Fall of the ULTRAs (The Last Hero Book 6) Read online

  Fall of the ULTRAs

  Matt Blake

  MATTBLAKEAUTHOR.COM

  Contents

  Bonus Content

  Previous The Last Hero Books

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

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  Previous The Last Hero Books

  Fall of the ULTRAs is the sixth book in The Last Hero series.

  If you’d like to read the first five books, visit here:

  ULTRA

  Rise of the ULTRAs

  Battle of the ULTRAs

  Revenge of the ULTRAs

  Era of the ULTRAs

  1

  I felt the grip tightening around my neck and I knew I didn’t have long left.

  All around me, there was darkness. Total darkness, so black it was suffocating. Just looking at that darkness made me feel a wave of sickness and light-headedness, in the way a young kid feared the dark at night. The same reason they begged their parents to keep a night light on for them. There were always monsters in the dark, in the mind of a kid.

  Except right now, there really was a monster in this darkness.

  The grip tightened even harder around my neck. I kicked back, reflexively more than anything. There was nothing else I could do, not really. I’d tried sparking my powers. I’d tried firing my way free of this mess. All of it was to no avail.

  I was trapped. And the life was slipping away from me by the second.

  I heard the blasts all around me, accompanied by the screams, and the feeling of sickness deep within grew even more intense. A bitter taste of blood and vomit filled my mouth, making me want to cough. I could smell something in the air. I couldn’t describe it any other way than a thickness. Like the air was filled with tar, and that thickness was getting even more slimy, making breathing gradually more difficult.

  But it was the eyes that scared me more than anything.

  There was nothing grandiose about these eyes. There was nothing menacing about them, to the average person. It was their familiarity that got to me more than anything. I’d looked into these eyes before, a number of times. I’d stared into them, and they’d stared back at me.

  And now they were the eyes that were looking at me as I struggled for my final breaths.

  “It’s over,” the deep, gruff voice said. “Don’t fight it. This is the only way it happens. This is the way it’s always happened. Just… release.”

  I didn’t want to stop fighting, as much as giving up any resistance would be the easy option here. So I gritted my teeth and kept my focus on those eyes, like I had so many times already. “N… never.”

  The hand around my neck loosened just enough for me to catch some breath. I coughed, then I felt vomit trickling up and out of my mouth, stilling my quest for a good lungful of air.

  When I’d spewed up, the grip tightened once again, and I was pinned back hard against a solid wall.

  As I was held there, I wondered what I had done to deserve this life. I was Kyle Peters. I wasn’t even in my twenties, and yet somehow, I was the strongest ULTRA in existence—at least people thought, and at least people expected. I didn’t ask to be Glacies. Glacies just became me.

  I’d been dealt these cards, and now I was being forced to live with them. Now, I was being forced to accept who I was. But also something else.

  I was being forced to accept that I wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped—or as the world hoped—all along.

  “All these years of resisting instead of living,” the voice said. “Now, it’s time to stop. It’s time to hand yourself over. So stop resisting, Kyle. End the pain. For yourself. For your family.”

  The mention of my family made me feel a warmth deep inside. But it was a warmth tinged with sadness. After all, my family had been torn apart, all because of me. It had been decimated, all because of me.

  I felt a tear roll down my cheek when I thought of Ellicia, Dad, Damon, Avi, Cassie, Daniel, Orion, and all my old friends from the Resistance. “I can’t stop fighting. For… for their sakes. I can’t give up.”

  The figure chuckled, then. As he did, the room lit up, and I saw my surroundings for the first time in God-knows-how-long. I was in some kind of dark cavern. It was massive. It stretched as tall as I could see, and the walls were further away than I could perceive. The sheer size of this place was enough to make the hairs on my arms stand on end, purely because something this big wasn’t human. It wasn’t man-made. It was alien. Totally alien.

  The scariest thing about it, though?

  That bright light, shining right in the middle of this cavernous void.

  And yet…

  “I can’t give up,” I said. “And I won’t give up.”

  I held my breath and thought of all the pain in my life. As I thought of the pain—and there was a lot of it, not least the pain I’d felt these last few days, some of the purest pain of all—I felt my powers getting stronger once again. I could feel them charging up. I could feel the ice creeping down my spine, stretching down my arms, scaling my fingers, tickling my fingertips.

  I went to lift my arms and fire at the one holding me.

  Their grip around my neck loosened completely. I felt my stomach turn as I dropped down below. Immediately, I triggered my flight powers, needing to regain some sense of composure.

  But nothing happened.

