The Ascension: A Super Human Clash

by Michael Carroll

  Brawn screamed, rolled onto his side, doubled up in pain.

  Krodin was not even breathing hard as he turned away and began to stride toward Roz. “You’re going to die for this, Rosalyn. You, your brothers, your friends. And your friends’ families.” He stopped three yards in front of her. “The mark of intelligence is the ability to learn and understand. You fought me before, and I beat you. How could you be so stupid as to think you might win this time? I cannot be beaten.” His face took on a look of exasperation, and he spread his arms wide. “Seriously. What did you think was going to happen?”

  “We can’t let you do to the rest of the world what you’ve already done to America.”

  “Yes, you can. Because you don’t have a choice. You can slow me down, but I’m immortal. You can’t stop me.” He looked toward the horizon, and slowly turned on the spot until he was facing her again. “We are completely surrounded.” He tapped a small communicator that was looped over his ear. “And I’m told that our forces are engaged all over the country. My Raptors and Jetmen against their copters and jets, my ground troops against theirs. They outnumber my troops by about three to one. It’ll be a massacre. They will win.”

  “You knew this was going to happen?”

  “Knew? I planned it this way, Rosalyn. Unity invades America, they win, they take control, then, in time, I take control of them. Eventually I’ll have the whole world in my hands.” He tilted his head a little to the side as he stared at her. “But you won’t be around to see that. You are all going to die, and it will happen today.”

  “There’s nothing I can say that’s going to make you change your ways, is there?” She shrugged. “Nobody likes you, you know. After we fought you at Windfield, I read up on you. I know all about your past. No one ever liked you. Not your wife or your children or anyone you ever met.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, it is. You’re a jerk,” Roz said.

  Slowly, Brawn pushed himself into a sitting position. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, brushing away the flecks of vomit.

  Krodin laughed. “You say that as if your opinion of me is relevant. Well, perhaps I’ll let you live. I’ve read that often kings would keep a jester in their court, a fool who was brave enough to tell the truth when all the noblemen were too scared to contradict the king. Or perhaps your friend Abby would be a better choice. She is stronger than you are, after all. Or maybe I’ll let the two of you fight it out. The winner gets to live. But as for your newest companion…” Krodin looked past Roz.

  She didn’t need to turn around: She could hear the flapping of approaching metal wings, and moments later Daedalus landed close to her.

  “He will most certainly die,” Krodin said. “Like your other friend has just died.”

  Roz froze. “What?”

  Krodin gestured behind him. “The flying woman. Slaughter’s counterpart in this reality. She too was strong, but not strong enough.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Daedalus said. “Her heart stopped a few moments ago. My armor’s sensors can detect—”

  Roz glared at him. “When we’re done with Krodin, you’re next. So shut up, Brandon! Or whatever your name really is.”

  Daedalus’s full-face helmet split down the middle and folded away. “No, I’m not Brandon Santamaría. I killed him ten months ago, took his place. That wasn’t easy. He didn’t look like me and was two inches taller. Took a lot of surgeries to get it right. Do you have any idea how painful it is to have the bones in your legs constantly broken, stretched, and reset?”

  Krodin said, “And since then you’ve been a constant irritation to me. You’ve killed hundreds of my men, caused close to a trillion dollars’ worth of damage. And you killed Casey, the only human I’ve ever met who fully understood our abilities. But everything you’ve done is pointless. I will live forever. You have another seventy years, at best.”

  Daedalus nodded. “Casey was the one who figured out how to turn Solomon Cord into a superhuman genius. Without his skills you wouldn’t be where you are, Krodin. You wouldn’t have your teleporter, your Raptors, your little power-stripping toy. And without him I wouldn’t have this battle suit. It’s completely self-repairing, self-sustaining.”

  For the first time, Krodin looked hurt. “Casey built that? He betrayed me?”

