Kingdom of Heroes

by Jay Phillips

  The Detective turned around and placed his head against the giant glass window. How stupid could he be? How could someone like him, someone that prided himself on knowing the answers before anyone else, be caught so unaware, so clueless when it mattered the most. He blamed pretty women; he had always been far too easily distracted when pretty women were involved.

  “And what about Adam?” Emily asked from behind him. “You just toss him away like he’s nothing, without even a second thought?”

  “No, my dear, no,” Rogers replied, his face suddenly going from a look of satisfaction to a solemn expression that The Detective couldn’t tell was real or not. “Sacrificing Adam for the greater good was the absolute hardest decision I have ever had to make. I…” He paused for a second, almost as if he was actually going to choke up at the words he was about to say. “…love him, and I always will. But the world is succumbing to violence and death, pain and suffering, just like this country used to be; sacrifices had to be made in the name of goodness. No one was more proud of their child than I was of mine, and I still am. But I had to release him; I had to give him the truth, so he would act. Because I know that, besides myself, he was the only one capable and strong enough to kill them all.”

  “What now?” the Detective asked without turning away from the view of the skyline. “You’ve got exactly what you want. I’ve taken the blame for killing The Seven. No one has any clue that you’ve used your own son as a disposable assassin and that you’ve just basically committed a coup on your own people, consolidating control of the country from seven different people down to one. You’ve almost won.”

  “Almost?” The Agent asked.

  The Detective continued staring out the glass, taking in a few more sniffs of the air while he could. Honey was such a wonderful aroma. “Well, there’s still Fire; she’s still alive, and from what I’ve heard and read, she hasn’t been the most loyal of soldiers. But I’m sure you have a rolodex full of names, each just waiting on the call to remove her as a problem.”

  The Agent said nothing, answering everything in his silence. Emily’s face grew more despondent.

  “Then there’s us,” The Detective continued, noticing another scent that hadn’t been there earlier, a scent he hadn’t smelled since he had been in Adam‘s building. “We’re a liability, and you obviously, despite your agreements with both of us, have no choice but to eliminate us from the equation.”

  “Obviously,” The Agent answered, his voice returning to his good neighbor routine.

  “And from the smell of ozone that just appeared, it’s safe to assume that you have no plans on doing this particular dirty work yourself.”

  “That’s not good,” Emily exclaimed, having been in his mind earlier when he fought them, knowing exactly what this meant. “From where?”

  “The kitchen,” The Detective answered. “Where Dark’s powers can hide them in the shadows. They’re both there, just lying in wait for him to give the order.”

  “In war,” The Agent began, “one must always have dedicated soldiers who never question orders. Light and Dark are mine. And yes, Detective, tonight you and Emily will die by their hands. Even if I wanted you two to live, I have no choice. Like the rest of The Seven, your deaths guarantee that my utopia will spread to the entire world.”

  “And that brings me to your third problem,” The Detective said, his eyes still glued to the view of Metro City being hammered by the storm.

  “And what would that be?”

  The Detective smiled as a red and black armored suit flew above the terrace, its rocket boots seemingly at full power.

  “Him,” The Detective answered as Adam raised his lone remaining wrist gun towards the glass and opened fire. The Detective grabbed Emily and pulled her across the room, both landing on the ground as the glass window exploded all around them.

  _______________________________________________

  The Detective rolled on top of Emily, doing everything he could to protect her from the shower of glass that engulfed them both. They both watched as Adam continued to fire the mini gun on his wrist, aiming it at the center of The Agent’s chest. Each of the hundreds of bullets bounced harmlessly off of Roger’s chest. He just casually stood there and allowed them to hit him before slowly walking toward the terrace, toward the onslaught of projectiles.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way, son,” The Agent yelled over the sound of constant gunfire. “It doesn’t have to end like this.”

  “Are you okay?” The Detective asked her as he looked her over, making sure any cuts she may have were only superficial.

  She smiled at him, seemingly enjoying him being on top of her and making such a fuss about her condition. “I’ll live. You still with me?”

  “For the moment,” he replied.

  “If we die, I am going to be so pissed.”

  “Yeah?” he asked as he climbed to his feet, offering her a hand up once he found his footing. “Why’s that, excluding the obvious reasons, of course.”

  “I was totally going to put out on that first date,” she said as he pulled her up. “And you have no idea what you’re going to be missing.”

  “Oh, I have a pretty good idea,” he added just before the strong smell of ozone filled his senses. “Behind me---now.”

  But he didn’t get the words out before a glowing blonde woman lunged from the darkness, bypassing him and tackling Emily instead, driving her hard onto the glass covered ground, the blade from her fist extended, the pointy end placed firmly against Emily’s throat.

  “I know you,” Light said, her voice the same calm seductive tone he remembered from earlier. “You’re the bitch who was in my thoughts. I don’t like having people in my head. I bet you won’t like it either.” She added as she pulled her hand up and aimed the blade towards Emily’s forehead. Without another sound, she began to thrust the blade toward Emily’s skull.

