Free Battle of the ULTRAs by Matt Blake

Stone was hopping from one to the other, smashing heads left right and center, Roadrunner helping dizzy them in confusion.
    Orion was drifting around, dodging their bullets, moving just as smoothly as I knew he could all this time.
    I stood there and looked up at this fight. I looked up above at the tower. I could go up there. I could take down Saint. I could end all this, right here, right now.
    Then I saw a massive blast from an ULTRAbot gun hurtling toward me.
    I was too late to dodge it. It hit me in the chest. I flew back and crashed into the wall of the tower. When I hit, I felt a little singe of pain as the electromagnetic force bit me. But there was something else, too. The ULTRAbots’ ammo. It had made a little hole in the wall.
    I hovered there then. Waved my arms to get the ULTRAbots’ attention. There was an absolute swarm of them now.
    “Hey!” I shouted, my chest still painful. “Over here!”
    The ULTRAbots all hovered up and surrounded me.
    Lifted their guns.
    Fired.
    I dodged their bullets, one by one. I felt the pain of the wall’s resistance against me. But I could feel the wall weakening. I could sense our way out opening up.
    I saw a huge bullet of energy right in front of my face.
    I ducked down. For a moment, I was convinced that was it. I’d had it.
    Then there was a massive, electronic blast right behind me.
    I felt fresh air. I looked around and saw there was an opening. The wall was crumbling away.
    “Get out of here!” I cried.
    I watched Ember battle his way to the opening and fired ice at the ULTRAbots as Vortex, Roadrunner, and Orion fought their way out, too.
    “Stone, quick!”
    The ULTRAbots were all around Stone. All surrounding him. I tried to fire at them, take them down, but more and more of them just kept on spawning around him.
    “We’ve gotta go,” Ember said.
    I watched as the ULTRAbots closed in on Stone. As he punched them back as hard as he could.
    “Kyle,” Orion said. “We’ve got to go.”
    The ULTRAbots surrounded Stone.
    His punches got weaker.
    Then, he stopped punching them away altogether.

18
    S aint never liked being disappointed .
    He looked at the cells where the captured Resistance had been kept. They were supposed to be so secure, yet here they were, completely empty. In the distance, he saw a gaping hole in the wall of his tower. He could feel a breeze brushing through it and it made him feel sick.
    “How on earth did something like this happen?”
    He tried to keep his cool as he turned to look at Controlla. He’d never been one for losing his temper, especially not with his own. Losing his temper just lowered the morale of everybody working for him. He couldn’t have morale lowering. Not when they were so close to such a beautiful moment.
    Controlla glared at the floor. He rubbed the back of his head. He was just a boy. Naive to the demands of the world he lived in. “Something… something just happened.”
    “You’re supposed to get inside the minds of others, aren’t you?”
    Controlla nodded. “I did. I got inside Kyle’s mind—”
    “Then what happened?”
    “I… I don’t know. Something I’ve never seen before. Like he reversed it. Bounced it back at me. Then it was too late.”
    Saint gritted his teeth. He resisted the urge to lash out, as much as his powers tingled at his fingers.
    He took a deep breath and walked further across the metal flooring.
    On the ground up ahead, there were pieces of rubble. Small chunks of debris. “But you managed to stop one of them leaving, by the looks of things. Right?”
    Again, Controlla lowered his head, breaking Saint’s gaze.
    “The one who calls himself Stone. You stopped him. Right?”
    “The—the ULTRAbots had him. Then something happened there too. He got away before they could finish him. But I swear I tried to help stop him. I swear I did everything I could.”
    Saint scanned Controlla’s face. He didn’t really like him. He was one of the ULTRAs Nycto had brought along with