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vulkan -> RE: (HS) Chronicles of the Red Orb (6/7/2012 18:52:44)
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Chapter 10: The Citadel
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Thundersmite looks at sigma, who is checking his rifle and grenades.
Its time. Thundersmite feels if eternity has been leading to this moment, finally, DC-14 dies, here, tonight.
"You alright there?"
Thundersmite turns, and sees sigma looking at him with a puzzled expression etched into his face.
"I was...err...daydreaming."
"Well, I hope you don't do that when we are there."
Thundersmite shifts uncomfortably.
"So...erm...where is DC-14 anyway?
Sigma looks at him.
"Well, I was hoping to tell you this later but....well....it's on another planet."
Thundersmite gawps at Sigma.
"And how do you propose we get there? I don't have any space shuttles hidden up my sleeve!"
Sigma smirks.
"I've borrowed the tracker from that red legionnaire I killed the other day, all I need to do is contact the legion, pretend to be a legion squad who needs a teleport, and off we go."
"...squad?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot. I've got my contacts to give me a squad of special op patrolmen to give us some help in this."
Thundersmite looks at Sigma.
"Yes. We will need them."
The ten soldiers arrive in an hour. Their officer, a seven foot tall man in his late thirties, greets them.
"Lieutenant Joe Davies of the super city police special ops team." he introduces himself." it's me and my men's job to keep you alive for long enough so you can kill some experiment."
Thundersmite walks up to the man and shakes his hand. The lieutenant isn't a Smasher, but if he was any stronger he would be considered as one.
"Im Thundersmite and this is Sigma, we need your help to kill a rogue experiment known as DC-14..."
"I know the story, immortal, red orb, blah blah blah...now are we going to do this or not?"
The nine other soldiers nod in agreement.
"Are your weapons loaded and primed?"
Davies nods.
"Experimental X-39 assault rifle. Can fire a silenced long range shot, as were sir's orders."
Sigma breathes deeply.
"Ok...let's do this."
He takes out the communicator in his pocket
"...erm...is anyone there?"
Then a voice comes out of the communicator, making the group jump.
"This is communications officer Delta-fourteen. Who is this?"
"We are the survivors of squad nine-two." taking the name of a squad who were ambushed and killed by patrolmen a few days before. "We require a teleport back to the city."
There is a pause, where the group hold their breath.
"...ok then, locking onto your co-ordinates."
The group breathe.
"Teleport locked, firing."
There is a flash of light, and the twelve people disappear.
The silent city: Location Unknown
There is a flash of light, and the group appear in what appears to be a street. The soldiers instantly aim their weapons at the skeletal buildings around them, few of which are intact.
"Its clear, now what?"
Sigma looks over to the right, where a gigantic citadel-like building towers above the ruined city like a phoenix rising from ashes.
"We find the biggest building, and hope DC-14 is in it."
The silent citadel.
DC-14 looks out of the window at the ruined city. His kingdom. His kingdom of dust and ashes. He remembered looking out of the window of a skyscraper in super city which gave him a view like this. For a moment, he imagines that super city never existed, and that it was all a dream. The fantasy is shattered by Beta-five, who comes into his office.
"The legion is ready?"
"Yes sir, we are just waiting for the survivors of squad nine-two."
DC-14 turns around.
"Did you say...survivors?"
"Yes sir, is there something wrong?"
"Squad nine-two's life signs faded a week ago. I expect Thundersmite or Sigma killed them, meaning..."
"What is it sir?"
"...put all patrols on high alert! Give orders to shoot on sight! We have to stop them! It's Thundersmite! He's here!"
Sigma, Thundersmite and the squad sit in a ruined building while Davies scans the path to the citadel for hostiles.
Thundersmite is bored.
"So..." he says to sigma, "how did you get that scar on your head?"
Sigma laughs.
"Let's just say I had a bad day."
Then there is a whisper.
"Six red legionnaires! Coming from the west!"
The group moves towards what was once a window, and sure enough, a group of six red legionnaires are walking down the street.
"Everyone has a target?" asks Davies to his men.
The soldiers nod.
"Silenced?"
They nod.
"Then open fire on my mark. Three"
"Two."
"One."
There are several coughs from the soldier's guns, the red legionnaires fall at relatively the same time, their lives snuffed out like a candle. Thundersmite is the only one not to attack. Super powers are cleaner and more effective than guns.
