Chapter 1 – Let's Fly, Let's Fly Away
Acmetropolis City, 2772. Zero hour.
Dust clouds approach at close to the speed of sound, way too fast for Rev even with his rocket blades to out run. Like a great tsunami, it knocks the roadrunner over, launching him towards the glass door entrance to the lobby of an office building he'd arrived at to deliver a take away meal, only to be too late. Now, no matter how fast he was, he could not avoid this. His thin and relatively light body crashes into the doors, hitting them hard as the safety glass does not shatter but stays in it's frame, still intact. Rev falls to the ground once the blast stops. The dust pounds him and gets in every crevice in his body, tearing at the near skin tight aerodynamic body suit to show the blue feathers underneath. However, beneath the pain of it all, something remarkable is happening. His genetic code is being changed, being subjected to a strange radiation unlike anything anyone has seen before.
The dust settles, leaving the ground and everything around it covered in lighter tones of brown all the way to the dark browns of dirt and the black of loose stones and grit. Rev opens his eyes now that it is not pounding him any longer. Strangely, his first thought is of the fate of his customer. To his left, the slim and yet well built man is stumbling to his feet, coughing out the dust. Rev swiftly turns around and hears the sound of one of the thick concrete pillars crumbling under the strain, a loose piece of concrete falls out of its place. He has to get out of here. Without even thinking, he rushes over to the man and picks him up before running away to a safe distance in case the building collapses. It's only after he's done this that the building has not collapsed at all, the concrete chunk has not even hit the ground yet.
"Don't worry, you'll be safe here." Rev says before rushing back to the building. He sees the large set of steps to the building coming up and naturally adjusts himself to compensate; only this time, he doesn't touch the ground. He stops outside the building and looks at the same column. It has not crumbled further, the building may just hold itself up. He whizzes inside and around the lobby to check the other pillars, some have a small amount of damage and some are undamaged. He stops back outside of the lobby; were his rocket blades even working the whole time? And did he just fly? Roadrunners can't fly; it's even in the name; they run, not fly. It's so much to take in. In the distance, there's the sound of distant buildings making a thunderous sound as they crash into the bay of Acmetropolis. Rev decides to take a look. Readying himself at the top of the stairs, he tries to run, but instead he flies about 15 metres off the ground, approximately the same height the top of the stairs are from ground level.
The ground is also passing by at a rapid speed. It's only because he looks up that he avoids hitting a building at the end of the street, banking to the right reactively by tilting his arms like an aeroplane. Rev is so fascinated by how he's doing all of this, at the same time he is completely confused. He lifts his shoulders and tilts his arms to try to slow down. It's a shaky stop, but somehow he manages to hover above the street much to the amazement of onlookers down below. Scared of what might happen, he flies away, gaining more and more altitude so he can fly above all of the buildings and not have to worry about hitting one. He stops to hover in the air once again, to check himself again. His first thought is that he has to stop on the ground, otherwise the consequences could be dire if he fell straight out of the sky. On the other hand, this is the freest he has ever felt; he wonders how fast he can go. With no obstacles and the bay ahead of him, he stops hovering and begins to dive dive, pulling up gradually until he's just above the rooftops. Once he's level, he thinks about going as fast as he can.
The burst of orange and red fire from underneath his arms like a phoenix is the becoming the brightest source of light in the sky. The sun is slowly being blacked out, as is the entire sky. Below, the world still looks the same to Rev despite the speed he is travelling at, there is no blur around any point, he can see everything clearly. Once he gets closer to the bay, he can see the devastation. Buildings have fallen on top of other buildings, water racing through the streets, taking cars, debris and people with it. Rev wonders what he can do to help. He can see tens, perhaps hundreds in the water. He slows and drops down lower, he can see the faces of those who are looking up, depending on him to save their lives. Overcome by the occasion, Rev dive bombs and stops before the water and picks out a child, no more than 12, from the water before placing her on the top of a building. He repeats the process nearly 50 times in the space of 2 minutes; but he doesn't stop there. Rev does this for a full 10 minutes, saving nearly 300 people from drowning.
However, the roadrunner is completely exhausted. Despite not physically doing anything, he wasn't flapping his arms, he has barely enough energy to balance with his rocket blades which has become short circuited from being dipped into the water numerous times. Rev looks up briefly to see the faces of those he saved, people of all ages, and they look back to him in shock and awe.
"Who are you?" Someone asks from the crowd.
"Me?" Rev replies. He knows that this question is directed at him, but he is still surprised that someone has asked.
"You saved us all." Another voice from the crowd says gleefully.
"Well that was my intention." Rev replies, much faster than he usually talks.
"What did you say?" Someone asks.
"I, I didn't want to see people drowning and I needed to save them all and somehow I can fly with this weird fire coming out the back like the afterburners on a fighter jet. I don't know how this is happening to me!" Rev says quickly and hysterically. He can't make sense of it all. The occasion has once again overwhelmed him. The crowd in front of him make hush whispers of awe like looking at a fireworks display, Rev turns around to see what it is. It's a brief and yet brilliant beam of yellow from in the distance. Rev thinks this is a missile launch. He wonders who could possibly be fighting Acmetropolis? There is no other city on this planet, no other countries and only one military. He thinks back to the sight of the meteor, maybe there's another meteor that they are trying to shoot down; but why did the military not try to shoot down the first one? Either way, he somehow knows exactly where the flash of light came from.
