Jack went flying back into the wall. He hit it hard and belly flopped down onto the ground, landing right next to a wounded Para-Soldier. It was creeping up on Lorem Ipsum, no doubt looking to trade up to a new host. Jack grabbed it by the shoulder and hijacked the techno-organic armaments that covered its host body, using them to repair his own. The stripped-down Para-Soldier fell in front of Lorem like a toothless tiger. She nodded at Jack and gave him a little salute. Jack returned the gesture and went right back to shooting Para-Soldiers. Lorem did the same, going back to flipping around and fighting Rüstov invaders hand to hand. Her “gibberish touch” powers weren’t much help in this battle, but she was still as agile and deadly as any hero Jack had ever seen. Zhi, who had learned karate at the feet of his mentor, Chi, was just as dangerous. His fists broke Rüstov bones like they were wooden boards in a dojo, and his roundhouse kicks sent Para-Soldiers flying through the air. Trea’s three selves worked together with coordinated attack moves that the Rüstov couldn’t counter, and Jazen kept going no matter what the Rüstov threw at him. Jack and his friends were more than a match for the Magus’s foot soldiers, but they were still outnumbered twenty to one.
“This is taking too long,” Jack said to himself. At this rate, Smart’s nullifier would burn out long before he reached the Magus, and he still didn’t know how to separate a Rüstov parasite from its host body. He had to speed things up.
Jack used his powers to arm all the weapons at his disposal—every gun and missile on every aircraft in the hangar. He set his sights on the field of Rüstov soldiers fighting his friends and unleashed an unbroken string of rapid-fire shots. His connection with each ship’s precision targeting system ensured he hit only the Rüstov. The Para-Soldiers all dropped to the ground and the room got very still. Zhi, Jazen, Lorem, and Trea looked around with unexpected relief. Skerren was all business. He pulled a sword from a Para-Soldier’s chest and nodded to an open door on the far side of the hangar. Jack nodded back and ran through it.
The next group of Rüstov soldiers Jack and his friends encountered put up less of a fight. They were Rüstov nobles and clearly weren’t expecting an assault while on board the Apocalypse. Jack and the others hit them hard and fast. They went down easily, but the battle was hard to stomach. The nobles had all taken fresh hosts. They didn’t look like robot-zombies; they looked like people. Their appearance made dealing with them so much more difficult, but Jack told himself he had no choice. Until I have another way to fight them, this is it, he thought. When it was over, Jack knelt down by the fallen nobles to try and learn something from their bodies. He had very little experience dealing with the Rüstov’s upper class. He hoped they could tell him something that the withered Left-Behinds he was used to dealing with could not.
Using his powers, Jack reached out to the few mechanical parts he could find in the dying host bodies all around him. There wasn’t much for him to work with. So far, the virus had only bonded with each host’s nervous system enough for the parasite’s consciousness to take over.
“What’s the verdict?” Jazen asked. He didn’t have to get any more specific than that. Jack knew what he was asking. Was he going to be able to unhook the parasites from their hosts? Was he going to be able to save Stendeval, Allegra, Roka . . . everybody?
Jack shook his head. “Jury’s still out.”
“Jury’s still out?” Skerren repeated.
Jack reached out to every dying Rüstov infection in the room. He could see pieces of the puzzle, but he couldn’t put it all together yet. “I’m working on it. I just can’t figure out where the Rüstov ends and the person begins. The connection’s too complex for me to unravel in my head. I can’t see it.”
“I don’t understand,” Trea said. “The nullifier’s still blocking Khalix. You’re using your powers on Rüstov technology now. Shouldn’t you be able to see it?”
Jack touched his power core. “I can’t even see it inside myself. I thought I’d be able to, once I let this happen to me, but . . .”
“What’s stopping you?” Skerren asked.
Jack frowned. “Khalix is. Whatever influence he has that isn’t being blocked by the nullifier is hiding this from me. It’s just like with Revile.”
“Not just like Revile, right, Jack?” Jazen asked.
Jack didn’t answer.
“Jack?” Jazen said again.
Zhi tapped Jack’s shoulder. “C’mon, Jack. Say something.”
