The Last Hero (Book 1): Ultra (14 page)

I
opened
my eyes and a splitting pain shot through my head.

I was in the semi-darkness somewhere. A light flickered above. The air was cold, and I was shivering. I couldn’t stop coughing, the taste of dust thick. Where the hell was I? And what’d happened? I tried to think back to how I’d ended up here, why I was waking up in an unfamiliar place, but my memories were blurry.

I went to lift myself upright and a shooting sensation spread through my torso. I looked down and saw the bloodstained wound. Shit. Oh shit. I’d been shot, that was right. I’d been shot when I’d gone down to the harbor to try and intervene in the shadiness occurring down there, to try and make a positive name and positive image for myself.

I’d managed to crawl my way back home. Find my way back to safety.

But… there was something after that. Something else had happened. What was it?

I tried to move my hands and my legs.

They wouldn’t budge.

I looked at them. They were pressed down on some kind of metal contraption like those people are tortured on in the goofy horror movies. It scared me a little, seeing them pinned down on one of these tables under a flickering light. Maybe the goofy horror movies weren’t so unrealistic after all. Maybe something really was going to happen to me in here.

The weirdest part about my pinned down arms and legs? I couldn’t see anything holding them down. No binds. No rope. Nothing like that. And it wasn’t as if I was paralyzed. I could move my arms further up, try to twist my knees a bit.

But my limbs just weren’t lifting.

I gritted my teeth, which rattled together with my shivering. I focused on the anger I felt at Nycto. The anger at him attacking the party venue. At killing Mike Beacon and so many other people.

I directed my energy towards my hands, towards my feet.

But every time it felt like my mind got closer to pulling them away, I was reminded of the bullet wound in my stomach, and my muscles gave up.

I gasped. I could taste sweat on my lips. I leaned back on this metal slab. Wherever I was, it was quiet outside. Whoever had brought me here obviously didn’t have grand plans for me to take me to somewhere so quiet.

But why? Who was it? Was it the government? Was it Nycto? Was it…

I got a flashback. A sudden flash to that presence standing over me. The feeling I’d always got of someone being inside my room when I was growing up. Only this time, there actually was. A man in total black, like me, only his clothes were baggier, and he wore a bowler hat atop his head, a long black trench coat, Doc Marten boots.

He’d reached for me. Lifted me from my bed with immeasurable strength. I’d tried to scream, to cry out, but before I knew it, I faded away into the darkness.

And here I was.

My breathing intensified. I tried to remember what that man looked like. Whoever they were, they can’t have had good plans for me.

I had to focus on the invisible ties, whatever the hell they were, around my arms. Maybe he’d given me something. Injected something inside me to paralyze me. Maybe he’d—

“You’re not getting off that slab with a wound like that.”

The voice made me go even colder than I already was. I looked around. I swore I’d heard the voice right in front, over in the shadows. But I couldn’t see anyone or anything there.

I felt my heart pick up. Pressure built up in my head. I needed to act fast. Needed to get away.

I focused on that bullet wound in my stomach. And as painful as it was, I put all my fear and discomfort flow into that patch of skin on my torso. I let the deepest, darkest memories come back. Memories I didn’t even know I had—memories of being dunked under water when I was just a baby. Memories of echoing voices. Of someone standing over me. Of muffled words that I couldn’t place, that I didn’t understand. Memories from dreams that seemed weirdly real. I didn’t know where they were from. I didn’t know where they’d come from.

I just knew that the memories were painful ones.

And then I realized my stomach wasn’t hurting as much anymore.

I opened my eyes and couldn’t believe what I was looking at.

The wound on my stomach was gone. Completely gone. No scars, nothing like that. Like it’d… like it’d healed over.

I saw movement to my left, snapping me right back into the moment.

Now my stomach was healed over, I put all my focus on my hands and legs. I strained so hard I nearly burst a blood vessel.

I kept on pushing.

Needed to get away. Needed to get out of here.

I kept on—

My hands came free.

My feet came free.

I flew off the bed and landed on my feet.

Startled by my success, I looked around this dizzying room. It was some kind of hangar. Abandoned, by the looks of things, by the amount of dust in the air. I looked around for a door, or for a window. Just some way I could get out.

And then I remembered I could teleport. I hadn’t mastered it completely. There’d been moments where I’d been able to use it, but it was sporadic and definitely the hardest of my powers to use. But I knew I had it in me in my moment of greatest fear. I knew I—

When I turned around, I saw the Figure in Black standing over me. He was wearing a bowler hat, a long black trench coat and a black mask over his face that looked solid. He was a big guy underneath that coat. Big enough to make me feel intimidated.

