, as he, Orion, Tobin, and Ida reached the steps in front of the Trident skyscraper. The dog looked up at the top of the building. “We’ve taken out his army, and his dinosaurs. There’s not much else we can do at this point.”

“Yes, the Daybreaker should be here already,” Ida said. “He should have come out by now. Maybe he’s not going to show. Maybe we have to go to him.”

“She’s right,” Tobin said. “Send me inside, O. If he’s not out here now, he’s never gonna—”         

“Wait,” Orion said. He arched his head back, looking to the roof of the Trident. “He’s here.”  

Keplar looked to the old man. “What? How do you know?”

Orion stared at the top floor. “He told me.”

“Huh?” Keplar turned to Tobin and Ida. “I didn’t hear anything. Did you?”

Tobin shook his head. He watched as Orion stepped closer toward the skyscraper.

“He told me,” Orion said, looking up. “He’s talking to me.” The old man pointed to his temple. “He says he’s been waiting for this moment for over twenty years. The power—my god, this shouldn’t be possible.”

Tobin turned away and covered his eyes as a gigantic thunderclap and snap of blue lightning erupted at the top of the skyscraper. Then, as Tobin turned back to the building, a figure appeared in the sky. It was a human being, floating down to the ground, its body surrounded by a misshapen mass of coiled, twisting, snapping, blue-and-white energy. It looked like a man set on fire—ablaze with massive, roaring blue flames—hovering down to the earth.

When the burning figure came to a stop five feet above the ground, floating in mid-air, the heroes were shocked to see that it wasn’t the Daybreaker—it was Rigel. However, it was clear that the red giant had been transformed. He was bigger than ever, with electricity rolling and rushing over every inch of his red body, and his eyes were now white and burning with blue flames at their corners. Most strangely of all, he no longer appeared as demented and inhuman as he once did—his face now looked like a combination of the red beast known as Rigel and the man once known as Marcus Drake.

“What are you doing, Rigel?” Orion said carefully, his eyes squinting. He looked over Rigel’s new appearance. As shocking as it was, it was also familiar—this was the first time in over fifteen years that Orion had seen the face of his former student. “How did you speak to me like that? Where’s the Daybreaker?”

Rigel grinned and held out his arms. “You’re looking at him.”

The heroes glanced at each other, confused.

“Huh?” Tobin said, stepping toward Rigel. “What are you talking about? We all know who the Daybreaker is. Where is he?”

Rigel laughed and shook his head, floating in the air. When he spoke, white bursts of electricity flashed in his mouth. “You all think you know so much. Ida, you think your ex-husband loved you. He never did. Keplar, you think Tobin’s forgiven you for the death of his father. He hasn’t. Orion, you think I’ll see the error of my ways and come back to rejoin you. You all know nothing.”

Orion looked up at the hovering red giant. “Rigel—whatever this is you’ve done, it doesn’t matter.” The old man stretched out his arm behind him, toward the warzone of Boston Common. “Everything you’ve thrown at us, we’ve overcome. Put an end to this now, and bring us to the Daybreaker, before anyone else dies.”

Rigel laughed again, holding his hands in front of him. “Don’t you see? I
am
the Daybreaker. I always have been. This was always Vincent’s plan, from the very beginning. Everything he did—everything he built—was for me.”

Orion shook his head. “You know that’s not true, Rigel. Vincent chose Tobin to be the Daybreaker, not you. We all know that, even us. He never had this in mind for you.”

Keplar shouted up at Rigel. “He used you, you blurkopping moron. Just like he used everyone else he ever met in his damn life.”

“Enough!”

Rigel extended his right arm and blasted Keplar with blue-and-white electricity from his palm, sending Keplar to his knees. As Orion ran to check on the husky, Tobin, Ida, and Wakefield readied themselves and prepared their weapons for battle.

Tobin turned around. He and the others had now been joined at the front of the skyscraper by the entirety of the remaining superheroes, rebels, and animal warriors, with the superheroes standing in front of the rest.

Craning their necks back, the heroes looked up as Rigel held his arms over his head and rose higher into the air, surrounded by the burning mass of blue-and-white electricity. His white eyes were snapping with blue lightning, which stretched across his face like a mask.

“I am everything,” Rigel said. “From beyond, Vincent has allowed me access to everything. All energy, all life: it flows through me. Everything that has come before, all that is now—I can see it. Feel it.”

The electric cloud around Rigel grew larger. He looked down at the heroes gathered underneath him.

“I am the Daybreaker,” the red giant said. “The evil you have created, I am here to destroy.”

Suddenly, Rigel held out his hand with his fingers outstretched, and Captain X-Treme rose into the air, his body no longer under his own power. He looked down at the other superheroes, confused, as he tried to fly away, but he only kept floating up toward the sky.

Then, when Rigel closed his fist, Captain X-Treme disappeared, exploding into a cloud of blue-and-yellow particles. As a gust of wind blew through the Common, the dust cloud separated and floated away.      

“Hit him!” Orion screamed, turning to the gathering of heroes. “Hit him with everything you have!”

The superheroes, rebels, and animal warriors attacked Rigel all at once: the rebels fired their laser rifles, Junior shot an orange energy blast from his mech suit, and a black panther from King Ontombe’s men pounced at him from a tree, attempting to tackle the giant and bring him down from the sky. But it was all useless. Rigel simply floated above them, his body encased in the blue-and-white electrical storm, burning in the night.

“I see other worlds,” he said, his white eyes pulsing. “Waiting for me. Across the universe. They are all living in fear of the humans of Earth. Across space, time. Among the stars. They are watching us. Like Capricious, they need someone to protect them from Earth. I am here to protect them.”

Rigel extended both of his hands and unleashed a rolling wave of blue fire on the heroes, sending them scattering in all directions. Some of the heroes escaped the flames, but many of them were hit, turning away and trying to shield themselves as the energy engulfed the Common.

“I am here to save them all,” Rigel said from the sky.

Orion, with his body burnt and scorched from Rigel’s blast, pushed himself up off the ground.

“Hit him!” the old man yelled. “Stand and hit him! He must be stopped!” Orion reached back to his quiver, firing five red-tipped arrows at the hovering super-villain in the sky. “This is the pivotal moment!” the old man shouted. “This is what we came here for! Do not give in!”

However, Orion’s battle cries were not enough. The heroes were overwhelmed by Rigel’s relentless blasts of energy. As they dove for cover and retreated into the Rytonian Rebels’ medical stations set up in the buildings around the park, Rigel simply flew above them, jetting over the Common and raining down his blue-and-white, electricity-entwined fire. From the red giant’s position, the heroes looked like scattering, diseased rats, being eliminated by a being of superior intelligence and power.

As Rigel always knew, they were a sickness. And sickness had to be eliminated.

As the red giant flew over the buildings around Boston Common, he closed his eyes for a moment and embraced the reality of what was happening. He thought back to his very first day at the Whinland Academy for the Future, when he was a small boy. It was there, when he was only ten years old, that the instructors of the academy had told Rigel of his destiny: he was strong, he was special, and he was born to cleanse the universe of all pain, suffering and evil.

Now, finally, it was happening.

It had taken twenty-three years, but Rigel’s dream had come true.

He had become the destroyer of Earth, and the protector of the universe.

He was the Daybreaker.