Jack gripped the railing and stared at the screen as Smart’s video played. He saw himself, dressed in the same clothes he was wearing now. Jack recognized the setting. It was SmartTower. He was standing in Smart’s personal lab. He leaned back like he was fainting, but as he fell he was caught by an invisible force and began to float. The red crystal circle in his chest glowed bright enough to burn
away his shirt, and as the flames ate away at his clothing, metal poured out of his chest. It overran his body like weeds taking over a garden in a time-lapse video. Jack shuddered as he watched himself change into Revile.
“Don’t turn away, Jack,” Khalix whispered, creeping into Jack’s brain. “You need to see this.”
Jack felt sick, but he couldn’t have turned away if he tried. It was just like he’d always imagined. His worst fears were playing out before his very eyes. It was like watching the moment of his own death. The images on the screen froze, and the word “Buffering” appeared. The onscreen task bar quickly ran to 100 percent once more, and when the TimeScope footage returned, Jack was blasting a hole in the wall of SmartTower. He flew out to where the Calculans’ army of drone fighters were docked. Everyone watched in horror as Jack, now fully transformed into Revile, systematically destroyed the Calculan fleet.
“That’s definitely not going to help convince the Calculans to stay,” Lorem said.
The Calculans looked at each other in alarm. The two junior delegates hurried back to their holo-computer and started adjusting odds. The probability of successfully
fending off the Rüstov plummeted as the images of Jack destroying the fleet played on.
“Is it any wonder the Calculans won’t stand with us?” Smart asked. “Their planetary host has offered sanctuary to the very person who will destroy their fleet!” The crowd around Smart roared with outrage. He fed off their energy. “Take a good look, Empire City. The closer the future is, the clearer the images in the TimeScope are. These things are going to happen unless we stop them. We want the boy, Prime. Give him to us!”
The crowd seemed nearly out of control, but Prime was not shaken. “What I will give you is ten seconds to remove yourself from my door. Starting now.”
“Not without Jack!” the people shouted.
“Traitor!”
“Whose side are you on?”
The people in the crowd continued to hurl insults, and Smart grinned up at Prime. It was clear he was holding all the cards in this standoff. Jack forced himself to stop looking at the images of himself as Revile. The TimeScope footage scared him. Jack remembered what happened when he first came to the Imagine Nation. Smart had
looked into his TimeScope and found visions of Revile alive in Empire City. Those visions had come true. Jack had had to fight Revile on the roof of SmartTower and again on Wrekzaw Isle. What if Smart’s latest future forecast was accurate as well? It hurt to think about—literally. The shooting pains in Jack’s head returned, this time stronger than before.
“We still have the power to stop this!” Smart shouted.
“He’s wrong, Jack,” Khalix said. “It’s already too late.”
Jack reached for the railing to keep himself upright. He tried to ask for help, but nothing came out. He choked on his words and grabbed at his chest. He felt like someone had just run him through with a spear. Air came back into his lungs and he cried out, falling to the floor. The pain struck faster than lightning, just like when the Magus had attacked him with his mind. Jack clawed at his forehead as he writhed on the ground in agony. His friends ran to him.
“Jack! Jack! What is it?” Blue shouted.
“It’s time, Jack,” Khalix answered inside Jack’s head. “My father’s coming.”
“No!” Jack shouted back. He forced himself to sit up.
“Not yet.” He put his hands on his temples and shut his eyes tight, grunting as he tried to overcome the pain on willpower alone. The pain subsided but did not vanish entirely. The dull throbbing of a migraine remained.
“Jack, talk to us,” Allegra said. “What’s going on?”
A squadron of Rüstov Shardwings screamed across the sky, and Allegra had her answer. “It’s the Rüstov,” Jack said. “They’re here.”
Shock and Awe
The crowd in Galaxis scrambled into chaos, and people ran off in every direction. The Rüstov Shardwings took over the sky, shooting up Empire City and strafing the crowd. Jack struggled back to the railing as buildings exploded in flames. People fell to the ground below as the predawn sky lit up with bright white flashes. It was like the city was being hit by a lightning storm, only the rolling thunder behind each flash was the sound of a Rüstov missile hitting its target. Concrete, steel, and glass sprayed the air like buckshot as explosions tore out the sides of
buildings. Jack shielded his eyes, squinting through flying debris and laser fire. Towers crashed down to the ground, and screams of terror filled the air, all within less than a minute. It was bedlam. Jack had never seen war before. He’d been in his share of superfights, but never real war. It was horrible, and all he could think was
Not now
. . .
we’re not ready
.