  I was still falling.

  I felt my stomach drop as I hurtled toward the ground. I shouted out and lifted my hands in the air, trying to fire some kind of ice to the roof of this cavern.

  But the cavern walls and ceilings were just too high.

  The ice didn’t grip with the walls.

  I kept on falling.

  As I fell, fear filling my body, scrambling from side to side, for a moment, I felt a sense of calm. It was weird and totally unexpected, but it was there.

  Calm, because soon, there’d be nothing left of me.

  Calm, because I wouldn’t have to fight any longer.

  And, ultimately, the position of not having to fight any longer was what I’d been striving toward all this time, right?

  The cavern floor grew rapidly closer as I hurtled th
rough the air toward it.

  Sadness filled my body. I felt more tears roll down my cheeks, my throat wobbling. “I love you…” I started, intending to say “Mom” or “Dad” or “Ellicia” or anyone after it.

  But in the end, there were so many people I loved that I couldn’t say a thing.

  I looked up. Above, I saw that total pitch black darkness again.

  I felt the fear creeping up into my chest.

  I held my breath.

  Then, I fired one last shot of ice right up toward the ceiling.

  I stopped.

  Confusion filled my body. I spun left and right, still gasping in the darkness as I hovered there, totally static. Did I do it? Did the ice stick?

  Then the face appeared in front of me all over again.

  They were smiling, now.

  Their smile made my body shake. I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. It was like they had me wrapped up in some hypnotic trance.

  They grabbed my neck again. I battled for that final breath. I didn’t get a lungful.

  “You should’ve given up when I gave you the opportunity,” the voice said. “You were a fool for fighting. Now, we do things the hard way.”

  The figure stretched out their hand and pressed it against my chest.

  Immediately, I felt a searing pain stretch through my body, and I lurched from side to side. “You won’t win!” I shouted. “You’ll never win!”

  The figure smiled again, their hand still pressed against my chest. “That’s where you’re wrong, Kyle Peters. And this is where it ends for you, I’m afraid. It’s been nice knowing you. But really, it’s time.”

  The burning sensation in my chest spread right across my body. I tried to spark my powers, but the burning just seemed to melt my ice right away. I tried to teleport, but I couldn’t. I was just too weak.

  “You won’t win,” I shouted. “You won’t…”

  There was nothing else to say. I didn’t even have the strength to speak now.

  The figure pushed their hand further into my chest.

  More pain.

  More fear.

  More weakness.

  I saw a light blue glow illuminate in front of me, then. I felt sick right away. I knew what this was.

  “You’ve already lost,” the figure said, dragging the blue light from my body like they were taking away my innards. “Goodbye, Kyle Peters. Goodnight. This is where your story ends.”

  The last of the blue light was dragged from my body.

  This is where your story ends…

  I was starting to believe it, as my body gave up fighting, and darkness closed in.

  2

  I opened my eyes.

  The light above me was bright, which made me squint right away, wishing I was back in the darkness that I’d been in for… hell. How long had I been in that darkness? And what even was that darkness?

  All I knew was that something had happened. Something terrible.

  The air was biting cold. It hit me like a punch to the gut, making me curl my arms over myself and hug my body in an attempt to heat myself up. Still, none of this made sense. Why was I here? Where was I? Why was I in the cold?

  I blinked a few times, trying to get a sense of my surroundings. Everything was so bright. Snow covered the ground, and fell from the sky, too. By my side, there was a frozen lake, and something told me I’d been in that lake at some stage. I was all alone, wherever this was.

  But the thing that bothered me and gnawed at my consciousness most was the dream.

  I’d been in darkness. Total darkness. Someone had their hands around my neck—or their claws, or whatever they were—and were tightening them. I remembered feeling in the dream like I understood why I was being attacked, and why everything seemed like it was falling apart. It’d felt so real.

  But it wasn’t real. This was real.

  And this real sucked just as much as my dream reality.

  The wind blew strongly against me, making my face even number than it already was. I rubbed at my cheeks to try and bring feeling to them, but that didn’t do much good. My ears, which the wind howled past, were just as icy. So cold, in fact, that I could feel big icicles dangling from the ends of them.

  Where was I?

  What had I…

  I saw it, then. I saw the events that had unfolded and led to me being stranded here.

  I was fighting with Catalyst.

  I’d fallen into the icy lake.

  I’d held my breath as my life drifted away.

  And then Catalyst had reached me, and…

  Well, it was supposed to be the end. It was meant to be my big, great sacrifice.

  But then I’d seen something else.

