Accidental Hero (Jack Blank Adventure) (31 page)

A plasma blast fired out into the early-morning quiet. It came not from Revile’s wrist cannon but blazing across the sky, originating behind the SmartTower spire. It blind-sided Revile and sent him sliding back across the roof. Before Jack even knew what was happening, a dozen more blasts pounded Revile, driving him right up to the roof’s edge and then skidding over the side. Jack looked up. In the predawn light he saw the rapidly approaching Peacemakers side by side with the Inner Circle.

The rescue team landed on the roof next to Jack. The
Peacemakers were made up of Surge, Battlecry, Harrier, Flex, and Stormfront, all of the members of the Peacemaker alpha squad except Speedrazor. The Inner Circle was represented by Stendeval, Prime, Virtua, Chi, and Hovarth, all of the Circlemen except Smart. They swooped in over the tower roof next to Jack. The fliers hovered in place under their own power, and the others jumped down to the roof from AirSpeeders and AirSkimmers.

“Where did you come from?” Jack asked. “How did you know I was here?”

“Emissary Knight sent out a distress signal,” Prime replied. “The Peacemakers picked it up. He said the Rüstov were attacking SmartTower.”

“His transmission cut off midsentence,” Surge said to Jack. “It sounded like there was a crash of some kind. Is he here?”

Jack shook his head gravely. “No,” he said. He knew full well what that crash had to be.

“Peacemakers, detain the boy,” Surge ordered. “He may be a part of this. Go inside and find Circleman Smart.”

The Peacemakers that were closest to Jack took a step toward him, but Hovarth blocked their way, placing his
giant battle-ax out in their path. “Hold,” he said. He wasn’t looking at them. He was looking up.

“Hovarth is correct,” Stendeval added, looking up as well. “It would appear that our combined forces have more pressing matters to attend to.”

Surge gasped when he saw what the others were looking at. Battlecry squinted in disbelief at the rusty metal figure rising up over the edge of the tower roof. There was a glowing red circle in the center of his chest. “Is that who I think it is?”

Chi nodded. “Revile.”

“That can’t be,” Harrier said, extending her wings and backing up a few feet into the sky. “It can’t… Revile’s dead.”

“You are free to tell him that,” Stendeval said calmly. “Jack did warn us otherwise.” Revile stared the group down from across the roof. Mainly, he stared at Jack. He didn’t try to reason with the Inner Circle and explain the righteousness of his cause. He didn’t try to justify what he felt was his right, perhaps even his duty, to do. Revile said absolutely nothing, but to Jack, his intentions could not be more clear. All the heroes in Empire City would
not be enough to deter Revile. There would be no escape for Jack this time. Revile’s metal frame was riddled with holes from Prime’s plasma blasts, Surge’s energy attacks, Battlecry’s sonic booms, and Harrier’s explosive shells. They all should have been lethal wounds, but Jack and the others watched as Revile’s circuits grew out and wove together, filling in the gaps and making him whole again. Harrier was wrong about Revile. The fact was, he just didn’t know how to die.

“I think we have to teach this one the error of his ways,” Hovarth said. “The dead should stay dead.”

Surge searched for his voice, but nothing came. His unit had been created to fight the Rüstov, but he never imagined he would face Revile. This was more than he and his men bargained for. “We have to work together,” Chi told everyone. The Peacemakers all mumbled out distracted responses in the affirmative.

“Get behind us, Jack,” Virtua said as the Inner Circle took defensive positions around him. Jack did as he was told, feeling pangs of guilt for the Inner Circle, and even the Peacemakers, as they prepared to put themselves in harm’s way. They didn’t know it, but they were protecting
him from himself. Jack wondered what they would do if they knew the truth about him. Would they still protect him? Jack wasn’t even sure if protecting him was the right thing to do. Not after what he had just found out about his future. Jack’s entire life, all he ever wanted was to know who he really was. Now he knew. He had learned more about himself than he ever thought possible, and oh, how he wished he could unlearn all of it.

Revile flexed ominously in the sky, fully prepared for battle. Jack looked around, trying to spot Smart’s nullifiers. Maybe if he could disable them, he’d be able to do something. Unfortunately, he had no idea what the nullifiers looked like. He was totally powerless.