That said, intimidating me didn’t exactly take a lot.

I jumped back when I saw him. Only I didn’t get far—a few meters further away. He reached out to me. Put a hand on my shoulder. I tried to knock it away, but he was just too strong.

When it rested on my shoulder, I felt a weird kind of warmth. Calm.

“You did well,” the Figure in Black said, his voice incredibly deep. “To heal your wound. To break the ties. You’ve got strength. But you need to stop being stupid if you want to get anywhere.”

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t believe this man was actually addressing
me.
Like he knew what my powers were. What I was capable of. “I don’t—I don’t know what you’re—”

“Don’t try the naivety game with me,” the Figure in Black said. “I know what you are. What you can do. I know what you’re capable of. I’ve seen it, Kyle Peters. I’ve seen what you are.”

My stomach almost dropped out of my body. He knew who I was. He knew who the hell I was.

“How—how do you—”

“For one, you’ve not got your costume on right now. And you look awfully similar to that spotty little nerd I saw on the school photographs in your living room. So I’d say that’s a giveaway.”

I felt myself blush. “But how do you know who…
who
I am?”

The Figure in Black didn’t say anything. Not at first.

Then he pulled back a hand and out of nowhere, he went to slap me.

I tried to stop him. Tried to stop him with the powers I knew I had, that this man also knew I had. But the hand made contact with my face. Made me even dizzier than I already was.

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who you were,” he said. “And that should be a serious worry for you. Because now Nycto is rising, the government aren’t going to go easy on you. They’re going to want you just as much as they want him. And as much as you want to go on living your nice little double life, it’s dangerous, Kyle. You need to let Kyle die. You need to become somebody else entirely.”

The Figure in Black turned around. Started to walk away. I still couldn’t believe what was happening here. It all seemed so surreal.

“You’re strong physically,” the Figure in Black said. “But mentally, you are weak.”

“I’d watch what you say,” I said, in the pussiest voice imaginable.

The Figure in Black stopped. Turned around. Something about that black mask made him look constantly sincere. “Your mental weaknesses are the only thing holding you back, even if you’re afraid to admit that right now. If you can believe yourself, truly believe in yourself, you can achieve the one thing you’ve been gifted these abilities for.”

“And what’s that?” I asked even though I was already afraid I knew the answer.

“You know exactly what it is. You know exactly what you have to do. You have to stop Nycto before he finishes the job Saint started all those years ago. You’re the only person who can.”

The Figure in Black walked further away. There were so many things I wanted to ask him, so many questions I had. “What if I can’t?”

The Figure in Black stopped again. “If you can’t, then God help us all.”

I looked down at myself. My skinny body. I was just Kyle Peters. When I wasn’t in my costume, that’s all I was.

But I knew this person, whoever it was, had a point.

Even when I was in my costume, I was still being Kyle Peters. I was still being myself.

I had to change. I had to fight. If I wanted to defeat Nycto, I had to adapt.

I lifted my head to ask the Figure in Black who he was, how I could find him. He seemed like the mentor I needed right now, even though I was clueless about his morals, his motives.

More than anything, I thought about those ties around my wrists. Had he caused those? And if so, did that mean he was an ULTRA too?

But when I lifted my head to ask the questions, the Figure in Black had disappeared.

I
lay back
across my bed and thought about what the Figure in Black told me.

It was a bright summer day. The air was warm, and I knew that Central Park would usually be full of happy people on a day like today. People way cooler than me, sure, people I was infinitely jealous of, absolutely, but people nonetheless.

But as news of Nycto’s attacks became more common, more terrifying, and even scarier than anything, more
random
in their nature, I knew Central Park wouldn’t be a place where many people would be all that interested in spending time today.

I listened to the silence of my street, outside my house. It was a Monday, but we’d been given a few days off school after the events at the party venue, as well as because of Nycto’s attacks. We were finishing for summer at the end of the week anyway, so everything had a kind of anti-climactic feel to it. In truth, I knew we’d probably never go back to school this year. Most people would just take the rest of the week off.

What a way to mark the end of another year. Never the way I’d expected it to go down.

The more I heard and the more I read about Nycto’s destruction, the more those words from the Figure in Black resonated with me. He’d told me I needed to do something. That I was the only person that
could
do something.

Nycto had launched a fresh attack on London earlier today. Moments later, just as the UK government was getting over the attack, he launched another attack back home in Austin. Then another over in Zanzibar City, attacking a ferry terminal. Then another, back home in Boston, just up the highway. The world was reeling from the first few attacks. No one had any idea where he was going to strike next.

But the truth was clear: he was getting through cities and places around the world, and he wasn’t letting anyone or anything get in his way.