  I’d woken up in some dark, alternate reality. Orion was there. As was Daniel Septer—my biological brother, also once known as Nycto.

  Saint was also there. Saint, the great, villainous monster of a being who had reigned terror over the world for so many years.

  Yet he was standing alongside Orion and Daniel, the pair of them facing the thing that was approaching.

  I felt a deep sense of foreboding when I remembered what I’d seen. The hairs on my arms stood on end, and nausea climbed through my body.

  I’d seen a great force approaching in the distance.

  There was no other way of explaining what I’d seen. A force.

  Only I knew, deep down, that force was heading toward Earth.

  I looked up at the sky. Snow fell from above. The blue sky was peppered with clouds. I felt tension in my body, as I bit my lip, wondering whether that force I’d seen was out there, making its way rapidly toward me.

  But hell. I had bigger problems on my plate right now.

  Namely, being stuck in the middle of Antarctica, freezing my ass off, with no idea if what I’d seen was real or just a figment of my admittedly pretty active imagination.

  I looked down at my hands. They were covered in ice. I needed to warm up, activating my powers—if I could find the strength.

  I turned to a crouch, held my breath, and squeezed my eyes shut.

  I pictured that force I’d seen.

  The force that had Orion and Saint united, together, because whatever it was terrified them so much.

  I saw it, and I felt a spark of warmth right in the middle of my chest, my powers getting close to the surface.

  Then I felt that grip tighten around my throat, and I let go.

  I collapsed to the ground. Icy snow covered my face, which made me feel even worse. I leaped back, swallowing a lump in my throat. I couldn’t just give up here. I had to try again. I couldn’t let my dreams get in the way.

  I closed my eyes again, held my breath, and refocused my attention on something else.

  My mom. The anger I felt about losing her.

  But searching for that warmth in my chest was hard. I felt like I was starting all over again, like all the practice I’d put into getting to the state I’d got to, power-wise, had been for nothing.

  Still, I persevered. I was going to have to if I wanted to get out of here.

  But what exactly was I going back to?

  I’d defeated Catalyst, sure. But I knew I was the Failsafe he was looking for, now. The key that had the power to destroy all of humanity, if extracted in the right way.

  And there was Ellicia, too. I’d seen what had happened to her. Part of the Failsafe was that it attacked those closest to me first, and Ellicia had fallen right in the firing line.

  That gave me even more of a reason to get back home.

  I gritted my teeth. I kept on pushing, trying to teleport back home with what little energy I had.

  But those dreams—those things I’d seen—kept on returning to the forefront of my attentions, holding me back.

  I gave up. I crouched there as the snow fell onto me, making me colder and colder by the second. I looked up into the sky and wondered, “What if?”

  I had a decision to make.

  Believe what I’d seen in my unconscio
usness and face up to a terrifying reality—a reality that I honestly didn’t think I was strong enough to face, not anymore.

  Or dismiss them as what they seemed to be: dreams. After all, Orion was gone. So too were Saint and Daniel. I’d seen them in a near-death experience. My powers had somehow pulled me back out of that icy lake. Everything else was just fantasy.

  I took a deep breath and cleared my throat.

  In the end, there was only one option I was willing to believe.

  I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and put all my energy into my thoughts of Ellicia.

  This time, I slipped smoothly into teleportation mode, and drifted off into the unknown, back toward home.

  I had to go back home.

  And I had to go back to my normal life.

  There was no point believing in fantasies.

  But as I drifted through the tunnel home, I still couldn’t shift those dreams from my mind…

  3

  When I got back home, I didn’t exactly get the welcome I expected.

  Snow was falling on the streets of Staten Island. I found that weird right away, as I swore when I’d left to fight Catalyst, it had been the end of summer—and a damned hot summer at that.

  Other than the falling snow, there were other things that caught my attention, too. The billboards and posters attached to walls were advertising things I didn’t recognize. The further I walked to my home, the more I triggered my invisibility because I didn’t want to be seen. This whole place felt weird enough as it was. I wasn’t sure I was ready to step back into it just yet.

  There were the usual sounds of home that caught my attention, making me feel like I’d been away for a lot longer than I expected. The sound of traffic rushing by, and of horns honking right over on Manhattan Island. I could hear them right from over here. Yep, one of the annoying things about being a Staten Island resident—no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t escape the toxic buzz of the city.

  The wind blew against me, and I immediately shivered, covering my body with my hands instinctively. I still hadn’t recovered from just how cold I’d been in Antarctica. I figured it’d take me a long while to recover, in truth.