The legionnaires have barely hit the ground before the soldiers run out, and pull the corpses into a ruined building.
"How are the scans?" Sigma asks Davies.
"The citadel is protected by a wall. Round the back is a cliff with jagged rocks. We go that way, and we will get sliced to pieces."
Thundersmite laughs.
"Well, I would hate it to be too easy."
The squads journey though the city is uneventful, the few patrols they see are taken out with ruthless efficiency.
"We must be getting close" says sigma, after the third patrol dies at the hands of the spec ops team.
"Even if we do get close, how do we get in?"
"Err...I hadn't thought of that."
Thundersmite looks around at the corpses of the red legionnaires behind them, stuffed into a building.
"I have an idea..."
The citadel was abuzz with activity, red legionnaire after red legionnaire was filing into a gigantic hall, each splitting into their respective squads.
DC-14 looked down at them with an expression of proudness on his face, he did a quick head count. One thousand five hundred and twenty six red legionnaires, all ready for war. He had never given a grand speech before, usually preferring to contact his army by radio.
"Er...hi."
There is a chorus of "hello" from the gathering of red legionnaires below.
"As you know, three years ago, the orb was captured by humans. And they turned it into a weapon."
The red legion is silent now, all listening.
"They tore my consciousness from it, and now, we will have our revenge!"
The red legion begins to shout and cheer. Dc-14 smiles, he needed to work them up before battle.
"They may think we are few, but they are wrong!"
The cheers of the red legion are deafening now, DC-14 can barely hear himself speak now. He turns to beta-five.
"We can't risk Thundersmite coming now. Activate defence protocol's nine and forty-two."
She looks surprised, "forty-two, you sure?"
"I thought you would like that one. Find a good moment then strike."
"Yes sir." Beta_five says, with a expression of viciousness on her face.
Sigma looks through a pair of binoculars, at the gates of the silent citadel, and turns to Thundersmite and the squad, all wearing the suits they took from the red legionnaires they killed.
"...are you SURE this is going to work?"
Thundersmite thinks for a moment.
"No."
Sigma breathes a deep breath.
"Well...here we go."
The twelve people step out from behind the building. The guard obviously see them, but they barely bat an eyelid. When they reach the gate, one of the guards presses a button, opening the gate.
"Finished your patrol?" the guard asks.
Sigma nods.
"Good, it's silly that DC-14 is sending us on these. You had to miss the big speech too..."
Sigma smiles.
"Yeah, that was irritating."
The group walk past the guard, and into the courtyard. The guard presses a button, and the gate locks shut.
The guard smiles. They had fallen for it. DC-14 only told the red legionnaires of the speech ten minutes before he said it. And the patrols throughout the city were not told at all. Sigma had well as given them away by saying that he knew about it.
The guard, or rather, Beta-five as she was known, takes out a phone and begins to dial.
Thundersmite leads the squad along the corridors. They are passed by several red legionnaires, but they ignore them.
He is unsure what to do now. He does not know where DC-14 is hidden, and the citadel is huge, he has no idea how he could find him.
The squad are behind him, their weapons lowered, but they are clearly alert.
DC-14 stands in the courtyard, looking at the citadel, through a window; he sees what he wants to see.
Thundersmite stops. A sense of foreboding is coming over him, the sense when you have a laser sight in the middle of your forehead.
Not only that, but he can hear something, a whoosh, getting louder....
"GET DOWN!!!"
The missile explodes, blowing the wall that the squad is next to away, most of the squad manage to jump away from the explosion, but two are stunned, lose their balance and fall several hundred metres to their deaths.
The destroyed wall gives Thundersmite a clear view of the courtyard, and the red legionnaires below are firing up through it, hoping to kill more of the squad. the long range means most of their shots are inaccurate, but one lucky, or unlucky as Thundersmite saw it, blows away most of one of the soldiers skull, sending him through the hole to land in a bloody mess in the courtyard below
"Come on!!" Davies yells, and the remnants of the team run along the corridor, pausing only to fire shots through the other windows, which were shattered by the force of the missile.
They reach the end of the corridor and reach a spiral staircase. As they begin to run up it, gunfire sounds from the top, aimed down at the squad. Sigma turns to Thundersmite.
"After you."
Thundersmite stands on the side of the staircase and jumps, carrying him almost up to the top. The last thing the legionnaires see is an angry Smasher, with electricity in one fist and frozen gas in the other.