Jack stood up. “The clock is ticking. Let’s move.”
As Jack and his friends pressed on, they heard the sound of rockets launching and explosions going off outside the ship. “I wonder how it’s going out there,” Trea said.
Jack didn’t have to wonder. That was the other reason he wanted Revile to stay behind. His future self was mostly machine, just like him. Jack reached out with his powers and looked through Revile’s eyes to see how the war was going down on the ground. At the moment, Revile was in Karateka.
Jack saw Chi and his arch nemesis, the ShadowClan shogun, fighting back to back against a throng of Para-Soldiers. The master of the ZenClan ninjas and the lord of the Ronin assassins were working together. Jack could not envision any other scenario in which this could have taken place. Glowing blue lights emanated from Chi’s fists as he hacked away at the Rüstov with his bare hands and threw fireballs into them. Dark black energy flowed from the wicked shogun’s hands as he did the same. He swung out a flattened palm, and black light trailed from his fingertips. Revile joined the Ronin assassins and ZenClan ninjas as they overtook the Para-Soldiers, and Jack broke contact. He turned his attention back to the task at hand. He turned his attention inward. As he and his friends fought their way through the ship, he kept trying to solve the riddle of his connection with Khalix. So far, he had come up with nothing. It was hard to concentrate amid all the chaos and fire.
Jack smashed open a set of iron doors and found another small army of Para-Soldier shock troops waiting behind it. He fired two shots from his fusion cannons at them and followed that up with a six-pack of missiles, each one no bigger than a Magic Marker. Bright orange streaks of fire screamed across the sky as the minirockets took out the Rüstov’s front line. Jack winced as they exploded. More lives lost . . . but what choice did he have?
Jack resolved to deal with his conscience later. Right now he had to save whatever lives he could, starting with his friends’. They didn’t have time to fight through another Para-Soldier battalion. He ignited a pair of pilot lights on the insides of his wrists and pumped aerosol fuel out through tiny holes in the palms of his hands. Giant tentacles of fire leaped from Jack’s arms and lashed out at the grimy Rüstov foot soldiers. He waved his hands back and forth, creating a wall of flames that they couldn’t get through. Each lowly Para-Soldier’s dilapidated machine parts were covered in grease and flammable liquids. They didn’t dare approach Jack’s fiery blockade. They could shoot through it, but they were shooting blind.
“Skerren, cut through that wall!” Jack shouted, pointing. “We’re getting out of here now.”
Skerren did as he was told and carved a giant circle into the wall on his left. Zhi threw a jump kick at it, and together they made an instant door. A giant piece of the wall went flying into the engine room on the other side. Everybody ran through the opening. Jack went last, still using his flamethrowers to hold back the Rüstov soldiers behind them. There were more Para-Soldiers up ahead, but the odds were much better in the engine room.
“Which way, Jack?” Jazen asked as he threw a hard right cross at an advancing Para-Soldier, dropping it where it stood. The former emissary picked the Para-Soldier up and swung it around like a throwing hammer. When he let go, the lulled Para-Soldier went sailing into the towering column of white-hot energy that powered the ship’s Infinite Warp Core. Jack watched it go. The column rose up three hundred feet into the air. He felt for the Magus.
“Up there,” Jack said.
“Not a problem,” Zhi said as he threw an elbow into a P
ara-Soldier’s jaw, snapping its neck back. “We’ve got room for my dragons in here.”
Zhi was about to call in his seven flying serpents, but Jack stopped him. He used his powers to grab hold of a team of Rüstov sentries that were flying around the engine room on jet packs. “How about I give you a ride for once, Zhi?”
A minute later, all of Jack’s friends were strapping jet packs onto their backs, even Skerren. “I don’t like this,” Skerren said as Trea helped him get his pack on. “I don’t like using machines.”
“You want your shot at the Magus, don’t you?” Lorem asked. She reached over and hit the button to fire his rockets. “Make an exception.”