I focused on the locations of the attacks, knowing I couldn’t just let more people die and suffer. I was an ULTRA, for better or for worse. I had to use that to my full advantage. The Figure in Black said it himself—I was the only one capable of stopping Nycto. I just had to believe in myself. Shake off my mental weakness, or whatever he called it.

I closed my eyes and pictured the scenes of Nycto’s attacks in my mind.

As the memories of the party attack and the loss that came with it flooded my mind, I felt myself thinking quicker. Trying to connect dots between Nycto’s attacks at super-speed. There was a pattern. There had to be a pattern somewhere. Sure, the attacks
looked
random, but nothing was ever truly random. There was always a logic. Always a—

I heard a knock on the door downstairs. It snapped me out of my thoughts in an instant.

My parents were out shopping, so I climbed off the bed and staggered down the stairs. I wasn’t sure who it could be. And as I lowered the handle, I got a little worried after what the Figure in Black told me he’d easily tracked me down.

My worry soon slipped away when I saw Ellicia standing at the door.

Her dark hair shone in the sunlight. She smiled at me, revealing that little gap between her teeth. “Hello, stranger,” she said. “You okay?”

I couldn’t find the right words to say to Ellicia. I mean, she was here, at my damned door. What the hell was I supposed to say?

I took a deep breath. Decided to play it as cool as I could. “Hey.”

Ellicia looked around me, over my shoulder. “You up to much?”

“Oh, er, homework. Just homework. You?”

I blushed, realizing my mistake right away. We didn’t have any homework. How stupid could I be?

Ellicia shrugged. “Just wondered if you… Just passing by. Thought I’d say hello.”

She smiled at me. I saw her eyes light up in that way that always made me light up inside too. But what did I say now?

I wanted to invite her in. Ask her to come into my house. But I heard the Figure in Black’s voice in my head.

“You need to let Kyle die. You need to become somebody else entirely.”

I didn’t want to believe him. But the thought of anything else happening to Ellicia all because I was failing to take on Nycto… it wasn’t worth thinking about.

“If you’re busy,” Ellicia said, drawing that last word out. “Maybe another time.”

I should’ve said no. I should’ve said I wasn’t busy. I was a sixteen-year-old kid—
this
was the life I was supposed to be living.

“Yeah,” I said, scratching my head. “I’ll Facebook you. Or somethin’.”

Ellicia lowered her head. Smiled and nodded. “Right. Facebook.”

She turned around and started to walk away. I hadn’t felt this much an idiot in a long time.

“My boyfriend’s left me,” Ellicia said.

Talk about not knowing what to say. How the hell was I supposed to say a thing to this?

“Oh,” I said. “That’s… that’s too bad.”

She nodded. “Moved over to Chicago. His parents don’t think New York’s safe anymore. Not with Nycto. Not after everything that’s happened.”

I started to say something back to Ellicia when it clicked.

A sudden realization clicked in my mind.

Austin.

Zanzibar City.

Boston.

Yaizu.

An alphabet of American cities. A reverse alphabet of foreign cities.

C was coming next.

The biggest populated American city beginning with C?

Chicago. Chicago.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said to Ellicia, fully aware of how much of an idiot I sounded now.

She smiled at me, and it pained me to close the door on her.

But I ran upstairs.

Changed rapidly into my gear, faster than I thought was capable.

I looked in the mirror at myself. Looked at myself, the costume split from where the bullet hit me. The only thing not on was the black hood.

“You’re not causing any more chaos, Nycto,” I whispered to myself. “Not anymore.”

I pulled the black mask on.

Then, I shot out of my house.

I’d never been to Chicago before. I figured now was as good a time as any to take a trip.

N
ycto floated
at the corner of Sherman Avenue.

He’d suspected Kyle Peters for so long. So, so long. Right since he first saw footage of that hooded assailant helping the woman at the ATM. He thought he recognized his scrawny figure, that goofy way he ran. But he hadn’t really believed it. Not totally. There hadn’t been enough to go on.

He hadn’t believed Kyle Peters was capable of the things
he
was capable of.

Not until he saw him shoot out of his house, thinking he was completely camouflaged.

Well, nothing was camouflaged to Nycto. Nycto saw things exactly as they were.

He thought about going into Kyle’s house. To putting a stop to his nonsense before he got the chance.

But he could tell from Kyle’s excitement that he was falling right into his trap. He’d seen the clues, and he was stumbling into them like the little idiot he’d always been.

He watched the dark-haired girl, Ellicia, walk away from Kyle’s house. He’d deal with her if he had to. In time, he’d deal with her.

But now it was time for Nycto to have some fun.

It was time to head to Chicago.