Accidental Hero (Jack Blank Adventure) (32 page)

“No,” Jack said, backing away. But as he looked at the
violence all around him, he had to admit that one way or another, he really was at the root of it all. “Well, yes.” He nodded. “He is, but—”

Skerren reached for his swords but hesitated for a moment.

“Kill him, Skerren!” Smart raged from across the roof. “You have to kill him now!”

Skerren closed his eyes and swung his swords down at Jack as hard as he could. Jack had no defense. Maybe it was better this way, he thought. Maybe Revile was right. If he died here, then Revile would never come to be. Jack braced himself for a blow that never came.

Skerren’s blades were stopped cold by something they couldn’t cut, something that couldn’t be broken. Jack watched as Skerren’s swords rebounded off the silvery barrier of Allegra’s stretched form. Skerren met his match in the form of a fearless Valorian girl, and his blades went flying across the roof. Skerren shook his arms in pain. “You!” he said, opening his eyes. He looked stunned. To tell the truth, so did Allegra. There it was, the hallmark of every true Valorian: unbridled, unflinching courage. All it took to bring it out was a friend in need.

Blue reached out with his one free hand and grabbed Skerren off the ground. Skerren struggled and shouted, but he wasn’t breaking Blue’s grip, and he certainly wasn’t getting at his swords. Meanwhile, Revile unloaded another round of plasma blasts at Jack.

“You have to get out of here!” Allegra shouted to Jack.

Revile fired his fusion cannon again, knocking Flex into Skerren and Blue, taking them both out and leaving Hovarth to hold the spire by himself. More Peacemakers were arriving, but instead of helping Hovarth with the spire, they attended to Smart, who was still reeling from superelectric shocks. Smart waved the Peacemakers off and told them to go get Jack, claiming he was the one behind all this. Through all of it, Jack just stood there in a daze.

“Jack, snap out of it!” Allegra yelled at him. “They’re after you! You have to go!”

“Go where?” Jack said. “He’ll just follow me!” Jack knew he couldn’t get away from Revile, no matter what he did. Besides, Revile was fighting every hero in Empire City and winning. If Jack wasn’t safe from him with every hero in the city, he wouldn’t be safe anywhere. Unless…

There was a chance. Jack saw it floating past the edge of the island. It was a slim chance. Maybe his only chance, but there
was
something he could do. Jack’s survival instincts kicked back in, and he looked around the roof deck until he spotted Smart’s HyperJet. The ship was a thing of beauty. Its design was simplicity itself, one smooth and flowing piece of metal. It’s long, sleek frame flattened out and narrowed into a needle-sharp point at the ship’s nose. Its shiny steel exterior was pristine, reflecting the battle all around on its hull better than any mirror could ever hope to. It looked like a sword with wings. From the second Jack had laid eyes on it, he could tell it was built for speed.

Jack looked up at Allegra and the advancing Peacemaker troops. It was going to be close, and even if everything went exactly right, he couldn’t be sure this plan was going to work. But he was going to find out. This wasn’t over yet.

“GO!” Allegra screamed again, placing herself between the Peacemakers and Jack. Jack ran. Revile saw him break for the ship. He fired relentlessly at Jack, which, combined with Allegra’s running interference, held the Peacemakers
back long enough for him to get inside. He jumped into the captain’s chair and buckled in. Looking around the cabin, Jack saw that the ship’s interior was every bit as smooth as its exterior. The dashboard in front of him was a flat silver surface without a single button or switch to speak of.

“Activate tangital control panel?” Jack guessed.

Lights started flickering rapidly in the cockpit as Hard-Light Holo flight controls materialized all around Jack. Suddenly, he had at his fingertips more meters, gauges, buttons, and switches than he could ever hope to operate or understand. He looked down at the throttle. He was going to have to get this thing off the ground the same way any completely untrained pilot would. By trial and error.