Skerren went soaring up into the sky. Jack flew after him and used his powers to straighten out his flight path. Once Skerren got the hang of flying, Jack let him take the reins and go off on his own. Jazen, Lorem, Zhi, and Trea took off after them, and they all flew up alongside the gleaming pillar of energy in the center of the engine room. Jack led the way, firing round after round from his fusion cannons up at the ceiling. The Magus’s throne room was waiting on the next floor.
As Jack closed in on his target, he could feel Khalix fighting against Smart’s nullifier. The Rüstov prince’s power was rising within him. He didn’t have much time left. I can do this, Jack told himself. Stendeval was right. We can beat them. I know we can. . . .
Jack checked in once more on the battle in Empire City. Revile was flying from borough to borough, helping out wherever he was needed. Down on the ground, Jack saw a legion of armed androids from Machina advancing on the Rüstov and pushing them back. They were moving up the streets in platoons, laying down cover fire for each other and taking back block after block. Glowing projections of Virtua were blinking in and out all over the battlefield, directing them as they fought.
Up in the air, Prime and his men were fighting alongside the Calculan drones and Smart’s WarHawks. Ricochet was there too, bouncing around the sky like a racquetball made out of thermite. Powerful bursts of energy exploded on every ship she hit. Down in Hero Square, Speedrazor rushed through the crowd, cutting Rüstov Para-Soldiers to ribbons. He had reunited with a few other former Peacemakers. Battlecry, Flex, Harrier, and Surge fought with him. Villains like Backstab, Pain, Arsenal, and Fugazi were there, too. Everyone was fighting the Rüstov, even the Secreteers. Jack saw bursts of black smoke firing up out of the ground, behind monuments, and up in the air. With every cloud of smoke that appeared, a hooded Secreteer sprang out and struck a Para-Soldier, then vanished before the mists even started to fade. The Mysterrii were right there with them, flipping all around the square and stabbing at the Rüstov with little knives.
Jack’s spirits were lifted by the courage of the people down below. He had to come through for them. He had to finish this. All the while he fought the Rüstov, he studied his own techno-organic makeup. He was almost there. Jack blasted through the roof of the engine room and into the grand hallway outside the Magus’s throne room. The way inside was blocked by a regiment of armored guards . . . and a friend.
“Allegra?” Jack said. He knew she wasn’t in control of her body, but she still looked exactly like herself. Seeing Allegra guarding the Magus’s door stopped Jack’s heart cold. While he was distracted, the imperial guard filled the air with cluster bombs. They blanketed the hall with explosions before Jack could lift a finger to stop them.
Shrapnel stabbed Jack like a million tiny daggers. He couldn’t be permanently harmed by such an attack, but his friends were another story. He heard them scream as the bombs went off throughout the hall. When the dust settled, Jack scanned his friends for vital signs. Jazen’s and Skerren’s injuries were minor, but Lorem Ipsum, Trea, and Zhi were seriously wounded. He could hear the footsteps of the imperial guards coming down the hall to kill them. Jack put himself back together and got up angrily. He had seen too many good people hurt by the Rüstov for one day. This was where it stopped.
“Stay down,” Jack told Jazen and Skerren. He shot out a hand, and the imperial guards running toward him froze in place. He made a fist, and their knees folded over in the wrong direction. Jack locked a plasma cannon on the next row of guards and fired. They tried to fire back, but he wouldn’t let them. He rose up into the air, holding his hands out in front of him. They glowed with lines of energy that ran out in circuit-like patterns. More Rüstov guards ran into the hall shooting at Jack, then suddenly stopped and shot each other instead. Their bombs blew up while still in their hands. Their weapons misfired. Jack moved slowly toward the throne room entrance, taking the Magus’s guards apart piece by piece as he went.
The Rüstov Allegra ran inside and locked the door behind her, leaving her men to face Jack alone. They didn’t stand a chance. Jack was learning more and more about how the Rüstov worked. The harder he fought, the more things he discovered. The more he discovered, the more weaknesses he found to exploit. There were so many things he could do to them. Knowledge was power, and the battlefield had turned into Jack’s classroom. He reached the throne room door. A few inches of iron was all that separated him from the Magus. Jack knew the Rüstov emperor didn’t fear him. To the Magus, he was nothing more than a puppet for his son to control. The Magus had worked hard to make Jack accept that fate. He thought he could break him. The Magus tried to teach him the Rüstov way of life. He didn’t realize Jack had been studying how to be a hero ever since he opened his first comic book.