Only Prime was ready. The Shardwing fighters had yet to complete their first bombing run before he ordered his men into action. A hundred Valorian Guardsmen flew out of the dome, following Prime into battle. Their shining silver forms rose up in strategic attack formations. Their hands lit up with energy as they fired plasma blasts at the Rüstov starfighters.
The red glare of exploding ships triggered another series of memories that hit Jack like a prizefighter’s punch. His vision blurred and a Rüstov war movie played in his mind. He saw more explosions. More battles. Hundreds of invasions from start to finish. It was like they were being uploaded directly into his brain.
“Get down!” someone shouted as a Rüstov ship fired on the terrace, blasting half of it into tiny pieces. The real
world came flooding back and Jack tried to run inside, but the ground beneath his feet gave way. He staggered a step and fell backward. He was going over the edge, but Allegra shot out an arm and grabbed him by the collar, just catching him with his heels on the broken ledge of the terrace. She reeled him back in and they ran inside the Garrison with Jack still struggling to deal with the pain in his head. The energy core in his chest was heating up and glowing bright red.
“Stay with us, Jack,” Blue said, taking him by the arm. “You can do this. You fight them, hear me? Fight it!”
Jack gritted his teeth and growled out a low, guttural noise. He could feel Khalix pushing his way around his head, trying to take him over. “Why do you do this to yourself?” Khalix asked. “You’re only prolonging the inevitable. Just let go. All your pain will go away if you just stop fighting.”
“Remember what Roka said,” Allegra told Jack. “You don’t quit, right? We didn’t give up on you . . . that means you don’t get to give up either!”
“It doesn’t matter if you give up or not,” Khalix interjected. “You’ve just had a crash course in Rüstov history.
You know this is pointless. Deep down, you know it. My people have never lost a war.”
Jack gripped Blue’s hand and got up onto his feet, reasserting himself against Khalix. He pressed a hand to his temple. Pain pounded in his ears, but not hard enough to keep him down. He’d keep going. He had to. Jack looked outside and saw Hovarth fighting the Rüstov alongside his men. Smart and Noteworthy were long gone.
“Are you all right?” Stendeval asked.
Jack gave a weary nod. “Let’s get out there. I want to hit something. Hard.”
Blue clapped his hands. “There you go. Let’s do it.”
“We can’t fight them on the ground,” Midknight said. “We need to get to Prime’s airfield before the Rüstov blow up the only ships we’ve got. Stendeval, can you ’port us there?”
Stendeval turned up his palms. His hands lit up but fizzled like dying lightbulbs. “Not until dawn.”
“There’s an underground tunnel that connects this Garrison with the launchpads,” Allegra said. “Follow me.”
Allegra darted out the door, and everyone ran after her. She led the way through the lower levels of the Valorian
Garrison and out into the war zone. As they came out of the underground tunnel, Jack and the others were greeted by a crashing Shardwing. One of the Valorian Guardsmen had taken out its engine and it barreled toward them like a flaming comet. Blue ran forward and threw his shoulder into the ship, diverting its path just enough to keep it from crashing into the mouth of the tunnel. Outside, the spaceport was pure anarchy. The skyline was rife with fire and people ran everywhere. The injured were limping through the street, blind and bleeding.
“We have to help these people,” Jack said. Everything he was feeling about Noteworthy, Smart, Khalix, and Revile took a backseat to the battle and its imminent casualties. He stopped to tend to an injured woman who was bleeding badly. Stendeval tore off his crimson sash to make a bandage and applied pressure to her wound. He didn’t have any superpowered energy left, but he did have five hundred years’ worth of heroic experiences, a cool head, and plenty of lifesaving know-how. He was helping the woman to her feet when another Rüstov missile struck the building next to him. Flames spilled out into the street, and tiny bits of debris pelted Jack and the others.
“C’mon!” Roka shouted. “If we want to help these people, we’ve gotta stop these bombs from falling.”
The wall behind them crumbled at the base and started to topple over. Blue rushed in to brace it before it crushed more wounded innocents. “Someone’s gotta stop the buildings from falling too,” he said. Blue motioned with his head toward the launchpads. “You guys go ahead. I can’t fly one of those things anyway.”
