The Anthem Force Chronicles

"This is your esteemed hero"

“Luke?” I opened the door to let him in, “What’s wrong?’

 “Ran all the way here,” he panted in between breaths.

I froze realizing what was seriously wrong in this situation. Luke ran here and was out of breath. Luke was never out of breath.

“Luke,” I started slowly, looking him over, “Why didn’t you just fly here?”

“Vigor,” he stood up, regaining his composure, “You were right, you were right about everything. He was the one who stole the Stone of Cratus.”

“Oh no, oh no, oh no, this is bad,” I bit my lip. This was so bad. 

“The stupid thing actually worked, I mean come on it was just supposed to be a stupid legend,” he groaned, “It enhanced his powers, Vigor was able to absorb more energy then ever before.”

“What happened to you?’ I asked, my voice starting to break.

 “We got the distress call and when we went downtown we started to fight him. We thought it’d be easy; he was the only one from his group, three against one right? At first we were destroying him, it looked like it would be an easy win after all but it seemed like the longer we fought him the more powerful he got. Then he started to absorb the energy from us, I mean we’ve fought him before but he was never strong enough to do that; he drained us from of our powers and turned it into energy. He beat us Dante, we lost,” Luke shook his head as if in disbelief.

I let out a low gasp. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. The Anthem Force were the good guys, the good guys always win.

“Luke, where are Brian and Ricky,” I asked finally, fearing the worse.

“Vigor captured them, he hasn’t killed them, yet.”

Kill? I mean I knew there had always been a risk to the job but death? It seemed so harsh, we had never fought anyone like this before, no one who posed this much of a threat. I wanted to help people, keep them safe. Yet I don’t know if I was willing to end my life for it. I didn’t sign up for this.

I sighed, now wasn’t the time to panic, Brian and Ricky weren’t dead, yet. Yet was the keyword. We still had a chance to save them but we had to act quickly.

“Luke, what do we do?”

“What do you mean? He beat all of us with our powers, there’s nothing we can do without any,” Luke looked at me, desperation spread across his face. I studied his features, he had already given up. I had never seen him like this before, he had always been the first to step into a dangerous situation. He had always given everything he had to help someone, putting overs above himself. But now- now he was afraid. With the loss of his powers, Luke had also lost all his fight. I stared at him in disbelief, I had always thought there had been more to him then just his powers. I thought that the courage and selflessness he had always shown came from deep down inside him, I guess I had been wrong.

Any doubts about what my next step should be were erased by Luke’s reluctance. I knew what I had to do. I rushed into my room and changed into my Anthem Girl costume using a spare mask.

“What are you doing?” Luke said, looking up at my sudden wardrobe change.

“Luke, we need to do something. We need to at least try, we’re the city’s last hope,” I pleaded. Luke didn’t say anything, he just looked down into his palms. “You’re not coming with me, are you?”

“Please Dante, don’t go,” he begged, answering my question with his own request.

I stormed out of the room, only turning back when I was already halfway through the doorway, “You know, I expected more from you.”