His final test was about to begin.
CHAPTER
24
The Sacrifice
Jack used his powers to open up the throne room doors. They quietly slid apart to reveal the Magus sitting in his throne on the far side of the room. Glave was on one side of him and the infected Allegra on the other. Other than that, the room was empty. The Magus appeared relaxed. He and his minions were quiet and still, waiting for Jack as if on display. Jack could see what they were doing. It was more psychological warfare. The Rüstov were hiding behind the faces of his friends and loved ones, taking full advantage of his feelings for them. It was standard operating procedure for the Rüstov; Jack knew it all too well. That didn’t make it any less effective. Jack steeled his nerves and walked inside, leaving Skerren and Jazen in the hall to tend to their wounded friends.
It was calm inside the throne room. Outside the ship, Jack could hear the muffled sounds of bullets and laser blasts firing without pause. In the air over the city, Valorian Guardsmen, Calculan drones, and WarHawk troopers blew up ship after Rüstov ship. Down on the ground, heroes and villains were pushing the Rüstov back, but this battle, here in this room . . . this was the key. This was where the war would truly be won or lost.
“You’ve got determination. I’ll grant you that,” said the Magus. “This has gone on far longer than I expected.”
Jack swallowed hard, trying his best to keep up a brave front. “I warned you what would happen if you didn’t pack up and leave. I’ll give you one last chance to get out of here before we finish you.” Jack hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. He could only hope Smart’s nullifier would hide Khalix’s presence from the Magus long enough for Jack to do what he came to do. In an ideal world, he wouldn’t have forced a confrontation with the Magus until he was absolutely sure how to play his trump card and break Stendeval free of his control. He didn’t have the luxury of going the ideal route. Nothing about Jack’s situation had ever remotely resembled ideal. He could feel Khalix inside his mind, fighting to make his voice heard. The nullifier was holding out, but this close to his father, the Rüstov prince was at his strongest.
The Magus got up and flexed the winglike spikes on his back. “Still haven’t learned to hold your tongue, I see.” He shook his finger at Jack like he was a child that needed to be punished. “Kill his friends.”
Glave and the Rüstov Allegra stepped down and left their emperor’s side. Jack raised his weapons toward them, but that was just his reflexes kicking in. He couldn’t fire on Roka and Allegra. It didn’t matter
how many Rüstov he’d taken down up to that point. These two were using his friends as their hosts. They walked past Jack unmolested. Out in the hall, Skerren and Jazen stood up and got ready to fight.
“Which one do you want?” Skerren asked Jazen.
Jazen shook his head. “Neither, not that it matters. I’ll take Roka.”
Skerren spun his swords and settled into a fighting stance as the infected Allegra closed in on him. “Jack, you have to let me know if you’re in trouble. You know what I mean. If you’re running out of time, I’m trusting you to say so.”
Jack put up a hand. “I know, Skerren. Don’t say anything else. Just hold out as long as you can, all right?”
“Right,” Skerren said, ducking down as a razor-sharp liquid metal arm shot past his ear. “Easier said than done. Holding out means holding back while she tries to kill me.”
“Just do your best, both of you,” Jack said. “It’s always been enough before.”
“True,” Jazen said as Glave went at him holding a pair of ion blades that glowed with deadly radiation. “Trouble is, Allegra’s and Roka’s best have always been pretty good too.” Jack kept trying to figure out how to extricate his infected friends from their parasites, but it was hard to concentrate with the Magus right there. The fact that he was using Stendeval’s body made it even worse.
The Magus got up off his throne. “You’ve been a worthy adversary, boy, but you’ve taken things as far as they can go. This only ends one way.” The Magus walked up to Jack and stopped less than two inches from his face. Seeing the look of an enemy in Stendeval’s eyes was positively gut-wrenching for Jack. Talking to him on the holo-screen was bad enough, but being face-to-face with him was infinitely worse.
The End of Infinity Page 20
