Free Strike 2: Dawn of the Daybreaker by Charlie Wood

Apparently still alive.”
    “Yeah, what was that all about?” Tobin asked. “Keplar said that he turned into a human? I don’t understand. I thought he…?”
    Orion led Tobin into the Museum’s research room. Its floors were lined with bookshelves, and there were dozens of circular filing cabinets and computer stations along the walls.
    “There are still some things we haven’t told you much about, Tobin,” Orion said. “Some things that aren’t very easy for either Keplar or me to talk about.”
    Orion walked to a shelf; it was lined with small, crystal discs in plastic cases. The old man found the disc he was looking for, then placed it inside a circular machine on the floor.
    “You already know some of this,” Orion began, “but we have never gone into too much detail. Many years ago, after your father moved to Earth and retired from being a superhero, I decided I needed to train a new team of superheroes here on Capricious, in case Vincent ever returned. If there was ever another threat to Earth, I didn’t want to have to rely on you, when you grew up.”
    “So much for that,” Tobin said with a smirk.
    Orion laughed. “Yes. But I did try.”
    Orion pressed a button on a remote control, and a life-size, three-dimensional image appeared above the machine on the floor—it was an image of Tobin’s father Scott, the original Strike, and Orion. The image was made out of shimmering, colorful light, and as Tobin walked around it, he could see all sides of Orion and his father in their superhero costumes. It was still one of the coolest things Tobin had seen on the world of Capricious: a machine that created life-size, life-like holograms. The hologram machines here in the Museum played movies about history and science, but there were other machines, as Tobin had quickly learned, that played the greatest video games in the entire universe.
    “Two of the superheroes I decided to train when your father retired were two new heroes who had recently begun making news fighting crime on Capricious,” Orion said. “One of them was Keplar.”
    Tobin watched as the machine projected a hologram of a young Keplar, about twelve years old. The pre-teen husky looked much younger and skinnier than he did now, but he was still wearing his usual cowboy hat, heavy boots, and leather jacket. The image began to move, and Tobin watched as the twelve-year-old Keplar fired his laser blasters in the Museum of the Heroes training room. The husky easily dispatched a squadron of six-foot tall, humanoid robots, all while laughing and hooting with glee. The target shooting came so natural to him, even at an age when most kids were just starting sixth grade.
    “And the other hero,” Orion continued, “was a young man named Marcus Drake.”
    The hologram changed: now it showed a young black man, about eighteen years old. He was tall and built like a marathon runner, with a fit body and dark hair that was shaved nearly down to his skin. A training robot was charging at him, but he readied himself; as he yelled in anger, his body grew nearly a foot, and his skin turned red and rough like a rhinoceros. The giant’s appearance wasn’t as inhuman and demented as Tobin had seen in the present, but the boy could still recognize who it was—it was Rigel. The red-skinned man quickly clubbed the robot with his forearm, knocked it to the ground, and then stomped on its head with his elephant-like foot.
    “Both of these heroes were young and hot-headed,” Orion explained, “but they were also very gifted. Keplar took to the training immediately, embracing the challenge of becoming a better hero, but Marcus was...very troubled. I thought I could help him deal with his terrible past, and help him overcome the paranoid thoughts that were haunting him, but in the end, I couldn’t. Eventually, he revealed his true intentions—for the majority of the time, he had only been training with Keplar and me so that he could learn the secret whereabouts