  Daedalus extended his hand palm-down, tilted it from side to side in a “so-so” gesture. “Not exactly, boss. I am Casey.” He smiled. “I might not be immortal, but I’m way smarter than you are. You could never find me because I programmed your systems to ignore me. Your plan to take control by uniting the world against you? That was my suggestion, remember? But you’re just too dumb to see what’s really happening. You’re not going to take control of Unity. I mean, why would I bark when I have a perfectly good dog to bark for me?”

  Brawn slowly walked over to Roz. “Oh, he is so gonna wish he hadn’t said that.”

  Daedalus continued, “But smart as I am, I wasn’t able to foresee that these people would be pulled over here from their own time line.” He shrugged. “Still not sure exactly why that happened, but I’ll figure it out soon enough. You can’t beat me, Krodin. I know all the secrets of the superhuman abilities, much more than I ever told you. There are forces at work here you simply cannot understand. There is a…I suppose you could call it a chasm, from which—”

  “Enough!” Krodin roared. From his belt he removed a small communicator, raised it to his mouth. “This is Krodin. Priority zero.”

  Inside the base’s dormitory, Amandine Paquette was looking down at Abigail de Luyando’s unmoving body when the communicator attached to her uniform’s collar beeped twice. “Reading you, Chancellor. Go ahead.”

  “I don’t care what else is going on in the rest of the country, Paquette: I want every single missile in our arsenal aimed at my position. Blanket the area. Everything within a five-mile radius. You understand me? Everything. Wipe it out.”

  “But your work…The teleporter…”

  “Let it burn. That’s an order.”

  “Acknowledged. Paquette out.”

  Solomon Cord straightened up, glared at her. “You didn’t have to kill her.”

  “Of course I did.” She activated the communicator again. “This is Acting Vice-Chancellor Paquette to the fleet. Colonel Stewart?”

  “Here.”

  “You heard the Chancellor’s order?”

  “We did. Prepping the weapons now. What about our people at your location?”

  “Forget them. But send a squad to pick me up.”

  “So you’re just going to abandon your own people?” Cord asked, gesturing to the wounded men lying on the floor.

  “Acceptable losses. It would cost more to patch them up than they’re worth. Any survivors will be Unity’s problem.”

  “You coldhearted…” Cord turned away to face the large hole in the wall. “Then go. Leave me here. At least do me that honor. Let me die with my friends.”

  “And give you a chance to escape? Please. I’m no amateur.”

  Then behind him he heard a sudden rush of movement, the distinctive sound of a small hard fist thumping against flesh, the clatter of Paquette’s gun hitting the floor.

  “But you’re enough of an amateur not to check whether Abby is bulletproof,” Cord said. He turned back to see Paquette lying facedown on the ground.

  Abby had her arms around the woman’s neck, her knee in the small of her back. “Call them off!” Abby said. “Call them off or I swear I’ll tear out your throat!”

  “You wouldn’t!” Paquette croaked. “You don’t have the guts to kill someone! But I do. Right now there’s a platoon of my men in Midway. We’ve got your family, Abby. So you let me go right now or they’re dead!”

  Abby stopped and looked at Cord.

  “All right,” Cord said. “We can talk about this. Abby…?”

  Abby relaxed her grip, and looked up at him. “OK, but…” She took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment.
“No. No way. They don’t get to win like this. Not by threatening innocent people.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” Paquette said. “You—”

  Abby grabbed the woman’s hair and slammed her head facefirst into the floor. “Shut up!” Still gripping Paquette’s hair, she pulled her arm back and slammed it down again.

  And again.

  Inside Remington’s office, Lance and Josh frowned over the computer.

  “That one,” Joshua Dalton said, tapping his finger against the screen. “That’s the one.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Oh yeah. Trust me, this is the sort of thing I know about.”

  “So how do we…? Ah, got it.” Lance turned to Remington, and grinned. “This is going to really, really make him mad, isn’t it?”

  Remington swallowed. “Yeah.” He paused for a moment. “Yeah, he’s not going to like this at all.” Another pause. “Do it.”

