by Kipjo Ewers
Smoke and fire roared and bellowed everywhere, out of nowhere smoking debris was flung from the wreckage of the initial crash site; it was #3 bouncing off the pavement before rolling to a painful rest.
“Oh…oh god….” #3 groaned in now agonizing pain.
Out of the flames and wreckage strolled Sophia casually swatting flames off her now slightly torn and burnt skintight plug suit, which appeared to be extremely durable despite the punishment it endured.
“Oh…you calling for God now…you think he’s listening?” Sophia inquisitively asked.
For the first time #3 stumbled backwards holding her hand up in a begging gesture with true fear in her eyes, “Wait…wait! You don’t understand! It was…”
“Your job! Was that what you were going to say?!” Sophia screamed at her, the first real sign of emotion she emitted since her third resurrection, “You gonna tell me you were just following orders?! Or maybe you wanna tell me about how ya daddy beat the shit out of your momma, and molested you! How you had such a hard life! Go ahead! I dare you to tell me that no matter what I do it won’t bring my husband or my life back! That it won’t erase the four years of hell I had to endure because of you!! And then…you not only threatened my kid…murdered my best friend…You spit on me!!”
Her eyes grew brighter and more intense with rage.
#3 just stood there looking at her, realizing that this was what it meant about “fate being sealed”. She imagined that this was how her victims looked when they begged for her mercy and found none. How many cried, sobbed, and whimpered through their words as they attempted to bargain for their lives. Lives she thought as worthless, puny…easily extinguished and forgotten about. Killing was erotic pleasure for her. She happily bathed in the blood of the innocent as well as the guilty with no regrets. Here she now stood attempting to reason with one who she had inflicted the greatest offense.
One who she had just told in intricate detail less than an hour or so ago, how she took great pleasure in obliterating her life. It did not matter if she confessed that she did not kill her best friend the now late Charles Hampton; the other evidence was too overwhelming. Sophia had already tried and convicted her. This was now her long walk. No appeal in the world would change her fate.
“What?!” Sophia roared loud enough to emit a low-level sonic boom with just her vocals, shattering every glass within her vicinity, while causing a mini avalanche on the mountain base.
#3 looked dead at the unstoppable force in front of her, now void of all reasoning, and hated her for making her beg for her life.
“Well…since you’re not willing to listen to reason…,” #3 stomped the ground in defiance creating a crater under her foot as she brought her hands up getting into a stance ready to bang, if she was going to get the beating of her life, she might as well get it fighting back.
Sophia got into her own stance as well; she looked like a seasoned combatant as she etched closer to #3 ready to strike. Out of nowhere, she channeled some of the pure raw energy now stored in the cells of her body into her fists causing them to glow as she clutched them; the intensity of the heat faintly burnt the sleeves to her plug suit.
#3 could feel the heat from her fists, and just shook her head in disbelief thinking she was in some crazy anime movie.
“Just don’t hit me in the nos…” #3 was about to request.
BLAM!
Before she could finish her sentence, Sophia faked her out blasting her in the face. Not with her fists, but with intense blue atomic eye beams, scorching her face and nearly blinding her. #3 screamed in agonizing pain unable to touch her now smoldering face.
“That’s…for Charlie,” Sophia bared her teeth.
“Awwwwww….u fuckin…biter…,” #3 seethed trembling as her face healed from the first-degree burns she received.
She roared throwing a fury of combinations, which Sophia easily blocked. #3 appeared to be throwing faster powerful strikes. She appeared to be matching Sophia’s speed, close to finding an opening, until Sophia showed her the difference between the two of them. She may not be the first, but she was still the most powerful as she effortlessly powered through #3’s combinations battering her with shockwave shaking blows. Her hands where like lightning twin pistons as she threw every punching combination she had ever seen within less of seconds targeting #3’s ribs, sternum, abdomen, as well as her left and right jaw bone and nose.
#3 swung for the hills in desperation only for Sophia to catch her right haymaker. The impact of the punch sent a massive shockwave through the facility collapsing already weakened structures. It still proved ineffective against Dennison’s near god-like strength.
Sophia snarled as she doubled her over with a body blow to the gut. She then grabbed the front of her bodysuit leaping into the air with her, and then hurled her into the skies of Oregon. Sophia exploded into to the air going after her; actually, she flew past a screaming #3 waiting to set her up, and delivered an Earth shaking right cross sending her spiraling back down to Earth. Sophia then dived back down to Earth with thrusters on full blast straight for #3. #3 crashed back down into the facility creating a colossal crater, while emitting shockwaves once again creating tremendous structural damage.
