Kingdom of Heroes (21 page)

The walk downstairs was a lot harder for The Detective than it should have been. He was suddenly dizzy, and his head was still pounding from the whole psychic mindfuck he had just endured. Bad memories poured through his mind, making every step seem more laborious than the last. This whole venture was turning into more than he had ever bargained for. With killers in metal suits, armed soldiers out for his head, and insane psychics trying to steal his body, he was definitely getting screwed on the payment side of things, or maybe, getting screwed had been his payment. He shook his head hard from side-to-side, partly to shake out some of the cobwebs, but mostly, he shook his head to rid his mind of some of the lunacy the past twenty-four hours had brought into his life.

He walked to the bottom of the stairs in time to see the Iron Knight crashing through the front doors, leaving a gaping hole in the center of the house. Metal Girl followed behind the armor, picked it up above her head, and threw it through the hole she had just made. The mechanical suit landed somewhere outside, out of The Detective’s line of sight.

Metal Girl turned toward The Detective, a slight smile appearing on her silver face. “Steven?” she asked. “Is that you?”

“Nope,” The Detective answered. “Your boyfriend’s little plan didn’t exactly work out the way he wanted.”

She stepped towards The Detective. “I can’t hear him. If you’ve hurt him I will rip you limb-from-limb and feed the pieces to the dogs.”

“He was alive when I left him,” he said, a serious look covering his tired face. “Don’t get me wrong, I thought about killing him; actually, I really wanted to kill him for what he just put me through. But I thought your pal out there in the stolen suit has gone through so much trouble just to do the job himself, and it would be a damn shame to take the opportunity from him.”

Shiny tears rolled from her still human looking eyes and down her metallic cheeks. “He asked one thing from you, one little goddamn thing, and you couldn’t help a dying man with his life’s last request. You deserve to die.”

“You and the mummy up there can both go fuck yourselves,” The Detective said in return as he turned and began to walk towards the back of the house.

“No.” Metal Girl reached out and grabbed The Detective by the throat, lifting him off of the ground. “You can go and fuck yourself in Hell,” she said as she threw him as hard as she could through the hole where the front doors had once stood.

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Journal Entry

[Found on page 38]

Note: The following is the transcript of a phone call between Barren and The Agent, recorded from Barren’s end and found on his computer. The call took place sometime after the end of the war and before The Seven’s victory rally.

Agent: Are they ready?

Barren: They’re ready, but I’m going to need some extra time to produce more.

Agent: We only need three sets, one for you, one for the me, and one for the shooter. The real question is do they work?

Barren: (laughing) Fuck you, of course they work. Everything I make works. They’re nickel sized patches, place one on the back of your neck, just at the base of your skull, and it will completely block all neural access from any outside source, specifically designed to inhibit psychic access.

Agent: The real question is will it work on him? You know as well as I do his power has grown in massive proportions over the past few years.

Barren: It’ll work on him. After all, I designed it with him in mind. The real question is whether or not we’re doing the right thing?

Agent: You know we are. He’s not the man he once was. The increase in power has almost driven him mad. He’s more psychotic than some of the people Demon used to fight. He’s a danger to you, me, all of us.

Barren: And this has nothing at all to do with the fact he’s threatening your position of power?

Agent: Knight, I’m hurt.

Barren: You shouldn’t be. I’m just asking.

Agent: No. This has nothing to do with me feeling threatened. This is for all of our safety, and to be honest, the safety of the whole country.

Barren: Okay, I hear you. What about Hope?

Agent: What about her?

Barren: She worships him. She’s not exactly going to take this well.

Agent: She’ll deal with it, and we’ll deal with her. She’ll be better without him; it’s not exactly a healthy relationship.

Barren: True. So when does this happen?

Agent: At the rally, when he feels the most secure.

Barren: I guess we have to do what we have to do.

Agent: We do.

(End recording)

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Metal Girl stepped through the hole where the front doors had once been and looked at The Iron Knight. The machine stood across from her, some fifty feet from the house, aiming the armor’s missile launcher at her chest. The launcher fired.

The rocket hit her dead center, propelling her through several walls before finally exploding in the back of the mansion with a shower of flames and bricks, taking the entire south wing of the house with it. Without a word or a sound, the machine walked past where she had once stood and into the house.

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Emily looked up from her seat in the waiting room, her hands still on the strollers, rocking the still sleeping babies. A man in a suit walked through the door, and for the briefest of moments, she thought it might have been him. It wasn’t. It was an uptight type of man, dressed in a overly expensive suit and tie, followed by two men from The Agent’s storm trooper collection. She sat upright in her seat, suddenly feeling quite uncomfortable.