Surge found his voice. “Peacemakers, ready,” he said. The Peacemakers held their position as Surge looked to Stendeval. Stendeval, in turn, looked to Prime. They would move on his word. Stendeval may have been the most powerful member of the Inner Circle, but Jack realized that, because it was still several minutes before the dawn, Stendeval’s daily power bank was at its lowest level and would not be recharged until the sun again rose over the Imagine Nation. He’d have to use any power he had
left sparingly until after sunrise, assuming they lived that long. Prime steeled himself and raised fists that glowed with power. He was more than ready for this fight. “For Valor,” he said to himself quietly, then shouted out the call to arms: “CIRCLEMEN, STRIKE!”

Superfights were common occurrences in Empire City, but this was no minor skirmish between random super powers. This was Revile. This was the Inner Circle and SmartCorp’s toughest Peacemakers. The combined superhuman firepower of everyone involved in this fight was enough to bring Mount Nevertop crashing to the ground.

Jack watched as Prime unleashed wave after wave of devastating plasma blasts. He saw biokinetic energy pour out of Surge’s hands, eyes, and mouth as he unloaded his power cells in a blinding display of lethal force. Chi harnessed the sum total of his being into blue fireballs that he pushed through outstretched palms at Revile. Some of the attacks connected with Revile, but most areas damaged by the shots regenerated quickly. As for the rest of the offensive, Revile was fast enough to dodge it. He was incredibly quick and agile for something so big and clunky. He had the advantage of flight over the majority of combatants,
and he knew how to use it. As they opened fire on him, he immediately launched an aerial counter-attack, flying over the roof and strafing the heroes with rapid-fire pulse blasts. His wrist cannons opened up again and again as the plasma blasts came out, closing up tightly in between each shot. Stendeval spent some of his precious energy casting a protective shell over Jack.

Battlecry was shouting out sound waves with all the air in his lungs when Revile scored a direct hit on his regulating apparatus. His sonics went from tightly focused bursts to all-encompassing shockwaves that took out the AirSkimmers, broke every window for miles, and brought everyone on the roof to their knees. Pressing his advantage, Revile dive-bombed into the center of the roof as his enemies struggled to find their footing. He hit with such impact that Jack flew into the air, landing a few feet away from the protective enclosure of the Circlemen. Between that and the sonic boom, Jack felt like he had gotten run over by a rhino. With the Circlemen and Peacemakers down for the moment, Revile again went after Jack.

Hovarth was the first hero to rise. He threw his battle-ax and wildly missed Revile. Then, as Revile grabbed Jack, the
ax’s arc curved like a boomerang and spun back to return to Hovarth. The ax cleaved Revile’s left arm from his body at the shoulder. Continuing on its path, the ax spun back into Hovarth’s hand and he caught it by the handle. Revile screamed a horrible curse in the Rüstov tongue. The ax had taken off a sizable portion of his torso, but he still managed to throw Jack off the roof with his one good arm.

Jack screamed, flailing helplessly in the air. Prime became a blue and silver blur and shot into the air after him. Hovarth thundered toward Revile. The giant warrior king of Varagog hit the undying Rüstov soldier like a freight train, knocking him to the ground. He pulled his knife from his belt and stabbed down on the red circle in Revile’s chest. The knife shattered without so much as scratching its target, and the damage that Hovarth had been able to inflict with his ax was rapidly being undone as Revile’s severed arm reattached itself to his body. As Hovarth held Revile down, the arm clawed its way over to the broken AirSkimmer and started using its pieces to rebuild itself. Soon the arm was reformed and returned to Revile with one important difference. While regenerating the appendage, Revile had opted to transform it into a
fusion cannon. He pointed it at Hovarth’s chest and fired.

Hovarth was blasted directly back into Flex, who grew three times his size to absorb the impact but still went crashing back into the SmartTower spire with Hovarth. Together the huge men cracked the spire at its base.

Prime flew back to the roof with Jack in his arms. He slowed down just enough to drop him off with Virtua before tackling Revile up into the sky. Harrier, the other superpowered flier, circled Prime and Revile as they struggled back and forth, trading blows in the air. Harrier’s bionic eyes allowed her to take clean shots at Revile with all the guns in her arsenal. With her cybernetically enhanced marksmanship, there was no need to worry about accidentally hitting Prime. Unfortunately, her bullets had no effect on Revile.