  “What’s it going to be, Roz, Brawn?” Daedalus asked. “Who are you siding with? Him or me? He’s about to try to wipe you all out. But I can promise you that if you side with me, I’ll destroy him forever.”

  “He’s immortal and indestructible,” Roz said. “What can you do?”

  “Oh, I’ve figured out a way. Trust me.”

  Brawn rumbled, “You’re kidding. Trust you?”

  Then Krodin said, “I have a better offer for you. Allow me to destroy Daedalus—without interfering—and I’ll let you and all of your friends live.”

  “Jeez, man, make up your mind,” Brawn muttered.

  “You can’t take me, old man!” Daedalus roared back at Krodin. His armor’s helmet folded back into place. “I’ve spent years studying your powers, and I built this armor to match everything you can do. Everything.” He thumped his fist against his chest. “You want to know how that’s possible? Because it is you! This isn’t metal. This is a bio-organic compound cloned from your own DNA, infused with the same energy you have. That’s why you can’t break it. It heals as quickly as you do. This armor is alive. So give it your best shot. And don’t be surprised to find that I’ve been holding back.”

  “Then shut up and fight me, braggart!”

  Daedalus launched himself at Krodin.

  What happened next was too fast for Roz to see, but the result was clear: Daedalus hung limp in the air in front of Krodin, with something red protruding from his back.

  Brawn slapped his hand over his mouth. “He didn’t…”

  It took Roz a moment to realize what that red thing was.

  It was Krodin’s fist.

  “Poor, pathetic Casey. He wasn’t the only one holding back.” The Fifth King shook his arm to the side, knocking Daedalus’s body loose. It slid across the deck, leaving a thick red trail in its wake.

  Krodin looked at it for a moment, then glanced at Roz and Brawn. “Why aren’t you running?”

  “I need to find my brothers,” Roz said. “Say good-bye to them.”

  Krodin turned away. “I won’t stop you. But you should hurry. You have only a couple of minutes. The missiles are in the air.”

  Abby felt Solomon Cord’s hand on her shoulder.

  “That’s enough. She’s out cold.”

  Abby let go of Amandine Paquette’s head and sat up straight. She had lost count somewhere around ten, when the metal floor of the dormitory began to buckle.

  What have I done? I could have killed her!

  Cord pulled at her arm. “Come on, Abby. Her people will be here for her soon. We need to find the others, figure a way out of this place before the missiles hit.”

  They left Paquette’s unconscious and bleeding body behind, and made their way back through the dark corridors.

  “You OK?” Cord asked.

  “Ask me later, when I’ve stopped shaking.” She looked back. “The teleporter—we were going to the roof to find a way in.”

  “Forget it. It’ll be destroyed along with the rest of the base.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “I don’t know. Not much.”

  Abby jumped when a voice boomed out all around them. “Hello, hello? Testing, testing…”

  “That sounds like Lance,” Cord said.

  “Hello!” the voice called again. “This is Radio Lance. This next song is dedicated to all you surviving Praetorian lackeys. You’re all stupid, ugly morons, and you smell like week-old barf. Thank you, that is all.”

  Abby couldn’t help laughing. “That guy…”

  “Yeah, he’s something else,” Cord said.

  Lance’s voice came again. “Oh, and if any of my friends are still alive, we’re having a little get-together in Mr. Remington’s office. Me and Josh are already here. Nothing formal, just come as you are. And you might like to know that we have control of the teleporter and we have a really cool plan. Trust me, you’re not going to want to miss this.”

  Outside the base, Brawn stopped in mid-run, turned back to Roz. “Did you hear something?”

  “No. Keep going!”

  “I just…” He stopped and looked up. “Aw, bats on a bike! Now the Unity guys are joining the party!”

  Overhead, swarms of mismatched copters—troop carriers and gunships—were closing in, forming into what Roz was sure was an attack pattern.

  Brawn sighed. “A last-minute rescue would be really useful right about now.”

  Then a voice right beside them said, “Well, I’ll do what I can.”

  Brawn and Roz looked at each other.

  “Thunder? Is that you?” Roz asked.

