The Last Hero (Book 2): Rise of the Ultras (11 page)

I
lay
in bed and felt sick with guilt.

I stared up at my ceiling as darkness filled my bedroom. Another shower of snow had arrived outside, the analysts now suggesting that a storm was coming after all. I listened to the silence inside my house, outside, on the streets, everywhere.

I couldn’t close my eyes. If I closed them, I saw what happened earlier that day.

Angel hovering in the sky, waiting for the ULTRAbots to approach.

The ULTRAbots surrounding her. Swarming her.

Angel falling to the ground below.

And me?

I was just in a damned alleyway too afraid to do a thing to help her.

I tasted sick. My body was cold all over, even though I was completely wrapped in my quilt. I’d checked in on Ellicia, and she was okay. Shook up, and had a lot of questions for me, but okay. I felt bad for leaving her, but she’d made it. I would never have forgiven myself if I’d not only failed the ULTRAs, but failed her too.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to close my eyes, but I didn’t want to be awake any longer. I just wanted this to stop, all of it. Four days had passed since war had been declared on the ULTRAs. Four days, which meant three days before his deadline arrived. The media were talking about a victory. Of ULTRAs being surrounded, taken into protective custody. Public opinion was way in favor of the ULTRAbots. There was even talk of employing them full-time to aid the police.

And to stop any remaining ULTRA that might be walking this earth, of course.

I wanted to reveal myself. Believe me, I was torn. I wanted to get back to being Glacies and get fighting. Avenge the loss of Spark, of Angel.

But I didn’t want to kill those bad ULTRAs that’d attacked the humans. I didn’t want to get tangled into a war that I didn’t truly understand.

And I especially didn’t want to cross the ULTRAbots…

I didn’t want any part in any of this.

I closed my eyes, but they were burning so bad with images of the day that I opened them again.

When I looked up, there was someone standing at the foot of my bed.

It took me a moment to see who it was. The very same person who’d stood there about six months ago and galvanized me into action. The Figure in Black. The one Angel called Vesper.

He stood at the bottom of my bed and stared right at me.

“What—”

Vesper pulled back his fist and cracked it across my jaw.

Hard.

I tasted blood in my mouth, but he swung at my face again. I didn’t want to fight, but I didn’t have a choice. I shifted myself across the room, dodged his punches, trying to keep quiet so I didn’t wake Mom or Dad.

Vesper turned, fast. “It’s your fault. All of this, it’s your fault.”

“Stop this—”

He hit me again. This time, in the chest. I crashed back against my
other
wardrobe—the one I hadn’t wrecked—so hard that I was certain Mom and Dad had to have heard the racket.

I winced. My ribs wracked with pain. I shuffled up, eager to get to my feet.

Vesper walked across the floor, right towards me. He looked like he was getting ready for another punch.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” I said.

“You didn’t mean it?” Vesper said. He picked me up. Lifted me by the throat with immense strength. “You watched it happen. Two of my people, trying to help you, and you
watched
it happen.”

I struggled for breath. Gasped. I didn’t want to use my powers right now. I felt naked using Glacies’ abilities when I wasn’t wearing the outfit, even if there was no one else around.

“You… you made me do this,” I said.

“Do what?”

I head butted Vesper. Sent him flying back against my bed.

I flew at him them. Felt anger and pain and grief and everything.

My hands went cold. Super cold.

I held them above Vesper.

“You made me do—”

Another crack across the face. Only this time, a deafening sound ripped through my skull. A sound much like the one when I was teleporting.

When I opened my eyes, I realized that’s exactly what’d happened.

I was in a dark container. Some kind of metal compartment. I could smell the saltiness of water in the air, so I figured I was by the harbor somewhere.

I stood up. My face killed, and felt swollen. I’d heal it when I got back. Vesper was in my home. He was in my home, he was dangerous, and he was going to hurt my family.

I felt something hit my back them. Something knocked me to the ground.

I spun around and saw Vesper crouching over me.

He put his hand around my neck. Lifted his fist. I tried to hold it back. Tried to shift away, but I was too weak, and he was too strong. He was like a reversed magnet resisting all the force I was trying to push into him. Whoever he was, he was strong as hell.

“P… please…” I gasped, gasping for air. I felt everything around getting blurry. Heard sounds that I knew weren’t really there. Rustling. Breezes. “I… I didn’t mean…”

Vesper let go.

He kept his fist raised, blood trickling from my nose into my mouth now.

“She died,” he said, with a shaky voice. “Angel died. You could’ve saved her.”

He turned around then. Walked away, towards the back of the container. It was the first time I’d heard him speak with any kind of emotion. Up to now, I was convinced he was something other than human.

I stood up. Focused an immediate burst of energy on taking some of the swelling from my face. One of my teeth felt loose. I’d deal with that in time. Maybe I’d look tough and cool if I walked around a tooth less.