“Can I help you?’ she asked the three men, all of whom seemed to be staring intently at her.

“He wants to see you,” the suit and tie said in a matter of fact fashion, doing little to reassure her sudden bad feeling.

She looked up at the camera in the corner. “Why does he want to see me? What does he need me for.”

“Not for me to say,” suit and tie answered. “He will inform you of that once you arrive.”

She looked down at the babies in their stroller. “I can’t leave; I’m taking care of my sister’s children.”

“We’ve made arrangements. Hospital daycare is coming to look after them.”

She started to stand up, only to stop and return her gaze to the camera near the ceiling. “Seriously, what the hell does he want with me?”

Suit and tie motioned for the two guards to come around him. “Miss, you can come with us willingly, or we can take you by force. Either way, you’re coming with us.”

She thought about all of her options, just to realize she didn’t really have any. She couldn’t take a chance on the babies being hurt if she resisted, so she did the only reasonable thing she could think of. She stood to her feet.

One of the guards grabbed her by the upper arm and led her out of the waiting room. As they walked down the hallway, one guard to her right, one behind her, and suit and tie walking in front, it suddenly occurred to her, that between her and her sister, she was probably the one in the most dire of situations. And that really fucking sucks, she thought to herself as she climbed into the elevator with the three men.

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The Detective landed on his back somewhere in the middle of the woods, barely missing several trees by a mere few feet. He rolled onto all fours and tried to catch his breath, only to find it quite hard to do. He assumed there were a few broken ribs; he would definitely feel that when his adrenaline wore down. He struggled to stand up, and upon finally achieving an upright position, he attempted to locate the mansion from where he stood. He couldn’t. That was a hell of a throw, he thought to himself.

He sniffed the air to find his way back to the battlefield. Out of the west, he detected the smell of smoke, the vague smell of metal, and the strong, bitter stench of old man mixed with death. He sniffed the air again. From the east he smelled something different, something almost pleasant, something which he could only describe as the smell of cold. To be more exact, cold mixed ever so slightly with the sweet aroma of strawberries.

He looked up. Twenty feet above his head, a woman covered in a sheath of ice appeared on a frozen slide. As she looked down at him, he couldn’t help but notice that she sparkled like diamonds in the afternoon sun.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” the Ice Queen asked in her always pleasant tone.

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As the house erupted in flames from the missile he had fired into Metal Girl’s chest, The Iron Knight armor entered the double doors and walked into the master bedroom. The man once known as Psychosis laid in the bed, a dried up prune of a human being, curled up into the fetal position, waiting on someone to put him out of his misery. This was a moment thirteen years in the making.

The machine walked towards the bed; the floor beneath its feet gave a little with every step it took. It wouldn’t be long before this place crumbled to the ground, and given time, the fire would drag the old man to Hell where he deserved to be. But there wasn’t time to wait; the flames couldn’t take what didn’t belong to them.

The Iron Knight stood next to the bed and looked down at the once great psychic. This was all that was left of the man who had caused so much pain. This dried up corpse, this pathetic use of skin, had done so much to so many; the price for all of that would have to be paid.

“Get the fuck away from him!” Metal Girl screamed as she ripped through the double doors and entered the bedroom.

The machine raised the left wrist gun and aimed it at Quincy’s age spot covered head. “
One more step, and I put a bullet in his skull. I take it he’s still alive inside of this rotting corpse?
”

“Yes,” she answered, stopping in her tracks and moving her gaze back and forth between the man in the bed and the mechanized figure standing beside him.

“
Can he hear me?
”

She stopped for a moment and stared at nothing in particular before lowering her eyes back towards the two figures. “He said he can hear your voice, but he can’t detect your thoughts. There’s some kind of a obstruction blocking them from him.”

The armored right hand pointed to the suit’s red and black head. “
Psychic proof barrier, it’s built right into the helmet. I have to give him credit; Barren thought of everything. So, is Quincy listening? Do I have his undivided attention now?
”

“Steven said ‘yes,’” Metal Girl replied.

“
That’s
good.
” The machine stared down at the feeble shape lying silently in the bed. “
Earlier today, I made your little girlfriend a deal, and she absolutely turned me down. Such a shame. Now, I offer you the same proposition. I kill you, and she lives, no questions asked.
” The machine moved the gun on its wrist until the barrel aimed directly into the old man’s left eye. “
Or you mentally shut Hope down, right here, right now, just as you did my baby sister thirteen years ago, and I allow you to live.
”

“No!” Metal Girl cried out. “You can’t do this. It’s not fair; it’s not human!”