  _______________________________________________

  Adam kept the suit hovered above the terrace and continued firing bullets towards his adopted father’s chest, each and every one just simply bouncing off of the old man’s impervious skin. The Agent began walking towards him, seemingly oblivious to the payload striking him.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way, son,” The Agent yelled over the sound of constant gunfire. “It doesn’t have to end like this.”

  The sound of gunfire ended, replaced by the whirring of the mini gun as it continued turning without anymore bullets left to fire. “How else can it end, Dad? You killed them all, and you expect me to do nothing?”

  “I expected you to do exactly what you did,” The Agent said in return, his voice as emotionally blank as his face. The pouring rain landed on him; water dripped from his bearded face. “I raised you to be the man you are. I knew when you remembered, I knew you would want to kill us all. I cannot blame you.”

  Adam flew the armor to the terrace, landing it directly in front of The Agent. He balled the remaining hand into a fist and rammed it into Rogers' face. “You didn’t have to kill them. I would have helped; I would have done whatever you wanted.”

  “It made you stronger, son,” The Agent replied, barely flinching from the punch. “It made you not only want revenge, it made you need revenge. Their murder made you who you are.”

  “Who I am?!” Adam yelled in The Iron Knight’s computerized voice. “Who I am? How the hell dare you tell me who I am! I am a leftover consciousness of a dead man. I am nothing but a fucking computer virus. You have no idea who I am.” Adam threw another punch, striking his adopted father in almost the exact same spot. Again, The Agent barely seemed to notice.

  “You are my son,” The Agent said as tears filled his eyes. “I took you from the hell hole where your so called family sent you. I raised you as my own. I taught you, trained you, made you stronger than them, stronger than me. I loved you as my own. They weren’t the family you deserved.”

  Another useless punch exploded against The Agent’s face. “Stop sayi
ng that. It wasn’t your choice to make; it was mine. I would have went with you willingly. I never would have questioned. I never would have doubted you. They could have lived, and I would have still gone with you; I would have still loved you.”

  “I’m sorry, Adam,” The Agent cried as tears streamed down his face. “I know it’s too late; it’s all too late, but I am sorry for everything.”

  “You’re right; it is too late,” Adam said as a small panel opened on the armor’s left leg. He reached down and pulled out a small canister of air. “It’s too late because I’m already dead, and you’re nothing but a powerless old man.” Adam pushed the button on the canister, and a small gush of gas spewed out, hitting The Agent directly in the face.

  _______________________________________________

  The Detective grabbed the glowing woman’s wrist just before the attached blade made contact with Emily’s forehead.

  “Get the fuck off her,” he said as he slung Light across the room. She rolled to her knees and stared at him. He could almost feel her power pushing through his defenses, making him want to back down and stay out of her way, but the urge quickly faded, replaced by all of the pain he felt throughout his body, the warm blood that flowed from his shoulder and his hand, his desire to protect the woman he had come here to save. Light was strong, but she was nothing compared to everything he was feeling. He turned and gave her his old crooked grin. “Not this time.”

  He thought she gave him an expression that could have resembled a smile or a self-satisfied grin. With her glowing like a fluorescent bulb, it was hard to say for sure. “I haven’t forgotten you, my pet.” She pointed to her shoulder. “I can still feel your handiwork. You and your little mind-fucking whore are going to pay for that one.”

  Emily rose to her feet. “Go fuck yourself bitch. If you’re here to make us pay, then what the fuck took you so long?”

  Detective leaned in close to her. “You cuss much?”

  “I’m pissed,” she said as she gave him a “what the hell” kind of look. “Just don’t tell Pammy. She’d never forgive me.”

  “My lips are sealed,” he replied as they both looked back toward Light and her brother, who suddenly neither of them could see. The Detective knew he had to be somewhere in the shadows. The tell-tale smell of ozone that accompanied his teleportation ability was nowhere to be found.

  “You were both on a no kill order,” Light finally said in answer to Emily’s swear laden question. “We weren’t allowed to kill either of you until we received the sign.”

  “And what was this great sign?” The Detective asked, taking the moment to reach into his coat and place a grip on his pistol’s handle.

  Light pointed outside. “When The Iron Knight arrived to kill the Chancellor, we were free to kill you.”

  “Guess he had it all planned out to the last detail,” The Detective chimed in as he slowly pulled the gun from its holster. “Not sure whether to be pissed or impressed.”

  Emily smiled at him. “I’d go with pissed.”

  “You always tell me that.”

  “I know I do,” she said with a nod, almost as if she knew exactly what he had in mind, which would have been a first for him since he was making all of this up as he went a long.

  The Detective pulled the gun up and took aim at the glowing woman on the other side of the room. She took a step forward into a patch of darkness just in front of her, and with a quick snap of ozone, she disappeared. Without thinking, The Detective turned himself and the gun completely around, just before the smell of ozone appeared right behind Emily. The Detective pulled the trigger, sending a bullet into a the glow that was just about to appear.