  “The one and only. Keep watching the skies.”

  They looked.

  To the north a cluster of eight Unity copters bucked and swayed as though they’d been struck by a sudden and powerful crosswind.

  The same force struck the other squadrons approaching from the other directions: Slowly but steadily the aircraft were pushed back.

  Roz could hear their engines whining as they struggled against the invisible force, but it was irresistible: The circle of copters steadily expanded.

  “Would you look at that?” Thunder’s voice said. “Didn’t even scratch the paintwork. I’ve tried talking to them, but they’re not listening. But that should buy us some time.”

  “Nice work, Jim!” Brawn said.

  “It’s James, not Jim. Just get inside. I heard Lance say that he has control of the teleporter. He can program it to send us somewhere safe.”

  “Where are you?”

  “North side of the base. The way Abby and I came in earlier. There’s a heck of a lot of wounded Praetorians here.”

  Roz and Brawn rushed through the main doors—Brawn had to crawl on his hands and knees to fit through—and soon spotted Abby and Solomon Cord running toward them.

  “We’ve been following James’s voice,” Abby said. “Are you all right?”

  “Where’s Suzanne?” Cord asked. “Daedalus?”

  “They’re dead,” Brawn said. “Krodin killed them. All that time we fought, he must have been just toying with us.”

  James’s voice said, “He’s heading right for you. Lance? You got that teleporter operating yet?”

  They heard Lance’s voice next: “Uh…Hello? That you, Thunder? Where have you been?”

  “The teleporter, you idiot!” Brawn roared. “Get us out of here!”

  “Bit of a change of plans, guys,” Lance said. “Only…We kinda need Krodin to not be here. He needs to be…let’s see…about two miles directly to the south. There’s a nice big swampy area with none of the Unity guys in it. Can anyone think of a way to make that happen?”

  “I’ll do it,” James said. He drifted back out through the hole he’d blasted in the dormitory wall earlier, taking care not to bash his broken leg.

  The pain was still agonizing, and it was taking almost all of his strength to keep from passing out.

  “I have to do everything around here,” he muttered.

  Then he heard Lance say, “You do know you’re still broadcasti
ng, right?”

  To his right he could hear Krodin’s running footsteps, the steady beating of his powerful heart. He could also hear Krodin shouting orders into his communicator, demanding to know where his missiles were.

  James rose over the building, turned toward Krodin. He directed his voice so that it would appear right in front of the Fifth King. “I don’t know what Lance has planned, but I’m guessing you’re not going to like it much.”

  He lowered himself into a sitting position on the edge of the roof and took a moment to focus.

  Then he let loose with the most powerful shock wave he could generate.

  The blast threw Krodin a hundred feet into the air.

  Before he could fall back, James hit him again, knocking the Fifth King on a high arc that carried him out of sight, on a southern trajectory.

  James directed his voice back inside the building. “That’s never going to work on him again, you know.”

  Lance replied: “We’re never going to need it again. Keep watching. Josh? Hit it!”

  Something appeared in the sky to the south, something so large that for a moment James couldn’t fathom it: a roughly spherical rock, but bigger than any rock he’d ever seen before. If it’s two miles away…Good Lord, it’s got to be half a mile across!

  The rock crashed down and it felt like the whole world was trembling.

  The shock wave rippled out from the fallen rock, scattering the fleet of Unity copters, sending thousands of tons of dirt and water into the air.

  “Splat!” Lance said, laughing.

  James was still staring at it a minute later when he heard the voices of Roz, Abby, and Brawn at the base’s main entrance. He slipped down from the roof and drifted in their direction.

  He arrived just as a ten-year-old boy came running out through the entrance and skidded to a stop beside Roz. “Oh, that is the coolest thing ever!”

  The enormous rock protruded above the treetops, the dense cloud of dust and water slowly settling around it.

  Roz took the boy’s hand. “Josh, what…What is that?”

  But Josh was laughing too hard to speak.

  James dropped down next to him. “What did you do?”