Jack nodded. There was no time to argue, and Blue was right. He and his friends were needed everywhere.
“I’m staying too,” Stendeval said. “When my power returns, I’ll join you in the sky.”
“Good luck,” Jack said.
“And to you,” Stendeval replied. “Now go!”
Jack and the others ran out into the spaceport of Galaxis and went straight for a hangar filled with star-fighters. They raced to the launchpads, where a row of ships stood ready and waiting. Just before they reached them, a Shardwing tore through the hangar and laid down a blanket of blinking metal fragments on top of the parked spaceships.
“Evac, now!” Midknight yelled as the Shardwing blasted
its way out through the wall on the hangar’s opposite side. The ships in the hangar exploded one after the other, all in a row. The successive blasts built on top of one another, growing in heat and intensity. It was like someone had rolled a bowling ball out into a minefield. Allegra stretched into a protective shield to guard the others against the flames and flying shrapnel. Once the heat blast had passed, there was nothing but flaming wreckage left inside the hangar.
“There!” Jack yelled. He pointed across the spaceport to another set of launchpads where more starships were waiting. Jack used his powers to slide back the canopies on a group of well-armed fighters known as Mavericks. Midknight and Roka each climbed into a ship. Jack picked one for himself and started up its side. He was nearly settled into the cockpit when Allegra tapped his shoulder. He turned around and saw that Trea, her two other selves, Lorem, and Zhi were all busy mounting Zhi’s dragons.
“Don’t know how to fly those things,” Zhi said, motioning to the ships. He patted his dragon’s back. “We’ll stick with these guys.”
Jack nodded and looked at Allegra. “What about you?”
“If you think I’m leaving you alone right now, you’re
crazy. What’s going to happen if you have another one of your episodes up there?”
Jack thought about that for a second. Allegra had a point. “All right, let’s go,” he said, jumping down from the ship. “We’ll take that one.”
Jack took Allegra’s hand and ran to a larger ship with the word “MedEvac” written on the side in red letters. It looked like a flying ambulance. “That’s a search-and-rescue ship,” Allegra said as Jack climbed into the pilot’s seat.
“Trust me, this is the one for us.”
Allegra shrugged. “Where do you want me?”
Jack mentally popped open a hatch near the tail of the ship and pointed to the chair inside it. He gave a nod, and several panels on the ship’s exterior flipped over to reveal a multitude of armaments. “They use these things for pulling people out of war zones. Just grab the gun and keep your finger on the trigger.”
“I can do that.” Allegra stretched up to the gunner’s battle station and poured herself into it. Jack strapped himself in as the Rüstov fighters came back around for another attack run. It had been a crushing assault so far.
The Shardwing fighters were everywhere, and they just kept coming. His classmates on the dragons flew up to meet them. Jack used his powers to turn on the engines of the Maverick fighters that Midknight and Roka were strapped into. Roka’s ship made an ugly screeching noise.
“Easy, kid! I already hot-wired mine,” Roka said.
“Couldn’t wait, huh?” Midknight asked over the radio.
“Waiting’s never been my strong suit.”
“Don’t wait on me, then, get going!” Jack shouted. The city wasn’t ready for this fight, which meant he and his friends had to be. Jack fired up his engine, and seconds later he was up in the sky, joining Prime and the Valorian Guard as they brought the fight back to the Rüstov.
Returning Fire
Jack and Allegra shot down a pair of Shardwings on their way up, reducing them to the metal shards they took their name from. They received some businesslike nods of appreciation from Prime and the other Valorians, who went right back to shooting plasma blasts at the Rüstov fighters and gang-tackling enemy ships to pull them apart. There were more heroes in the air fighting as well. Jack didn’t recognize many of them, but it looked like they hailed from all the different boroughs. He was glad to see people dropping everything and jumping into the fight
when it counted, but it didn’t change the fact that Empire City had been caught sleeping. The whole situation burned Jack up inside. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He had warned everybody this was coming. They could have been ready. Jack cursed Smart and his endless power plays, kidnapping Jazen and turning the city against itself. He was probably holed up in a bunker somewhere by now. Meanwhile, the crowd of people he had led to Prime’s door were all caught in the crossfire.