  Light tumbled out of the darkness, landing hard on the floor. She rolled a couple of times, stopping just short of the giant monitor on the left side of the room. For a second, she appeared completely motionless. The Detective walked near her, seeing that, as his luck went, the bullet had pierced her other shoulder. He took a couple of steps closer and aimed the gun towards her head. He started to squeeze the trigger when he heard Emily shout from behind him.

  “Detective!” she screamed, but her warning came a second too late.

  The Detective felt Dark’s inhuman fist slam into the side of his ribs, sending him flying. He landed against the giant monitor on the other side of the room, leaving the massive display cracked like a broken mirror. He slid down the wall, landing hard on the floor. He could hear Emily, screaming something at him that he couldn’t make out. She was probably telling him to get up, not that he wasn’t telling himself the same thing. He just kept repeating the words “get up asshole” over and over in his head, until for a moment, everything went black.

  _______________________________________________

  The Agent fell to his knees coughing as the gas hit him in the face. Adam stood over him, his remaining fist clenched and raised above his adopted father. Adam landed the fist repeatedly against The Agent’s face .

  One time.

  Two times.

  Three times.

  Four.

  Five.

  Six.

  Seven.

  Eight.

  Nine.

  Ten times.

  The onslaught finally stopped, and The Iron Knight peered down through the still gas covered air to examine his handiwork, only to see The Agent standing from his knees without a sign of damage.

  “No,” Adam exclaimed. “All of Barren’s notes, it was the only way to stop you; he was sure it was the only way.”

  “I’m sorry, son,” Rogers said in return, tears intermingling with the rain that dripped from his face. “Barren was wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Why didn’t it work?” Adam asked as he slowly walked the armor backwards. “Why aren’t you dead?”

  “I had scientists I could trust, not Barren, reverse engineer a process to counter the effects of the cure. I gave the antidote to myself and my more trustworthy associates. The cure has no effect on me, not anymore, not ever again.”

  The Armor’s head shook back and forth. “No. Barren was sure it would work. If you weren’t afraid of it, why did you keep it in a vault in the middle of a fort? Why did I have to kill so many to get it?”

  “I kept it there because it was my last sample,” The Agent answered, suddenly unable to look up at the robotic face where his son’s voice came from. Instead, he looked down and watched the rain splatter on the brick terrace as he spoke. “I kept it in case I needed it, just in case there was a threat I couldn’t handle, a super more powerful than me. I kept it in case I had to use it.”

  The Iron Knight fell to his robotic knees, the soulless red eyes staring up into The Agent’s grief stricken face. “Why? Why did you do this to me, to my family, to the rest of The Seven? You knew what I would do; you counted on it. You knew this would happen.”

  “I knew what would happen,” The Agent said as he raised his head up and looked into the eyes of the machine. “I always know what will happen, always. I knew you wouldn’t have joined us completely and without fear if your normal family was still alive. I knew when you opened that letter all of your memories would come rushing back; I knew you were so strong, so powerful, that nothing would stop you until you had your vengeance on each of us. You were the only one capable of killing them all, and I knew you would do it.”

  “Why Dad?” The machine asked, sounding more like a child asking his father a question than a machine desperate for revenge. “Why me? Why them? Couldn’t you have just saved me? Wouldn’t that have been enough? ”

  “I had no other choice, son. I did what I had to for the greater good.” The Agent reached out for the machine, holding out his hands as if he was seeking an embrace. “I sacrificed you to save the rest of the world, to bring utopia.”

  The machine brought its sole remaining hand to its head, covering the red eyes. “Then we have one last thing in common, cause like you, I have no other choice. If I can‘t kill you, all I can do is take
away something you care about the way mine was taken from me.”

  “It doesn’t have to be this way; it doesn’t have to end like this. We can find a way.”

  “There’s no other way. I’m already dead. All that’s left, all this is, is just a ghost in the machine.” The machine’s hand squeezed the helmet, ripping through the faceplate before pulling up and tearing The Iron Knight’s head free from the rest of the body. The lights in the eyes blinked as the body fell backwards, dropping the head to the ground just as the lights went completely dead.

  _______________________________________________

  “Get up, jackass!” Emily screamed into his ear.

  The Detective opened his eyes in time to see her standing over him, her hands on his shoulders, seemingly trying to either shake him awake or check to see if he was dead. “How long was I out?” he asked as he rolled onto his knees.

  “Five, six seconds” she answered. “You know, just long enough to get us both killed.”

  He shook his head back and forth, trying his damnest to get rid of some of the cobwebs. “Sorry about that; I don’t usually nap on the job.”

  “I thought…” she began to say, her eyes filled with tears, “…I thought you were dead. I swear if you had been, I was so going to kill you.”

  He started to say something else, something quirky or amusing, when a flash of ozone appeared just behind Emily; he tried to speak, to move her out of the way, but as had become the norm, he was too late. He reached out for her, but Dark had already grabbed her, tossing her like she was weightless through the opening created by the shattered glass. The Detective watched as she landed with a thud on the terrace.