Sigma watches as Thundersmite walks down the stairs, a smug look on his face.
"Nicely done."
Davies looks around, "we have to hurry, if we leave it too long, DC-14 will escape, we have to move!"
The eight soldiers run up the stairs.
Super city nuclear power plant
Security officer Tim Shaw sits in the control room, looking bored. Guarding a nuclear power plant was so boring since they fitted the new security measures. Nothing had ever managed to get in them, and yet they still had security guards. It was stupid.
He checks his watch. Its 19:00. Nearly the end of his shift.
He sighs, gets up and walks to the door.
His eyes widen in shock, a gas is outside the door, and he cannot help breathing it in. Coughing, he looks up; the world looks distorted, like looking into a mirror at a fairground.
Black shapes weave around, making a beeline for him.
Shaw draws his gun, firing wildly. He had trained for this, but the bullets go through the shapes, barely slowing them at all.
One of the shapes lands on the floor and morphs into a figure in a red suit, who produces a wafer thin blade of steel and punches it quickly and cleanly though Shaw's heart. As the guard dies, he recognises the gas from his school chemistry lessons.
"Hallucinogen gas…"
Sigma dares a look out from behind the table, earning a few bullets in his direction for his bravery. Two more of the soldiers lie dead on the floor, caught by an ambush by a squad of red legionnaires.
He yells to Thundersmite. "Give me some cover!"
Thundersmite nods, and freezes a large wall of ice in front of Sigma, who jumps out from behind his table, pistol in hand.
The legionnaires then open fire on the wall, hoping to shatter it. But that is the worst mistake they could have made, now the rest of the squad is free from fire; they take aim and kill the legionnaires with pinpoint shots though the heart.
Thundersmite breathes, they are so close now, but why does he feel that there is something wrong?
Alpha-ten sits in the control room of the power plant, tapping codes into the main computers.
"Is it ready?" his comm unit asks.
"Yes, I'm diverting every single spark in super city to the catacombs."
"Good work alpha-ten. Keep going, and lock the controls in case of a counterattack."
It hits Thundersmite like a missile, the sheer revelation almost knocking the wind out of him. How could he have not noticed? How could have he been so stupid?
"Stand still."
The six soldiers and Sigma behind him look puzzled.
"What is it?" asks one of them.
"We started with ten soldiers."
The squad look confused, as if they think that Thundersmite is going mad.
"Five died."
They nod slowly.
"Then...why do we have six?"
They freeze, looking back at a final soldier in a patrolman's uniform, as if they had not noticed him before.
The soldier moves, bringing his rifle up, firing two shots into the hearts of the two nearest patrolmen to him.
Davies and his last two men take aim, but the rogue trooper switches to automatic, sending a storm of bullets in the corridor. Sigma and Thundersmite manage to throw themselves to the floors, but Davies and the rest of the squad are a fraction too slow, and are torn to pieces by the hail of leaden death.
As their remains fall to the floor, the rogue turns and runs.
Fury grips Thundersmite. Nothing matters now but revenge against whoever the hell this thing is. Ignoring Sigma's protests, he runs after the soldier, back the way they came.
Thundersmite can see a flash of red under her patrolman armour, marking her to be a red legionnaire. Thundersmite blasts a bolt of energy at him, and tackles him to the floor as he ducks to avoid it.
The legionnaire laughs. Thundersmite recognises it, the last time he heard that voice was that woman at the gate! And come to think of it, he had heard it other times too!
"Who are you?"
The legionnaire laughs.
"I'm beta-five. And you are too late..."
"What?"
"Ha...DC-14 hasn't worked it out, but seeing him...heh...I have. Pick your friends more closely Thundersmite! Ha ha ha ha!"
Sick of the legionnaire's voice, Thundersmite grabs her by the neck and throws her. She smashes through a window. Her laughter continues as he falls, slowly fading to nothing.
Thundersmite breathes, and goes to find Sigma.
DC-14 steps into the control room, summoned by an urgent signal.
"What?" he says irritably as he steps in, he wants to be part of the hunt to kill sigma and Thundersmite, and this is preventing him from doing so.
"Erm…well…" says one of the controllers, looking around to see if any of his associates will break the news to DC-14. They don’t.
"We have had a…DNA match from one of the scanners on the lower levels of the citadel."
"What? Who?"
"Erm…yours."
"That’s stupid!! You called me here for that? When did you find it anyway?"