“
I really don’t give a damn as to what’s fair for the two of you, and in case you haven‘t noticed, I‘m not really human anymore
.
These are the terms, and this is his choice.
” He pushed the gun barrel hard against Quincy’s skull. “
So do I kill you and let her live?
”

The old man’s lips moved slow and deliberate from beneath his oxygen mask. “N…o.”

“Steven, please!” Metal girl screamed.

“
Do I kindly allow you to continue breathing while she dies?
”

“Y…e…s,” the old man breathlessly stated.

“
First, shut down her powers, revert her back to her normal form.
”

The Iron Knight watched as Metal Girl’s outer covering changed from shiny silver to ordinary skin. The redheaded woman stood before them with tears pouring from her eyes. A look of desperation covered her now normal face.

“Please, Steven, please,” she begged. “Please, I love you so much.”

The Iron Knight pushed the barrel harder against Quincy’s head. “
Now, shut her down.
”

“Stev---” She crumpled to the floor where she had once stood, leaving her last word as a half finished attempt to appeal to the man she loved. A stream of blood poured from her nose and ears.

The Iron Knight turned from Metal Girl’s unmoving corpse then back to the old man. “
You goddamn piece of shit;
she stayed with you, by your side, no matter what, for the past thirteen years. She loved you unconditionally, with no price or reward, and you casually take her life to save your own skin, a piece of skin that should have been dead a long time ago. And, for the record, I have no plans on honoring our proposition. If you had agreed to die in her place, I would have allowed her to live; she was only going to die if she forced my hand. But you? No. You don’t get to live. After all, my only purpose in coming here was to make sure you died the death you deserved. Such a shame.
”

The machine pulled the gun barrel away from Quincy’s head and raised the armored right hand above the cranium of the man once know as Psychosis. It slammed the armored fist down into Quincy’s face. Once, twice, three times, continually, over and over again, until there was nothing left above the old man’s neck but a pile of blood and skull that vaguely resembled fresh ground beef.

The suit’s booster rockets activated, and the machine flew through the ceiling, leaving a large hole in its wake. It hovered above the mansion for a few moments and watched as the flames from the earlier missile slowly engulfed the entire house. The fire stretched out across the entire first floor and made its way to the upper levels. Ash and smoke filled the sky, and it all, the death, the fire, the destruction, filled the machine with a certain sense of satisfaction, knowing it had just made The Seven into a collection of two.

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OPEN DOCUMENT: SELF DEFENSE PROTOCOLS

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SEARCH WITHIN DOCUMENT: ICE QUEEN

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OPEN DOCUMENT

The Ice Queen: real name Gabriella Stone (but only Fire is allowed to call her by her real name, a leftover benefit from their time together as a duo); Home Location: A large penthouse apartment in the middle of the city, just south of my building and east of The Agent’s tower, but I doubt you will have to go there to find her. Once you attack either Fire or The Agent, she will find you.

The Ice Queen is a bitch; that is the absolute most accurate statement I could possibly make about her. She is hateful, arrogant, and conceited. She is also beautiful, sexy, dangerous, and completely loyal to the people she trusts, which as far as I can tell is only Fire and The Agent. But I must say, when she is loyal, she is absolutely loyal. She would die, kill, do whatever for either of them. I doubt she would piss on me if my hair was on fire, and the same probably goes for the rest of The Seven, but for those two, I doubt there is anything she wouldn’t do if either of them asked her.

Strengths: The Ice Queen has the ability to produce sheets of ice from her hands, crafting it as everything from balls to razor sharp shards. She can also create giant slides made of ice that she can use to travel great distances in very short amounts of time. Personally, I feel her greatest strength is her ability to cover her entire body in a thick coating of ice, making the ice into what effectively becomes a frozen suit of armor.

Weaknesses: The list is short. Unlike Fire and Metal Girl, whose transition time is almost instantaneous, the transition time between The Ice Queen’s powered and depowered state takes a few seconds, and if you could get a shot or two (or a hundred) off before she can protect herself, you may be able to end the fight before it starts. Maybe, but it is highly doubtful. The armor itself is more than prepared for any freezing or projectile that she can muster. From what I can tell, barring her making actual physical contact with the suit and unleashing all of her power at once, the armor should, in theory, be able to survive a one-on-one confrontation with her.

The hardest part of this fight will be trying to find a way to hurt her. Despite making another bullet from Hope’s DNA designed especially for Ice, the bullet itself won’t be enough. Even Hope’s DNA isn’t enough to penetrate her frozen shell. To allow the bullet to do its job, one would have to find or make a weak spot, preferably in her chest area near her frozen heart. The Iron Knight armor has the strength to beat a weak spot into her, but it will require getting close enough to her to do the damage.

