Falsely Accused – Encounter

Author’s Note: Just so that people aren’t too confused, the following chapter is written in first person from the perspective of Lizzy.

It’s been a year since Tom cleared the campsite of terrorists and recruited me onto his team to track down all of the resurrected protectors in order to work out how they had come back from the dead. We’d made a little progress in that department, but not nearly as much as we’d have liked. However, our investigation was thrust onto the back burner when Jack came to us saying that he’d found a data cache in the year 3067 which gave him Jackie’s movements in the past, including her currently location.

Tom ordered Connie to begin working, and attempted to make me do the same, but we both have the same history with that bitch that claims to be our mother, as such he allowed me to tag along. After around a half hour of arguing that is…

Anywho, basically the data gathered pointed towards a leisure centre just outside of a secondary school called Kirk Balk Academy, apparently the previous owners of the place had run into money and then vanished, leaving the centre to fall into ruin, for the most part. In order to make it look like it was abandoned, Jackie had let the outside deteriorate, only patching up any holes that formed. The inside, however, was a different story. The walls were white, and the entire thing was as sterile as could be, like there was nothing that hadn’t been bathed in one type of disinfectant or another.

As we slowly marched inwards, a sense of unease developed between the three of us as we began to suspect a surprise attack from Jackie or more of her mind controlled lackeys. But nothing came. No burst water pipes. No spray of bullets. No sudden appearances of Jackie. Nothing. At all.

We eventually came to where the swimming pool was once situated, although it had since been paved over by white slabs, where we found something that we’d hoped we’d never discover Jackie having: A PPA, or something of similar design anyway. And for those of you who don’t know a PPA is essentially a small semi-portable personal power amplifier that is fine tuned to each individual’s powers. However, unlike ours, Jackie’s appeared to be permanently be stuck within the leisure centre, whereas ours were attached to small hovercraft that we could use in a much more offensive manner.

                ‘Bobby, run diagnostics,’ Tom ordered as he attached his watch to the computer terminal.

                ‘Running,’ Bobby reported as his catlike avatar materialised on the computer screen.

                ‘Lizzy, Jack, see if you can find something that might point us to where she went next,’ Tom suggested as he began going over the data with Bobby.

Jack and I nodded in acceptance and then began moving around the room, searching for anything that might point to Jackie’s whereabouts. However, what I found wasn’t anything pointing to her ever leaving the place.

                ‘Um…Tom,’ I shouted out of the makeshift kitchen that had been sealed behind an extremely heavy automatic door. ‘Kettle’s freshly boiled. She’s here.

                ‘Jack, can you hide us?’ I heard Tom asked as I used my telekinesis to pull the kettle to me to use as a weapon seeing as there was quite literally nothing else present within the room.

                ‘This amplifier is strange,’ Bobby stated simply as Jack waved his hands through the air and seemingly disappeared from sight for a few seconds

                ‘Elaborate,’ Tom sighed.

                ‘The amplifier doesn’t work on all of her abilities, only on her mind control ability,’ Bobby explained. ‘However, it is equally more powerful than yours, focusing on one power, and being stationary allows for it to draw more power from whatever power source she has ad then amplify her range, and maybe even her maximum captivity.’

Following this I became stressed out and paranoid about where Jackie could’ve been hiding, however, this tuning out of Tom and Bobby caused me to miss their warnings completely until Jackie was right on top of me. As I realised she was behind me, I spun around and threw as much of the boiled water into her, unfortunately quite a bit of it bounced back to me, and then I realised that the water had hurt me more than it had hurt her as she was able to control the water and ensure that it never actually touched her, bar a few drops here and there.

                ‘You really think water will work on me?’ she sneered.

                ‘I’d hoped,’ I chuckled nervously, before getting hit by the water that she had taken control of. The force of the water sent me flying backwards and straight into Jack who flew into the wall behind him.

                ‘I really thought that you lot would’ve put up a much better fight,’ she laughed before Tom blindsided her and essentially threw her into the door to the kitchen. As I attempted to stand, he formed a sword of red, temporal energy that seemed to be a much deep red than usual, possible as a result of Tom’s anger that had been building up for the last year. And then he was gone, moving faster than I’d ever seen him move before.

Jackie, however, seemed to somehow match his speed, forming a sword out of ice, she disappeared into a blur and then proceeded to rush around the room, and possibly even the school outside while they tried to kill each other. Eventually they returned to the leisure centre, just not through the door…

Without warning, the pair crashed through the ceiling and plummeted downwards towards where the swimming pool was, although they appeared to fall in slow motion, this might just be because my brain tried to erase what happened next.

I finished helping Jack to his feet, the adrenaline from the fight wearing off and the burns beginning to show themselves, before Jackie, who looked terrified of the direction that they were falling, and Tom collided with the tiles in the centre of the room, which they subsequently smashed through. While at first I thought I’d imagined the green flash that appeared around Tom and Jackie, I later discovered that it was in fact Tom forming a force field around himself to protect him from Jackie’s PPA’s core.

They struck the core, which set off an immense amount of energy that erupted outwards, engulfing me. Then Jack. Then the school. And then Hoyland.

I wouldn’t wake up again for another ten months…