"…five minutes ago."
DC-14 stops mid-rant.
"…did you say…5 minutes?"
The legionnaire nods.
"We…think it might be…"
DC-14 finishes his sentence, saying the name no one in the room wants to hear.
"DC-13."
"Yes sir…"
"He's here…order beta-five and the other officers up here. We need to hold a emergency meeting."
The legionnaire shuffles, this was the bit he was dreading. He picks up a small tablet screen and hands it to DC-14.
"This was caught on camera 05C1 seven minutes ago."
DC-14 looks at the screen, watching Beta-five talk to Thundersmite, and Thundersmite throw her through a window and to her death.
"Rewind that a bit."
The tape rewinds.
DC-14 listens.
"Ha...DC-14 hasn't worked it out, but seeing him...heh...I have. Pick your friends more closely Thundersmite! Ha ha ha ha!"
DC-14 thinks for a moment, and then he breaks into a big smile.
"Oh….this is brilliant…how ironic…"
The legionnaires in the room look at each other with puzzled expressions.
"Anyway. How is alpha-ten's squad doing?"
"They have taken control of the plant, and are diverting the power as we speak."
"Good... And make sure not to overload it. Meanwhile…"
DC-14 turns to one of his guards and snatches the assault rifle out of his hands.
"I have some hunting to do."
Thundersmite and Sigma are alone now. It is a mixed blessing of the citadel being so big. Its sheers size makes it difficult for the few red legionnaires to find them; however, Thundersmite and sigma have no idea where to go.
They get to another corridor, longer than the others, which splits in two.
"We can't waste any more time. Split up."
Sigma nods and runs down the left corridor, slowly being swallowed by the darkness at the end of it.
Thundersmite breathes. And runs.
He gets to the end of the corridor, he can hear voices, but they sounded quite far away to his enhanced senses. He opens a door to his left, and sees a staircase. He is about to turn around when something hot buzzes past his ear like an angry insect. It takes him half a moment to realise that he nearly had his head taken off by a shot.
Realising he is under fire, Thundersmite jumps down the stairs, hoping that he is going the right way.
Half way down the stairs, Thundersmite hears a buzz, and a loudspeaker in the wall bursts into life.
"Attention all red legionnaires! As well as Thundersmite, DC-13 has been spotted in the silent citadel! Orders are to neutralise on sight!"
Thundersmite gasps. DC-13, what is he doing here? Why?
He had chosen not to get involved in this war before, so why now?
Thundersmite is thinking hard. But then, he remembers something that was said to him.
"Minus five."
"Minus five…what does that mean?" thinks Thundersmite as he walks along…
And stops if hit by a ten ton truck.
Minus five…never being seen…Greek eighteenth letter…Beta-fives last words…the scar…it all makes sense!
"Oh my god…" Thundersmite whispers.
He begins to run, down the stairs. He had to get away, and plan, this changed everything, running down the stairs; he doesn't notice triggering a laser tripwire. A small turret descends from a hatch in the roof, and fires a powerful beam of electricity at Thundersmite.
It hits.
He wakes up in front of the smiling features of DC-14.
"Evening!" he says cheerfully.
Thundersmite attempts to reach up and twist DC-14's neck, but is stopped by another jolt of electricity, stunning him.
"I heard your little realisation on my computer. Good to see you worked it out with a little help from the late Beta-five."
"…it's…"
"Your friend Sigma, I know. It may come as a shock, but come to think of it, who else could it be?"
"…I…kill…"
DC-14 laughs.
"You keep forgetting about the orb. I could shut down the stun guns and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference."
Thundersmite says nothing.
"But of course! You could simply destroy the orb! Well…do try."
To Thundersmite's shock, DC-14 walks up to a drawer, opens it, and pulls out a red orb, which he hands to Thundersmite.
"Knock yourself out…"
Thundersmite smiles, and crushes the orb in his hands. Or at least he would, but he can't. Try as he might, until even he is sweating, he cannot even crack the orb, let alone destroy it. Trying another tactic, he concentrates his powers and sends a gigantic blast of electricity through it. It simply absorbs the bolt, leaving it little the worse for wear. Thundersmite tries again with a blast of ice, having the same result. Finally, he throws the orb to the floor, where it rolls over to DC-14, who is roaring with laughter.
"Want to know why you can't? It’s been around for billions of years! It's evolved a resistance to everything the universe can throw at it! Which is a hell of a lot."