There would be no rest for the wicked this day as a roaring Sophia would pull out of her dive but continue to fall looking to deliver a diving knee crashing down on top of #3 widening the crater causing a second more devastating shockwave. It not only caused untold mass destruction but also caused a minor earthquake shaking the mountain, and majority of Jackson County up pass Klamath.
Mark barely made it out the door into the hell outside where he dodged flying chunks of debris the size of cars while cradling Sophia’s daughter. Behind him, half the facility and mountain collapsed in on itself no longer capable of withstanding the brutality unleashed on it by Sophia’s raw strength and power.
As he staggered over to the ballpark size crater, he witnesses Sophia standing over a beaten and broken #3 literally choking on her own blood.
“Hey…you bleeding on yourself.” Sophia said to get her dazed attention, “Wanna see something cool?”
Sophia raised her hand into the air. With a thought, she commanded her body to channel the raw energy within her into a sphere in the palm of her hand once again, this time making it grow. #3 just looked up at her in disbelief; she knew she was doing it for the crack she made earlier. Of all this ways to go, this bitch was about to kill her with a one handed Spirit Bomb.
Mark held her daughter at a safe distance standing there watching imagination come to frightening reality. He made sure to turn the child’s head away so she doesn’t see what the mother she’d never met before was about to do.
This was usually the part where he as an agent of the Federal law would say, “If you do this than you’re no better than her,” or “think about your daughter.”
Mark did not believe in any of that shit, he believed that someone as sick and twisted as #3 with even a fraction of Sophia’s power should not live.
“Wait! Wait!” A disheveled Dr. Zimmermann with cracked glasses came running into the quad somehow also surviving the destruction of the base. He collapsed on his knees completely out of breath, “Help us! You half to help us! A nuke! He launched a nuke right at us!”
With another thought, Sophia dispersed the ball of unfathomable destructive force, which had grown to the size of a semi so that she could hear what the Doctor had to say.
“What the hell are you talking about? Who launched a nuke?!” Mark demanded to know.
“The General! “Deadman’s Protocol” fail safe,” the doctor panted, “a contingency plan to stop dangerous subjects such as Ms. Dennison!”
“To launch a goddamn nuke at us?!” Mark yelled in disbelief.
“Mark…my daughter…” Sophia warned.
“Sorry…” Mark said patting the silent little girl’s back as if she was his own.
“How long doctor?” she calmly asked.
�
�We had twenty-five minutes to leave Oregon, two minutes ago the missile was launched…I expect five minutes…once it reenters Earth’s atmosphere!” Dr. Zimmermann confirmed.
“Thank you doctor…one more thing…” she turned looking up at the sky.
“Yes?” he asked thinking she has a tasked for him.
The one more thing for the good Doctor was the last thing #1 saw; a huge flashing blue light before Sophia turned him to less than ash without even looking in his direction.
“That’s for the chamber…,” she snarled.
#3 started to cackle impressed, believing that Sophia and she were not so much different after all; Sophia stopped her laughter as she brought her foot down on her throat smashing her windpipe while keeping her pinned down.
“Well…guess that doesn’t leave us much time…” Sophia removed her foot from #3’s throat grabbing her by her hair ripping her to her feet.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Mark nervously asked knowing time was running down.
“Figure if I can get to it and destroy it while it’s in Earth’s thermosphere you won’t have to worry about fall out,” Sophia judged as if she had done something like this before.
“So why are you taking her with you?!” he motioned to #3.
“Because this is a one way trip for both of us…” Sophia said breathing a deep sigh.
“But you could just fly up there…blast it out of the sky or launch it back into space….” he started to advise her.
“And this would never end…” she debated back.
Mark continued his argument for her not to do this, “But no one can mess with you now! You’re the most powerful person…!”
“And this would never end!” she delivered her final argument, “As long as she and I are around we’re proof that man can become gods…and eventually monsters…”
“Speak for your fuckin…,” #3 groaned.
Sophia quickly gut checked her taking the air out of her once again as well as her ability to speak, “Nobody asked you jack…”
“So committing suicide is your only answer…” Mark asked throwing up his free hand in despair.
