Kingdom of Heroes (43 page)

“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 saying 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.

He tried to get to his feet, only to be pushed back down by a cloaked hand. The brother stood over him as a glow began to develop within the center of Dark’s cloak. Within a second or so, the sister appeared from the middle of her brother, and she walked out with her light blade extended from her right fist. She stepped in front of The Detective, before dropping to her knees and straddling his stomach. She looked down at him; the wound in her shoulder bled profusely along her arm and onto The Detective.

“You could have been such a fun pet,” she said, her voice still oozing the same controlling tone she had earlier. “We could have been together forever.”

“Not a chance in hell,” The Detective replied suddenly realizing he couldn’t move his arms. He looked up to see that Dark held him pinned down. “Can’t take me by yourself, gotta have help; that’s just sad.”

Light bent down until she was almost nose-to-nose with him. He could feel the warm heat from her skin. “What’s sad is how your little mind bitch has to watch you die while she’s helpless to stop it.”

“Go to hell,” he said in return, unable to find anything witty or intelligent at that exact moment.

“You first, my pet.”

He felt the blade enter his skin, just below his sternum, burning through his flesh like a smoldering scalpel. Even with all of the adrenaline pumping throughout his organs, he felt every inch of it as it cut through him. She held the blade there, twisting it around, making the wound as deep and deadly as she possibly could. He could feel his blood gushing from the hole, running down his abdomen and across each of his sides. He pushed against the man holding his arms down, but he couldn’t budge him. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a beautiful woman holding a large gun.