He puts the orb back in the drawer.
"Pity it’s the last one. But I think one is enough."
"But…what…"
"This planet was once like your own. However, a virus mutated and became airborne. Killing millions of people in a few hours, in an attempt to survive, they put themselves in suspended animation far underground. It didn’t work however, and the virus killed them, before mutating into a harmless virus. I found the city millions of years ago, and implanted my consciousness into the bodies, turning them into red legionnaires."
Thundersmite listens. Fascinated and appalled at the same time.
"They were... my backup plan. Now I'm here, and all I have to do is divert energy into the sleeping legionnaires, and bring them back.
Imagine it Thundersmite…millions of red legionnaires… all ready for my conquest of your world."
"But…why?"
"Why? WHY? THEY TORE ME FROM MY SLEEP AND TURNED ME INTO A WEAPON!" DC-14 screams, losing his cool. "LOOK AT ME, I HAVE BEEN REDUCED TO A SCAVENGER! NOW YOUR WORLD WILL PAY THE PRICE FOR THEIR ACTIONS!"
DC-14 gasps. "Sorry, I don’t usually lose my temper like that."
"Indeed."
A window next to Thundersmite shatters, and Sigma/DC-13 jumps through, firing a burst from his pistol at DC-14, which hits him in the chest, knocking him to the floor.
"Come on!" he yells.
"You can't trust him Thundersmite!"
Thundersmite looks at both of them, and decides he would rather have 13 than 14. He follows sigma.
DC-14 groans and gets up, allowing a moment for his body to repair the damage caused by Sigma's shot.
He picks up the assault rifle that is propped next to his desk, and runs.
After 10 minutes, they stop.
"Why didn’t you tell me? What the hell are you?"
"We're on the same side."
"How do I know that? How do I know you won't kill me?"
DC-13's eyes narrow.
"If I wanted you dead, I would have done it by now."
"They why would you want DC-14 dead? You are his...well...brother for goodness sake!"
DC-13 pauses.
"I don’t know…I like to think that the orb knows DC-14 is insane and built me to stop him. Now. We can argue like idiots. Or, we can kill DC-14 and argue afterwards."
Thundersmite nods. "Off we go to our deaths then."
DC-13 gets to a staircase, similar to the one that Thundersmite had been captured on.
"We have to stop the red legion from being awakened. With millions of soldiers at his disposal, DC-14 will be unstoppable."
They run down, little knowing that DC-14 is following them.
Several Kilometres under the silent citadel
After a lot of walking, they are rewarded by the sight of a large room with a window in the side.
Thundersmite looks though the window, and gasps.
"Look!"
Far below, in a chamber going beyond the description of large, thousands of large white coffin like machines lay below, wires protruding from every single one.
"Wow…"
It was an incredible sight, the chamber stretching far off into every distance.
"There must be…millions…billions…"
Mesmerised from the sight, they don’t notice a room next to them, with a large machine.
Thundersmite notices it.
"Hey 13, take a look at this."
They walk up to it.
"It’s an energy resistor; it prevents too much energy from going somewhere at once."
"DC-14 said he was using energy to reawaken the legion. This must prevent it from forcing too much into them!"
"It does."
They whirl around; DC-14 is standing there, flanked by several dozen legionnaires.
"Try not to get too much blood on the floor."
The legionnaires open fire. DC-13 and Thundersmite throw themselves behind a marble desk, DC-13 draws a pistol and fires a few shots back, but they are mostly inaccurate.
DC-14 smiles.
"I could wait here all day."
Thundersmite whispers something into DC-13's ear.
"Then let's not bother!" Thundersmite yells, and jumps out from behind the desk into the midst of the legionnaires, they draw blades, and attack.
Thundersmite ducks the first strike, grabbing the blade from the hand of the first red legionnaire that attempted to atrike, and cutting him down with it. He drives the blade into the gut of a second red legionnaire and lets him fall. DC-14 fires a shot, hitting Thundersmite in the shoulder, instantly he falls to the ground, and the red legionnaires stand back.
"You aren’t very clever are you?"
"Actually…if you ask 13 over there…I am."
Several pairs of eyes turn towards DC-13, who is standing next to the resistor.
"Let's give your legion what they need!"
He places his hand on the machine, and thousands of volts of electricity flow from his fingers into the machine, short circuiting it in an instant.