Also making the task a tad bit easier is the fact that, even though I have never been given the opportunity to study her abilities and their limits, I have noticed that the use of her powers seems to drain her stamina faster than most of us. Whether it’s the weight of the ice shell or the exertion of having to create the ice from her own body, she seems to tire faster while using her power, and that fact can definitely be used in the process of creating a weak spot on her chest.

For this purpose, I have designed her DNA bullet with a small (though large enough to do quite a bit of damage to her inside and out) explosive charge within the bullet itself. The charge is designed to activate once it finds its target, and I only have the capabilities to make one of these; so in a nutshell, don’t miss.

_______________________________________________

“I’m here to find you,” The Detective answered as he rubbed his still throbbing forehead, realizing for the first time that his hat was missing.

The Ice Queen slid down to the ground and depowered in front of him. The frozen covering melted from her body, leaving her completely nude in front of him. Obviously, The Detective noted, she wasn’t shy.

“I told you to run,” she barked back. “I gave you goddamn explicit instructions on how to get away, and I fucking find you here. Are you fucking stupid or something?”

“Are you done?”

“No!” she yelled. “I put my ass on the line to keep you safe, you goddamn idiot, and you’re here. What the fuck are you doing here?”

He plopped down onto the grass. His head continued to throb. “I got your message, made my way to the car, and there was a nice little hit squad sitting there waiting for me.”

“How many men?”

“Three assholes with guns and a teleporter, The Agent sent them.”

“Goddamn it, he must have intercepted my message. Did you kill them?”

He looked up at her. “The three soldiers, yeah, I killed them. I used the teleporter to get me to this wonderful place, and ole shiny metal killing machine over there shot his whiny ass in the head. Of course, it saved me the work.”

“You fucking idiot,” she said in return as she shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose with her forefinger and thumb. “You played right into his goddamn hands. Don’t you understand a fucking thing. Now he has everything he needs. Goddamn it, I did everything I could to keep you safe, and you go and fuck it up.”

“I--”

She cut him off before he could finish a syllable. “You just don’t fucking get it. He sits up there in his goddamn ivory tower, watching all of us with his damn cameras. He has them placed fucking everywhere. There’s no escape. I thought if I let you go, if you went without me, you going one way while I went the other, he would watch me, and you might slip by unnoticed. But no, you had to go and fuck this up.”

“I d---”

“No, you didn’t know,” she interrupted again, cutting him off before he could tell her how little he cared about what The Agent was going to do to him.

“Oh god, he knows,” she exclaimed. “He fucking knows. He intercepted the goddamn message. He knows I was going to let you go. I’m so fucked. You’re dead, and I’m royally fucked.”

“So are you through freaking out yet?” he asked. “Or is this going to last a while?” She turned around and faced the opposite direction, and he found himself staring straight at her bare bottom. He stood up and moved beside her, placing his hands on her uncovered shoulders; she felt cold to his touch. He took off his coat, placed it around her, and turned her around towards him. Silent tears rolled from her eyes and froze to her cheeks. “Why are you crying,” he asked, trying to make his voice as sincere as possible. With his head pounding against his skull, he couldn’t tell if his own sincerity was real or fake, just as he wasn’t sure if he believed anything she was saying to him.

“Because I’ve fucked everything up,” she said as she reached over, grabbed him, and pulled herself into his chest. “You saved my life. No one, other than Fire, ever risked their life like that for me, and I couldn’t just turn you back over to him. I couldn’t. I owed you. And on top of that, I almost like you. I couldn‘t just let The Agent have you.”

“
Beautiful, just beautiful,
” the computerized voice from the Iron Knight armor said; it hovered twenty feet in the air and mockingly applauded. “
That has to be the acting performance of the year. I hope, for your sake, Detective, you haven’t bought a moment of it. This, Detective, is what The Seven do. They lie and manipulate, kill and destroy, always doing whatever it takes to get what they want.
”

Ice pushed The Detective away and looked up at the suit of armor. “Whoever the fuck you are under that helmet, this all stops---now.”

“
Look at that, still acting like you have no clue who I am. Again, don’t let her fool you, Detective. This act is for your sake and your sake alone. She knows exactly who I am, and why all of this is happening. But The Seven have always been taught to protect their own, no matter what.
”

The Detective stepped back a few paces, allowing himself the room to move in one of two directions: either into the fight or out of it. This time wasn’t like the last time the three of them had met. Then he was on a mission for his freedom, fighting to protect a woman he hoped he could trust. Now, everything had changed, and nothing he had felt from last night remained. At this moment, he hadn’t made up his mind which way he stood, or if he was even a part of this anymore