The Accidental Hero

by Matt Myklusch

  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?”

  “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 breaki
ng 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.

  CHAPTER

  18

  The Last Stand

  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!”