The result, there is no limit to the energy being fed to the millions of legionnaires below, Sparks begin to fly from the coffins, as their occupants feed on energy that they cannot harness, in a instant, millions upon millions of bodies are reduced to ash from the energy, unable to control the sheer amount of it in their bodies.
Finally, the wires stop sparking, and there is silence.
Sixty six-million, three hundred thousand, nine hundred and twenty two red legionnaires are dead.
DC-14 looks at them, a look of disappointment on his face.
"Oh well…time to do it the old fashioned way."
He speaks into his comm unit. "Teleport us up, I can't be bothered to walk." And they disappear.
"We did it…" Thundersmite breathes.
"Don’t get too relaxed, we may have stopped him reawakening the legion, but he obviously has a backup plan. We can't end this until he is dead."
"Let's go."
The silent citadel
Thundersmite and DC-13 run up the stairs, they know where DC-14's control room is, and they know that is where he will be.
They run up to a blue door. They both know this is it. Either he or they will be alive at the end of this.
Thundersmite breathes.
"No going back now."
They open the door.
DC-14 stands at the other side of the control room, the red orb in his hands.
"It's over! We don’t have to kill you!"
DC-14 looks at them.
"It's just started…"
He holds up the orb, and red bolts of energy begin to blast from it and into DC-14's body, he smiles, and closes his eyes. Soon, red lightning has completely swathed his form. He laughs, and fires a gigantic blast of energy through the roof, into the sky. Red clouds begin to roll in, and laughter sounds from the…thing, that was DC-14.
"BEHOLD THE TRUE POWER OF THE ORB!!! HAHAHAHAHA!"
Red lighting blast from the clouds, but instead of exploding on impact, it buries itself in the building, as if the cloud was a giant squid and the lightning was its tentacles. Several more bolts bury themselves in the roof, and they lift, tearing the roof clean off, pulling the roof into the cloud, like a gaping maw.
DC-14 is laughing madly.
"NOW ITS TIME FOR YOU TO MEET THE SAME FATE OF YOUR WORLD!"
The orb in his hand pulses, and a blast of energy fires out of his other hand at DC-13, he tries to dodge it, but is too slow. It smashes into him, knocking him against the wall.
"No!" cries Thundersmite, running up to his friend. This cant be the end, he thought that they would all die during a big battle, but he has been squashed like a fly. It wasn't fair…
DC-14 insane laughter is replaced by a sad look on his face.
"I regret it."
13 looks up at Thundersmite.
"He is the only one…and he has evolved a weakness to everything…"
He gasps, and crumbles into dust.
Thundersmite looks down at the dust that was once his ally and friend.
DC-14 looks at Thundersmite.
"Will you die a warrior's death? Or die cowering in the corner?"
Thundersmite's patience snaps. He screams a foul insult at DC-14 and dives towards him, intending to tear him apart. DC-14 fires another blast, but misses. He clatters into the insane experiment, knocking them both to the floor. Seeing him drop the orb, Thundersmite grabs it, and takes a few steps back.
DC-14 stands up, and laughs.
"You are welcome to try again."
Thundersmite thinks, but he can't, he cannot think of any way to destroy the orb.
"Come on…there has to be a way…he got the resistance from evolution…" then he stops, and hears DC-13's final words.
"He is the only one… and it has evolved a weakness to everything…"
"Of course… the one thing he would never need to adapt a weakness to…"
DC-14 looks amused.
"Well, I'm getting bored now…"
Thundersmite breathes, only one chance…if he messed this up, the world is finished…
"Time to die!"
DC-14 fires a second blast. Yelling his defiance, Thundersmite throws the orb. It hits the electrical blast, which explodes on impact.
The orb falls to the floor.
"What the…"
Thundersmite smiles. The smile of a man who knows he is right.
"You evolved a resistance to everything. Except the one thing you would never be attacked by…yourself."
The orb begins to glow, and then brightens until its red is white. Then it explodes. The force of the shockwave throwing both of the Smashers against the wall. The red lightning disappears from DC-14's form. The red cloud above dissipates as well.
DC-14 stands there, staring at Thundersmite. He then draws his pistol and fires, Thundersmite dives out of the way of the shot, but is unable to prevent DC-14 from running out of the door. Thundersmite turns to pursue him, but before doing so, he takes a small device from his pocket and presses the button.
In super city, an entire regiment of the super city marines are waiting for a single signal, the signal that DC-14 is defeated.