Surge shouted into his radio, calling for the Peacemaker beta team, the Peacemaker gamma team, and anyone he could raise. “We need reinforcements!” he hollered. “Repeat, we are under heavy fire at SmartTower! All available Peacemaker teams report in immediately!”

Virtua was way ahead of him. She had called for reinforcements the second the fight had started, reaching
out through cyberspace for the Valorian garrison in Galaxis, Chi’s dojo in Karateka, and her own data center in Machina. Jack had watched her send info-light data packets out into the city, hologram distress calls that would seek out any able-bodied hero willing to stand and fight. Jack could only hope that any help they found would get there in time to make a difference. Across the roof, Chi helped Hovarth and Flex get up. “Revile is not shooting to kill,” Virtua said.

“No, not at us,” Stendeval replied, waving off several more plasma blasts that would have killed Jack instantly. Revile snapped off potshots at Jack every single time he could get clear of his attackers, even if it was only for a second. With Revile’s intentions clear, Stendeval acted quickly. He raised his hands, and red energy particles began to spiral out in the air. When the particles finished swirling, Blue, Allegra, and Skerren were all standing there on the roof. Blue paused for just a moment before joining in on the fight, and Skerren even less than that. Allegra ran to Jack.

In the middle of all the chaos, Jack watched the roof-deck elevator open, revealing an injured Jonas Smart. Jack
saw Smart’s eyes flash open at the sight of Revile and the superfight in progress on his roof.

The battle was going badly for the heroes. Reinforcements began to arrive in good measure, but Revile took them on one and all. Platoons of Valorian Guards, legions of ninjas, and random heroes from across the city—like Laser Girl, Midknight, Discman, and more—did what they could, but it was like shoveling sand against the tide. Revile cut them down like a woodsman clearing a forest. Attacking en masse, the heroes bravely returned fire, but every time they knocked Revile down, he got back up. They couldn’t say the same.

Revile activated a sonic disrupter that scrambled Virtua’s holo projection, and fired a concussion blast that knocked out Stendeval, canceling Jack’s strongest protector out of the equation. Smart looked across the roof and locked eyes with Jack. From the look on his face, Jack could see he was assuming the worst. No surprises there. Smart pulled out his gun and staggered toward Jack, doing his best to dodge flying bullets, reeling supers, and even wild lightning that Stormfront had called down into the fray. Revile threw a Valorian Guardsman into Stormfront,
and a stray thunderbolt slapped Smart across the roof with a force that rattled his teeth. Ninjas swarmed Revile next, riddling him with Chinese stars and deftly turning his plasma blasts back at him with carefully angled ricochets off their katana blades.

In the far corner of all this mayhem, Blue covered Jack and said they had to get him out of there. Allegra wanted to know what this was all about. “What’s happening? Jack, are you all right?” she asked. In light of what Jack had just learned about his future, he didn’t even know how to begin answering her. Whatever the case, it was plain to see that he and “all right” weren’t even in the same zip code.

Smart found a safe spot behind some broken equipment on the roof. He propped himself up against the wreckage, struggling for every inch. He had lost his gun when he got hit by Stormfront’s lightning, but a more strategic weapon was standing just a few feet away.

“Skerren, it’s him!” Smart shouted. “It’s Jack! He brought the Rüstov here! He brought Revile!”

Smart’s accusations hit Jack like icicles stabbing his body. Smart was more right than he knew. Skerren looked
back and forth between Jack and Smart, then fixed his eyes on Jack. Skerren’s expression hardened.

“No!” Jack stammered. “Skerren, you don’t understand!”

“It’s the parasite inside him!” Smart railed. “It’s finally taken him over! You have to stop him, Skerren. You know what has to be done!”

Meanwhile, Revile was getting blasted to bits by the Valorian Guard and regenerating as fast as he could. The Guardsmen were keeping him at bay, but even in several pieces, Revile was still a clever and dangerous foe. He rebuilt himself using materials from the already damaged SmartTower spire. Once Revile had taken enough steel from its base, the spire first creaked, then cracked. Thirty tons of iron and glass crashed down, headed straight for Jack.

“Look out!” Blue shouted, and rushed in to brace the broken spire. Flex and Hovarth joined in before it crushed him. In the shadow of the spire, Smart was still yelling that this was all because of Jack.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Skerren said, approaching Jack. “He’s here because of you?”