Looking through the windshield, Jack saw Hovarth holding the thirty-ton tower spire by himself. Hovarth somehow got leverage on the spire and threw it with all his might. It coursed through the air like a javelin, all the way past the city limits, and out into the sea. My turn, Jack told himself. He could do this. He didn’t need his powers. He knew things; he’d studied hard. He started flipping
switches until he got the power on, then gently pulled back on the throttle to bring the HyperJet up into the air. It rose up slowly in vertical lift-off mode. Jack was a little out of control, but he was airborne. He got rocked around the sky by clueless Peacemakers before Revile started picking them off with plasma blasts that were meant for him. Revile was being kept busy by the other heroes, getting swamped by attacks from every angle. For a second, Jack thought the supers might be able to buy him enough time to pull this stunt off, but Revile hit the red circle on his chest and a full-force laser blast poured out from its center, hammering his enemies with a powerful ray beam.

When the blast was over, every hero had fallen down. Revile drifted in the air for a moment, looking woozy. He was about to take off toward Jack when Stendeval raised a weary fist in the air and used what must have been the last drops of power for the day. He reduced Revile’s body into several thousand metal pieces, none of them bigger than a marble. For the first time since the battle had begun, there was quiet.

As Revile went to work on reassembling himself, Jack
frantically searched the cabin of the ship for the main thrusters. As soon as he found them, he slammed down on the accelerator and punched the engine. With a roar his ship took off in a wild and untamed path, zigging and zagging through the sky toward Wrekzaw Isle. Seconds later, he crashed directly into it.

In all his life, Jack had never been so happy that he remembered to buckle up for safety. They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one, but Jack didn’t walk away from this one—he ran. He sprinted away from his broken ship as fast as he could. For one thing, he was afraid it was going to blow up like things always did in the comic books and movies, and for another, the crash site would be the first place Revile would look for him. Jack knew he’d have to face Revile eventually, but his plan had very specific parameters about where he was going to
do it. He had one chance on this island, and it was only in one place. Jack had to do this thing perfectly if it was going to work at all.

As he ran across the uneven terrain of junk that was Wrekzaw Isle, Jack felt his powers flooding back into his body. Thank goodness, he thought. The farther away he got from SmartTower and its nullifiers, the more he started to feel like himself again. It was amazing. In such a short time, Jack had gotten so used to his powers that when they had been taken away, he had felt like he was lost in the dark. He managed to live through the superfight without them, but not without a lot of help. Now he was on his own, but with his powers coming back, he was feeling better about it. He was feeling like his plan might have a shot after all.

It was such a different sensation being on Wrekzaw Isle now as opposed to the first time he was there. Now he could hear everything on the island. Pieces of machinery that still worked were alive with energy that he could feel. Rüstov Left-Behinds that had tunneled into the landscape were crawling out to the surface. Jack could hear a local Rüstov hive buzzing with chatter about the crash and
about him, and there were no Circlemen to clear the area before he landed this time.

Arms reached out of shrapnel heaps and grabbed at him. Faces opened up in the ground beneath his feet and called out his location to the others. Jack kept running from them. He ran for the place where he had spent the night the last time he was here. The mothership’s engine. Revile’s grave. When Jack finally got there, he found the place had a terrible new significance for him. This place didn’t just belong to Revile. It was his now too.

“My former, future grave,” Jack said to himself as he looked at the engine. He shook his head. It was a scary thought, and one that was better left alone. He had to focus. He needed to get ready. This was going to take at least a few minutes to do, and it was likely that was all the time he had. He talked to the machines in the area and found what was still working and what was willing to help. He got lucky with a few hydraulic lifts and some loading-bay docking arms that were nearby and functional. Among other things, he had them start spreading some of the area’s debris around the site. He was setting the stage. He had to get this place ready before it was time to face the final curtain.

Once everything was prepared, Jack sat down and relaxed for a minute. He was surprised to find himself so steady and calm. Maybe it was because he knew the storm was coming, no matter what, and there was no sense in worrying about it now. He’d already done everything he could to prepare.

It wasn’t long before Revile came soaring over the island’s orange terrain of rusted metal, red rock shrapnel, and dust. He landed in the clearing near Jack, who stood out in the open with his hands held high.

Revile approached Jack fully aware that Jack’s powers were no longer being blocked, but without any fear. That much was clear to Jack. Revile knew the extent of Jack’s abilities. Of course he did. Jack’s very high power level probably registered on Revile’s scanners, but that wouldn’t worry him. Revile was a machine, yet he knew his systems were too complex for Jack to understand and take control of. He looked around for any reinforcements that might be coming.