There is a beep, and the large machine in front of them begins to whirr. With a command from their officer, they take a step forward, and disappear in a flash of light.
Thundersmite runs down the stairs, keeping up with the experiment. It is difficult, DC-14 knows the citadel much better than Thundersmite does, but Thundersmite is slowly beginning to catch up. DC-14 runs onto a balcony, and whirls around. Thundersmite stops. And watches him.
"It's over. You can give up now and live."
DC-14 looks down, the super city marines are attacking the citadel, and the red legion's morale is shattered by the destruction of the orb, and not now most of them are trying to escape, making them easy prey for the marines.
"I called them in. the red legion is finished. You've lost."
DC-14 draws a thin blade, but does not attempt to attack.
"Then I will die with what you humans call honour"
Thundersmite looks down at the marines below, and realises what DC-14 is saying.
"Why? Your powers are gone."
"I still have my blade and firearm skills."
DC-14 looks down.
"You'll die."
"Thats the idea."
DC-14 takes a deep breath.
"Goodbye Thundersmite."
Thundersmite leaps forward, attempting to stop the experiment from jumping. But he is too slow, and watches DC-14 land in the courtyard below. DC-14 leaps at a nearby marine, running him clean through with his sword, a second marine attempts to block his strike with the butt of his rifle, but this proves to be futile, as the blade cuts clean through the gun and into the marine's neck. Another nearby marine aims his rifle, but DC-14 throws the blade like a spear, impaling him through the heart. He then draws his pistol, but the nearest marine has already taken aim and fired. The bullets crash into him with incredible force, blowing him against the wall and leaving a red smear. DC-14 looks up, witnessing the marine taking aim again.
"You win, Thundersmite."
The marine fires and DC-14 falls dead.
Thundersmite looks at the corpse of DC-14, a gesture of calmness on his face in death. He looks round. It's over…at last…
He remembers everyone who died to get here. Davies, the squad, the heroes and villains killed by Beta-Fives bomb, and DC-13…
The officer next to Thundersmite looks at him.
"Are you ready to go? Or do you need some time to yourself?"
Thundersmite shakes his head.
"No, I've had it with this hellhole. I'm getting as far as I can out of here. And I won't be coming back."
Thundersmite steps forward, and disappears.
It should have ended there. DC-14 was dead, the orb was all but destroyed, and the red legion was gone. And it should have been, but for simple chance. It was sheer bad luck that DC-14 did not die forever that day. When the marines attacked the citadel, they found several corpses of spec op patrolmen. They were glad, however, to find one alive, despite being badly wounded from a fall. Many shards of the orb were recovered, but scans indicated them to be little more than glass, with no godlike power that DC-14 had wielded. The shards were placed on a plane, with a patrolman guard.
Corporal Daniel Archer looked out of the window of the plane. He always marvelled at how a few bits of metal with electricity running through it, could fly like a bird. He looked around, towards the back of the plane. He didn’t know what was in the lead box at the back, and he was unsure if he wanted to.
He looked at his fellow guard. He didn’t know her name, as she had recently been added to his guard unit. He wondered what happened to the other guard, it was nearly time to rotate.
"hey." he said to the other guard, who appeared to be daydreaming, "do you know what happened to Corporal Taylor?"
The other guard shrugged. "He's been in the bathroom for ages, he must be airsick. Why don’t you go see if he's ok? I'll guard the box."
Archer nods, and walks down the plane. It is a pretty big plane, so it takes him a minute to get to the bathroom.
He knocks on the door.
"Taylor? You ok in there?"
There is no answer.
"Hello?"
Then, he feels something wet under his feet, he looks down, and sees a pool of blood seeping under the door.
"Taylor!"
Archer draws his pistol and fires a shot, blowing the lock clean off. He pulls the door open, and is greeted by the sight of Taylor's corpse, the unmistakable sight of a blade through his heart.
Archer turns around to yell to the other guard, but this is the last thing he ever does, as the other guard, standing a few metres away, opens fire with her assault rifle, blowing Archer into the wall, killing him instantly.
The guard smiles. She walks to the back of the plane, to the lead box. From her pocket, she draws a small key card, which she swipes on a scanner attached to the box.
The box clicks, and opens, revealing a large pile of red shards, varying in size. The guard picks one of the larger ones up, looking at her reflection. The guard begins to laugh, and in the shard, the reflection of Beta-Five laughs back.
"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!"
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