“She was a good person,” Vesper said, not facing me. That fragility was still in his voice. “I’d known her ever since she was a little girl. She was… she was strong. But nobody is strong alone. Not against the ULTRAbots.”

I swallowed a bloody lump in my throat. “I’m sorry. I was just…”

“Scared, I know. Scared of giving up your life. Scared of accepting your responsibilities.”

“I’m just a kid.”

“We’re all just kids in this world. All of us. None of us ask for our responsibilities. None of us ask to be burdened with power. But you have a gift, Kyle. You have a very powerful gift. You have a gift that makes you significantly more powerful than any other ULTRA on this planet. And if you do not use that gift…”

He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t need to.

“You need to choose a path,” Vesper said. “Right here. Right now. You need to choose which road you want to take. You cannot take both. Taking both roads is impossible. I’m sorry you have to hear that, but it’s true.”

Adrenaline raced through my bloodstream. I still wasn’t sure how exactly to react to this. “How am I supposed to make a choice when I don’t even know who the hell’s fighting who? When I don’t know what’s good and what’s bad? When I don’t even know who the hell you are?”

There was a pause, then. A pause, as Vesper looked me in my eyes from behind that black mask. I wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but something about it made it feel like forever. Made it feel familiar.

Then, Vesper broke the silence.

“There’s a good reason why I can’t reveal who I am.”

“Then give me the reason. Make it even. Go on. I’m standing here. You know who I am. It’s only fair.”

More silence from Vesper. For the first time, I started to wonder if I had him in a corner. If the power was with me, after all.

“Go on!” I shouted. “Tell me. Tell me who the hell you are. Tell me why you were in my room. Why you know who I am. Why you think you’re so damned powerful and mighty.”

Vesper was still for another few seconds.

Then he reached for his head. Took off his bowler hat.

Underneath, I saw dark black hair.

“I’ll tell you who I am. I’ll tell you exactly who I am. Maybe then, you’ll understand.”

“Good,” I said, as Vesper threw aside his coat. “’Cause if you don’t, I’ll… I’ll…”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t say a word.

I could only stare at the man in front of me.

My mind raced with all kinds of thoughts and theories. I wondered if this was some kind of dream. It had to be. This couldn’t be real. It wasn’t possible.

But it was.

“Why… why are you wearing Orion’s costume?”

Vesper rubbed his palms together. He looked me in the eye. “Because, Kyle Peters, I
am
Orion.”

“
Y
ou
… you can’t be Orion. You just can’t be.”

I wasn’t sure what I said. I had no idea what words left my lips. I just stood there and stared at the man opposite me. The man dressed from head to toe in black. The man wearing the very same outfit I’d seen in the sky that day over eight years ago, planets and stars embossed onto its chest.

The guy that had crashed into Saint—sparked the Great Blast.

Vesper was Orion.

“I understand it’s difficult. To accept.”

I shook my head. My skin tingled. A bitter taste filled my mouth. “No. No, you can’t be Orion. Orion’s dead.”

“Just like Glacies is dead?” Orion said. He walked closer towards me, his footsteps echoing against the bottom of the metal container. “Just like Glacies disappeared into apparent oblivion when he took down Nycto.”

“That’s different.”

“How is it different?”

“I saw you… I saw you explode.”

Orion looked me in my eyes. At least I thought he did—I couldn’t tell because his face was covered completely with a black mask, not to mention the light being so dim inside this container. To think of it, he did look just like I remembered Orion. The Orion from the TV reports. The Orion I’d seen in the sky fighting Saint, protecting the planet. A little chubbier now, maybe. The suit didn’t fit quite as snugly.

But it was him.

It was definitely him.

I watched Orion walk in front of me. I felt twitchy, as blood trickled down my blocked nostrils. I didn’t know what to say to him. I was in awe of him, in truth. Here was the man who saved the world. Who sacrificed himself, and so many others, to protect humanity.

“What… what are you doing?” I asked. It was all I could manage.

“After The Great Blast, I knew I couldn’t carry on like I used to. I was detested. I was hated. I was blamed for the deaths of a million New Yorkers, even though I played no part in the explosion.”

“It was both of you. It was the power of both of you crashing—”

“That’s what they have you believe,” Orion said, walking from side to side, heavy footsteps echoing against the hangar. “But they would do, wouldn’t they? They want humans to hate ULTRAs, remember. They want humans to hate us so much that they’ll say anything to destroy us, no matter what. Kyle, I did not play any part in The Great Blast. I would not have made the move I made if I knew the destruction it was going to cause. I am still not entirely sure what happened, even to this day.”

I was silent for a few seconds. Orion sounded genuine. And, weirdly, I believed him.

“Anyway,” Orion said. “I pieced myself together. Saint and I battled for longer.”