“If you’re waiting for help to arrive and ambush me, it isn’t going to happen,” Revile said. “I have the entire area scanned.”

“That’s fine,” Jack told Revile quite truthfully. “I’m not expecting anyone. This is just between us.”

Revile agreed. “That is how it should have been from the start,” he said. “The fight at SmartTower was regrettable. It’s time to finish this.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Jack said in the toughest voice he could muster. “Think about it,” Jack said. “We can change things. We’re changing things right now, can’t you see that? We can make sure I never become you.”

Revile looked at Jack sideways. He almost laughed. “That’s entirely the point. My only reason for being is to ensure that I never will be,” he said. “I thought you understood that.”

Jack shook his head. “You don’t have to kill me to make that happen. This… right here and now… this never happened to you. Things are already different. You changed the past.
We
changed the past!”

“But we haven’t changed the future,” Revile said. “Otherwise, I would not still be here. The simple fact that I exist means the Rüstov will eventually claim you. It is only a matter of time.”

“We could work together,” Jack said. “Together we could
stop it. You have to admit there’s a chance. Isn’t there?”

“There is,” Revile said as he primed his wrist cannons. “Me.”

Jack’s heart sank.

“I take no pleasure in this,” Revile told Jack. “I take no pleasure in anything. Thank me, Jack Blank. I do this now so that you will not have to one day stand in my place and do it yourself. I gave you a chance. You know that I did. I tried everything I could.”

Jack nodded. “So did I,” he said, sullen. He’d hoped that there was enough of him still left in Revile to get through to, that there was some measure of humanity left to appeal to. Now he could see there was not. Revile was completely lost. He was completely lost. Jack could understand Revile’s reasoning. He just couldn’t accept it. Revile raised his plasma cannons to fire on Jack. As the Rüstov supersoldier prepared to open fire, Jack told him that he was sorry.

Revile fired, intending to unload two full clips of plasma ammo into Jack. Instead of firing, however, both of Revile’s arms blew apart as the very deadly and extremely unstable plasma backfired in each mounted cannon. Explosions
erupted at Revile’s extremities and ratcheted all the way up to his shoulders, blowing them to pieces. Sparks and flames flew as both limbs disappeared like a string of firecrackers being torn apart. Revile’s gun barrels had been jammed… by Jack.

Revile screamed out a cry that came as much from shock as it did from pain. When he was through, he took stock of his devastated torso and stared at Jack with his mouth agape. He found himself in the very unique position of having underestimated himself.

“I don’t take any pleasure in this either,” Jack said.

“How?” Revile asked. “How did you…”

“Sometimes you have to think small to think big,” Jack said, recalling Stendeval’s words of advice. “I didn’t know enough about plasma blasts to stop your guns from shooting, but I know enough to close the lid on a gun barrel. You probably should have thought of that one. We learned that kind of control back in our first lesson with Stendeval.”

“You’re only delaying the inevitable,” Revile said. “Yeah, about that…,” Jack said to Revile. He wasn’t finished yet. He spoke to the loading-bay docking system,
and huge grappling hooks sprang to life from the scrap heap and clamped down on Revile. He writhed, helpless in their grasp. They would be able to hold Revile only until his arms rebuilt themselves, but that was all the time Jack would need. By the time that happened, the Infinite Warp Core engine would be ready to fire.

As if on cue, the ground began to rumble. Scrap metal, garbage, and the other debris that Jack had used to cover up the crater in the center of the clearing started to rattle and shake itself loose. The tremors revealed the main thruster shaft of the Rüstov mothership engine.

“The last time I was here, I used the machines on this island to fight the Rüstov,” Jack said. “But I forgot that this whole island is a machine… a spaceship. I guess sometimes it helps to think big, too.” Jack shrugged. “I’ve been talking to that engine since I crashed. I just asked it to help me. You know it thinks I’m Rüstov royalty?”

Revile roared at Jack, struggling against the clamps that gripped him. His arms were only about 40 percent complete. That wasn’t going to be enough.