This Was Still an Accident

Rex was dead...

There was no doubt about it. He had died right in front of Robot Jack and Duplicate Kate.

His head was gone. He couldn't have been more dead...

"Report. This is Robot. Xisels, I have something to report. I'm sorry, but Rex has fallen."

Robot reported the situation at the scene to Xisels.

Global Defense Bureau.

"..."

After learning of Rex's death, Xisels clenched his fist. Another superhero had died, and there was nothing he could do about it.

"Pull up all the satellite footage. I want to know what exactly happened!"

"Why did a meteor suddenly fall on Rex's head for no reason...?"

Xisels folded his arms across his chest. He knew someone was playing clever tricks, but no matter how crafty a criminal was, the moment would eventually come when they exposed themselves.

"Director Xisels, there may be no need to pull up the satellite footage. I'm deeply sorry about Rex, but it really might have been an accident..."

"At the exact moment the meteor smashed Rex's head open, more than three hundred areas across the city were hit by meteors of varying sizes!"

"More than thirty people suffered minor injuries, and two were seriously injured. Fortunately, Rex was the only person killed in the meteor strikes..."

"Well, there was also one unlucky bank robber."

The director's secretary, a blond man, glanced at the tablet in his hands and turned to report the latest information and data he'd received to Xisels.

"The whole city was hit by meteors in more than three hundred places? Where did all these meteors come from?"

Xisels didn't think Rex's death was an accident just because the whole city had been struck. Every accident was, in some sense, inevitable. Years of investigative experience had taught him to smell a conspiracy in Rex's death.

"Director..."

"We've pulled up the satellite footage. Should we project it on the screen?"

A Global Security Bureau employee worked the controls and brought up the Bureau's satellite footage.

"Good."

Xisels nodded slightly. He wanted to see what had happened in space, and why meteors had fallen toward Blue Star without them receiving any warning.

"Projecting it now..."

At the employee's words, he pressed the button. The large screen at the Global Security Bureau began playing footage captured by a satellite in space.

There, in outer space...

A "small" meteorite, about thirty meters in diameter, hurtled toward Earth at an extraordinarily high speed.

The several interception satellites the Global Security Bureau had deployed in outer space detected the meteorite and immediately activated their automatic interception mode. Since the meteorite wasn't "too large" for the Bureau's satellites to handle, they didn't issue an emergency alert right away. Their lower-level programs sent only a Level Two warning to the higher-level systems...

Just as the meteorite entered the satellites' detection range and the automatic interception mode activated, a white figure flew past the satellites and slammed into the thirty-meter meteorite...

In an instant, the small meteorite was punched into countless fragments. The man's terrifying strength reduced most of it to dust, leaving only insignificant fragments to enter Blue Star's atmosphere. They blazed through the sky and became meteors that damaged the city.

As countless fragments scattered in every direction, the footage from satellites struck by the debris briefly became pixelated for less than a second.

The next moment, after the automatic interception satellites detected that the meteorite had been "destroyed," they followed their system logic, rescinded the Level Two warning that had been sent up, and switched from interception mode back to observation mode.

With clarity rivaling Blu-ray, they recorded the scene of the white-clad man who had destroyed the meteorite, hovering in space...

Under the sunlight in the vacuum of space, the large F on the white-clad man's chest seemed to glow faintly. Even the man himself seemed to carry an air of divinity.

Then, after confirming that the meteorite threat had been eliminated, the white-clad man changed course and became a streak of light. He continued saving Blue Star!

There was no doubt about it. The man who had shattered the meteorite was Jupiter!

"What do you all think?"

Xisels felt a headache coming on. Everything in front of him looked so natural that even he was beginning to suspect it had been an accident...

But based on Xisels's experience and intuition, this was definitely no accident. It looked more like a planned and organized murder. Yet his reason told him that it really was an accident.

"Obviously, what happened to Rex was an accident. Few people have been killed by meteorites in the past century, but it has happened. The probability isn't zero. Besides, with our current interception technology, we couldn't necessarily do a better job than Jupiter!"

"There's no doubt Jupiter saved Blue Star. He's a hero."

After watching the footage, Xisels's secretary spoke quietly.

"An accident, an accident, nothing but accidents?!"

Xisels was furious, but he had no evidence.

"A hero who killed the Global Guardians and one of my men? What a joke!"

Xisels clenched his fist and muttered to himself.

"Jupiter, you'd better not let me catch you slipping."

Xisels stared blankly at the ceiling of the Global Security Bureau. Though he told himself Jupiter had better watch his step and not give him anything to use against him, Xisels knew perfectly well that even if he caught Jupiter in the act, there was nothing he could do. With humanity's known technology, even nuclear weapons would hardly threaten Jupiter or Virtumians like Omni-Man.

Thirty minutes earlier...

Jupiter became a white streak and broke through the atmosphere, surging into the sky in an instant.

He passed through the steel wall formed by the interception satellites and reached the meteorite predicted to fall toward Blue Star.

He swung his fist with all his might.

His scorching fist slammed into the meteorite. In an instant, countless cracks spread across its surface, and under the satellites' gaze, it shattered into countless fragments.

As the meteorite burst apart, a sky full of dust and fragments obscured every satellite camera. The Global Defense Bureau's advanced satellites detected the blocked cameras and automatically activated their cleaning function, clearing away the debris that had blurred the lenses...

That span of time was too brief for an ordinary person to even react, but it was more than enough for Jupiter, floating in space.

He gently raised his right hand. In his palm was a meteorite fragment about the size of a washbasin.

Then Jupiter picked a direction and hurled it at the blue planet before him.

The fragment entered the atmosphere at even greater speed...

It tore through the atmosphere and streaked across the sky, friction setting it ablaze. It smashed through the clouds, birds, and anything else in its path! With unstoppable force, it hurtled toward its target...

It finally smashed through a wall in its way, passed through someone's chest, and struck the head of some foul-mouthed king. After losing speed to friction along the way, the fist-sized meteorite landed inside a house, its tremendous impact shaking the interior...

"Go to hell, Rex!"

"Xisels, take your Global Security Bureau and eat the shit I've taken!"

Jupiter glanced disdainfully at the surrounding satellites, changed course, and headed for Britain...

Rex was a grandson person, Xisels was a younger-brother person. How could they possibly fight Nolan, their Ancestor Person?!