“The battle didn’t end above Staten Island?”

“The battle raged on for some time after that. And in the end, it came down to two men. Two men so exhausted that we were stripped of our powers.”

“But you killed him? You finished him?”

Orion nodded. “I did what I had to do. To protect all of humankind. All of ULTRA-kind. I am not proud of what I did to Saint. But it was the only thing I could. Just like you and Nycto.”

I thought about Orion’s words. He had a point. I wasn’t sure how anyone could be guilty of killing Saint. But then I remembered I’d felt a guilt of my own when I’d buried Nycto at the bottom of Krakatoa, left him under the rubble. “Eight years,” I said. “Eight years and nobody sees you. Nobody thinks you exist. Why now?”

Orion kept on walking, back and forth. “For the same reason as you,” he said. “I saw the hate. I saw the fear. And I realized there was no place for me in this world. Not anymore.”

“So you just hid?”

“I hid, yes,” Orion said. “But eventually, I picked myself up. The government doesn’t want people to believe it, but there are many more ULTRAs around the world than they’d have anyone believe. I spent my time reaching out to those ULTRAs. Trying to get them to understand what they were. To
embrace
what they were. To help keep the world a better place.” He stopped pacing and looked straight at me. “I hid, Kyle. But I did not give up my responsibilities.”

I looked down at his feet. A twinge of guilt flickered inside me. Because that’s what I’d done. I’d been so focused on living two lives that I’d neglected my true responsibilities as Glacies. My responsibilities to the world. “How am I… how are we ULTRAs?”

Orion looked at me for a little longer, then turned away, as if he was uncomfortable with the question. “We called ourselves The Resistance,” Orion said. “We fought silently behind the scenes. Fought to keep the world a better place. But my influence was limited. My main asset nowadays is my ability to win people over to my way of thinking.”

“So nobody really knows who you are?”

“Some. Not many. Only those I trust the most. My inner circle. Which is, incidentally, all I have left.”

Again, he held that stare with me a few seconds, then looked away.

“My powers aren’t what they were. They haven’t been the same since the day of the Great Blast. Something happened that day. Something wrenched the height of my powers away from me. I felt like I was disemboweled that day—”

“Ew.”

Orion ignored me and continued. “And I haven’t been the same since. Which is why the time for standing up is more crucial now than ever before.”

“The government,” I said, taking a few steps of my own around this container in the middle of wherever. “Why do they hate us so much?”

“Would you like it if your cat started locking you out of the house?”

“I… don’t have a cat.”

“Would you like it if something that was supposed to be under your control started growing a mind of its own? Would you like it if your lights started flashing in the middle of the night? If your car started spinning around and driving all by itself?”

“It might help me pass my driving test.”

“The point stands,” Orion interrupted, clearly not a guy of jokes. “ULTRAs were Heroes as long as they were under human influence. And then they decided to grow a set of morals of their own. And then they became ULTRAs.”

There were so many things I wanted to ask, it made my head spin. “Why do we call ourselves ULTRAs? I mean, I think of myself as an ULTRA. But that’s something the government created.”

Orion shrugged like it wasn’t really a big deal. “Empowerment, I guess. Taking a derogatory term and using it as a compliment. Because we are ULTRAs. And we are strong as ULTRAs, no matter what they call us. It’s a way of taking that name for ourselves. Claiming it.”

More silence followed. Orion had a point.

“There’s something I still don’t get,” I said.

Orion folded his hands. I swore he sighed.

“You’re so focused on me, me, me. There’s loads of you. Loads of you fighting the ULTRAbots, fighting each other. What’s that all about? Why? And why do you need me so much?”

“You do not understand how powerful you really are, do you?”

“I, um—”

“Something is happening. A storm is brewing.”

“You guys really like your storm analogies, don’t you?”

“A war is approaching. A war not between ULTRAs and ULTRAbots, but something else. The ULTRAs fighting one another in the sky. You mention you’ve seen them. How do they make you feel?”

I scratched my head. Here was Orion, most famous ULTRA of all time, asking me a question. “Confused. I mean, I don’t get any of this. But especially not that.”

“Likewise,” Orion said. “Likewise.”

He walked closer to me. And then, against all expectations, he put a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“I want you to join us because I have the potentially misguided belief that you are the most powerful ULTRA in existence. I want you to join us because I want you to take my place. To use your powers how I would use mine, if mine weren’t so exhausting to use these days. I want you to make this decision so you don’t lose the people you love. Your… your family. Your friends. Your girlfriend.”

There was such a sincerity in his voice. Sincerity I wanted to believe. “Why do you care so much about my family?” I asked.

Orion opened his mouth. Went to say something, then paused.

“Kyle, I…”

He just started speaking when something heavy landed on the roof of the container.

Hard.