Fall of Heroes Read Free Page A

looking for movement.
    â€œWe’re as ready as we can be,” Kirbie said, stepping beside Alex with her eyes to the sky. “Just try to keep Shade’s attention so she’s not digging around in any of our heads.”
    â€œRight,” Alex said.
    There was a sound cutting through the air above them—a helicopter flying low.
    â€œNewspeople?” Kirbie asked.
    â€œNo,” Alex said. “I don’t think so.”
    â€œThat didn’t take long,” Mallory murmured.
    â€œGet ready, everyone. They’re here.”
    Something fell from the helicopter, plummeting through the air at an incredible speed. Something blond and human shaped. Titan. He landed in a crouch, one fist slamming into the ground, the other reared back, ready to strike. The earth trembled beneath him.
    Alex smiled to himself. The New Rangers had come. But they had no idea that the real action was taking place miles away, where two of Alex’s friends were getting ready to enter the Gloom and rescue Lone Star and Lux—the actual Rangers of Justice.
    Alex and his teammates were just decoys.

2

INTO THE GLOOM
    T he Rook was the tallest structure in Sterling City, a glass-and-stone tower of offices, fancy shops, and luxury apartments piercing the sky above the eastern side of Victory Park. Misty stood on her tiptoes at the very edge of the building’s roof, nothing but open air and a thousand-foot drop in front of her. The breeze ruffled her red curls as she peered across the city with wide eyes.
    â€œSooooo high,” she whispered.
    â€œUhhh,” Bug said. He started toward her, but stopped a few feet away. “I know you could just break apart and float back up here if you fell, but you’re kind of freaking me out standing so close to the side like that.”
    She turned her head to him, flashing a grin. “Don’t worry. I was always really good at balance and stuff like that. I could probably even do a handstand right here and never have to use my powers once.”
    â€œPlease don’t.” Bug gulped. A huge green-and-blue dragonfly circled around his head—Zip. Thanks to Bug’s ability to control insects and see through their eyes, Zip was about to become a key member of the Gloom expedition team.
    Near the center of the roof, Gage was carefully setting up the device he’d created using part of the Umbra Gun that had banished many Rangers to the Gloom in the past. The invention, which he called the Gloom Key, looked simple enough—just a metal box with a giant diamond attached to the top of it—but it held a concentration of shadow energy from Phantom, one of the four members of Cloak’s High Council. Only recently had they managed to obtain that piece of the gun, thanks to an incredibly risky infiltration of Cloak’s underground base. The Gloom Key enabled them to enter the Gloom and rescue the Rangers. Lone Star and Lux were the powerhouses they needed if they were going to expose the New Rangers as frauds and bring Cloak to justice once and for all.
    The problem was how to find the lost Rangers in the Gloom. Gage hypothesized that the place acted as a sort of dark mirror to the normal world, meaning the smartest thing to do was go into the Gloom as close to where Lone Star and Lux had been sucked into it as possible—somewhere near where Justice Tower had stood. That meant finding a place where they could camp out in secret in the heart of Sterling City during one of the most crowded times of the year. The Rook was their choice, a rooftop Kirbie and Lux had used as a meeting and scouting place back before everything had gone wrong. There were only two ways of accessing the roof: the stairway coming from inside the building and the sky. Amp was busy making sure no one came through the door by jamming the lock shut, using his ability to absorb and channel sound to make sure no one on the floors below heard him.
    Their only real threats were