“It’s not suicide if you’re saving the world,” Sophia drew a smile on her face looking at him, “Besides…this is more of a sacrifice…only the three of us standing here alive know about my daughter…and soon there will only be one. One who I believe I can trust to make sure that no one ever knows about my daughter…my daughter…died here on this base…can you make that happen for me Mr. Armitage…can you grant the wish of a “condemned” woman…”
“You have my word…I’ll make it happen,” he nodded.
“One more thing,” she asked, “At Charles Hampton’s apartment…in his closet is an old gym bag with our college emblem…the Goodwill…”
“He said he forgives you…and I got you covered,” Mark let her know.
“The rest belongs to my daughter,” she finished what appeared to be her final will and testament.
“You have my word,” promised Mark before motioning to her daughter, “What should I tell her, when she asks about you?”
“Tell her…the best thing I ever got out of this life…was watching her come into this world,” she became misty eyed, her tears which now glowed ran down her face, “and I said thank you...for saving me…”
“She’s right here, don’t you want to…?” Mark gestured to holding her.
“If I do…I won’t be able to leave…besides hearing her heart beat from here is enough for me…goodbye Mark…,” she turned to #3 squeezing her by the throat while looking her in the eyes, “Remember when I said I’d watch you die screaming?”
With those words, Sophia leaped into the air with a gagging and screaming #3, with enough distance between her and the ground she channeled the energy to the tips of her feet creating the thrust she needed to gain flight again. Before she could take off rocketing, she turned back at the facility hovering while extending her left hand. It appeared as if the world itself shook as Sophia channeled a ball of pure blue energy the size of a medicine ball.
“Holy…” That was Mark’s cue to take the child and hop into the nearest unmanned vehicle, a still intact black high tech version of a Humvee, which luckily had the keys inside in the ignition. He drove like a bat out of hell blowing through what was left of the destroyed security gate and flooring it. If someone built the vehicle to do 230, he was trying to get three times the speed out of it.
Sophia deciding that Armitage and her daughter where at a safe enough distance unleashed god like furry on the facility obliterating everything in her path. Except for some small gas explosions, only a massive cloud of thick black smoke wafted for miles as far as Los Angeles along with an intense blue light. She scorched the facility from the face of the Earth while bringing down Mount McLoughlin in the process. Satisfied she destroyed the complex and everything contained within completely, Sophia rocketed away with #3.
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Mark looked to the sky to see if he could get one more glimpse of her, but he never stopped driving.
“That’s my mommy,” said the silent little girl out of nowhere looking up at the sky with the Spider monkey in her lap.
Mark slowly turned looking at the little girl who he thought mute with fear.
She pointed up at the sky and said again, “That’s my mommy…flying up in the sky…”
Her little words unnerved Mark as he gripped the steering wheel tighter wiping his eyes that got blurry all of the sudden,” Yeah honey…that’s your mommy.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
High above God’s blue sky Sophia flew almost well beyond the speed of sound as she searched for her target with a struggling #3 in the grip of her right hand trying to break free. Even through the great winds and thin air, she could hear her screaming and begging.
#3 struggled in vain to break free while trying to reason with her, “You don’t have to do this! You said it yourself! You’re a god! We’re gods now!! We can rule this planet! Make it how we want it!! You don’t have to do this!!!”
She ignored her tempting talks of godly rule as she stopped in midair hovering searching the skies until the rocket finally came into view. The son of a bitch had actually done it. Sophia cursed to herself, she had hoped to take it out in the Earth’s thermosphere, but it was now well within the mesosphere, and nearing the stratosphere with great speed.
“Goddammit!! You don’t have to do this!!” protested #3 still trying to break free from her grip.
Sophia clamped down on her throat to shut her up, while pulling her close to look her in the eyes, “No I don’t have to…I want to…”
With those final words, Sophia placed a vice grip hold on #3’s throat with both hands as she launched herself toward the speeding missile with a screaming #3.
It would be over in a few seconds but she took in the view of #3 with tears of rage in her eyes, struggling, and roaring to get free. They were now too high for her to hear what she was saying anymore, but she imagined she was cursing her and her ancestors to eternity.
Vengeance…Justice…whatever the name for it, Sophia had her fill as she closed her eyes. In her mind, she said one final prayer forgiving Robert for all that he had done, thanking him for the one good thing they brought into this world.
“I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home…,” she softly sang.
The world would come to a standstill, as the heavens would become red and blue with flames for all to see…