Rev takes off from the building with his fiery contrail behind him. As he draws closer, a second blast of light comes from the ground and it's coming straight at him. Rev banks left to dodge the blast and looks for a place to land. A third beam of light comes right at him that he dodges easily but it's still a nerve-racking moment. He thinks about flying away because whoever's causing it, it's attacking him, but against that thought, he dives straight down the alleyway, landing on his rocket blades stopping about 3 metres away from a plainly dressed grey furred rabbit who has his eyes shut but it facing him at the same time.
"What do you have your eyes closed?" Rev asks.
"Ugh, can you slow down there doc?" The rabbit asks.
"I'm sorry, I'm just a bit nervous, did you see that light go shooting up into the sky? It nearly hit me twice!" Rev says, not thinking about slowing down his speech at all.
"It's my eyes." The rabbit says, afraid to open them again and destroy the roadrunner from point blank range.
"Can you open them? Maybe I can take a look." Rev asks.
"No, I can't. I'll hurt you." He replies.
"What?" Rev asks, but he starts to connect the dots. "Oh, it's coming from your eyes."
"I don't know what's happened to me." The rabbit says tiredly. "These, beams... are coming right out of my eyes."
"I don't know what's happened to me either." Rev replies. "Somehow I can fly which is weird for a roadrunner because we can't fly and it's really implied in the name…"
"Name?" The rabbit asks, confused at what was said. He interprets it as him asking for his name. "I'm Ace."
"Ace? I'm Rev, nice to meet you." Rev says, shaking the rabbits hand so quickly he nearly takes the arm out of it's socket.
"Woah, easy there."
"Sorry, I'm really scared." Rev replies.
"I'm going to turn around and open my eyes, so don't go in my way." Ace says, turning to face the mock steel wall behind him that was used as a backdrop of the set he was filming on. Rev stands in the same spot and waits. Ace opens his eyes and nothing happens, just as he wanted to. With a sigh of relief, he turns around to look at the roadrunner. He's a kid; he couldn't be older than 18 years old.
"What's with the get up?" Ace asks, referring to his clothing.
"This?" Rev says, pulling at his clothing. "I work as a delivery boy, this stops my feathers from being torn off and my helmets stops me head from cracking open if I fall and the glasses stop the air coming into my eyes which is really helpful now when I'm going really fast."
There's a pause once Rev stops talking.
"Everywhere around the bay's been destroyed by a tsunami, buildings are down like dominos I can't fathom how many have died; probably too many to count at this count but I think I saved, let's see, 286 people from downing." Rev says, rambling at top speed.
"Woah, what's with your…" Ace says, trying to get a closer look at Rev's eyes; they glowed red as he was talking. But as he did that, Ace accidently lets loose his newfound ability directly at Rev from a distance just under 3 metres. If he did this to anyone else, they'd be dead. However, Ace spots Rev, pressed against the concrete wall to his left with fear in his eyes. He hangs his head in shame.
"I'm sorry Rev, that was an accident." Ace says, but the rabbit knows the same thing. Anyone else would be dead in that scenario.
"I hope so, but don't feel bad you just don't know what you're doing. Maybe you should stop trying to look closely at things, maybe that's what's causing lasers to come out of your eyes." Rev explains. Ace doesn't respond to the answer, merely taking on board what sounds like sound advice coming from someone several years younger but much smarter, calmer, knowledgeable and more forgiving than him. He sits on the ground with his legs fully extended in front of him, just trying to take it all in. He looks up at the sky and sees how dark it is becoming before looking back up at Rev, who is taking off his rocket blades in a blur before sitting down next to him.
"What's happened to us?" Rev asks, still overcome by everything and still on edge. "We've developed some kind of super powers. I can fly and you can shoot lasers out of your eyes."
"And you did something when you were talking about saving those people." Ace replies.
"I was counting the people I saved. 1,2,3,4,5…"
"Like, a photographic memory?" Ace asks.
"No I was thinking about where everyone was when I saved them." Rev replies, consciously realising what he was doing. He thinks about his parents and his little brother, he knows exactly where all of them are right now. His eyes glow red again.
"There, you just did it again." Ace replies.
"I know where my family is right now. My dad's in his office, my brother's on the couch and my mother's on the way to go shopping but she's stopped by the edge of the road probably because she's heard the sound from the city and she's probably worrying about me." Rev says. "I'll be back soon, they need to know I'm okay."
"O…"
Ace could even reply before the roadrunner lifted off like a rocket with the fire trail behind him. Ace thinks about trying to look closer at it, but refrains from doing it because he might shoot another blast of light into the sky. Ace rests for a second before getting up from the ground and wondering what to do with himself, he's on his own now as the kid has gone off to his parents. Ace takes one step before he sees Rev fly back down and land right in front of him.
"That was quick." Ace notes confusingly.
"I know, I must have been approaching Mach 1 with the speeds that I was going." Rev exclaims. Ace has a thought, but he quickly figures out a way to disguise it.
"Say, do you know how to get to the university?" Ace asks.
"We're already there." Rev says, picking up Ace before flying out of the alley in a trail of fire.