Chapter 16: The denouement, part 1

The situation seems to have gotten a little out of hand.

This jerk is obviously Eve's "master. He orchestrated the whole thing: he let the children out, told them they were no longer needed, told them Eve was alive, thus provoking this terrorist attack; and now, waiting for the right moment, he himself has appeared to reap the results of his deceit. And the fact that he brought all these weapons with him, which he immediately used against me, shows that the bastard had been watching everything that was going on in the mall and had appreciated my strength and speed. Decided to take me out of the game right away.

And I could kill everybody here in a heartbeat, of course, but a bloodbath on the first day would not be good for my career. And the fact that they fired first is hardly an excuse. Besides, the situation had just gone from "a robbery or terrorist attack in a small supermarket" to "a "big mess involving big shots from the government." And judging by how brazenly the latter are acting, they are not afraid of publicity.

The military landed in the empty courtyard of the mall and immediately pointed guns at me and the doc hiding behind me with an unconscious Eve in his arms.

"Elias Brandiwort," the bald man said contentedly. "You old dickhead. I knew you were hiding something! The girl was alive the whole time."

"Erickson..."

"Ha-ha-ha!" confirmed my thoughts with this negro. "You've got some nerve, boy. I like you. You got talent and character. You don't need to be in conflict with the U.S. government, kid. You can do a lot more than that if you work for us. Money, influence, toys, whatever you want, it's all yours."

Well, then there's no other way out, we have to kill government agents. I can't think of a better superhero debut than taking down a couple of top brass from the Global Protection Agency. It's all part of the plan: "Sit tight until you're eighteen!"

"Get in the chopper," Erickson interrupted Elias. "I don't want any unnecessary attention here."

"Unnecessary attention?" Eve, who had suddenly woken up, spoke up. "You flew in a goddamn helicopter and landed a space landing force in the middle of town!"

"It was a figure of speech," Erikson brushed her off. "I don't give a shit about any attention. Get in the chopper now!"

"Hmm..." I got his attention, rolling up my sleeves defiantly. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Kid," he finally deigned to look right at me. "You're tough, I admit it. But that was just a welcoming shot. This baby can do a hundred times that! She's made for killing people like you."

He lovingly stroked the barrel of his gun, which had been staring at me the whole time.

"You're not taking Eve, or the doc, or anyone else. Get out, and you'll stay alive." Realizing that I'm wasting air, I answered.

There is no peaceful solution.

But what else can I do? Deus ex machina is in no hurry to save me from a hopeless situation... though...

"Please, Erickson," Elias stepped forward. "Let the girl go. She's human, she has rights and a life of her own!"

Wow, that's even stupider than what I said. Even to me, seeing this man for the first time, it's obvious that appealing to the human and moral here is useless. And Brandiwort did work with him, didn't he? Seen him in action. Yes, just look at what he did to Eve's sisters and brothers.

But he buys me some time and he's a distraction. Even gets between me and this Erickson guy so I can get my phone out of my pocket without being noticed...

"She's a weapon!" Erikson immediately confirmed my thoughts. "My weapon! And it took me years of my life to get her back after you betrayed me."

"All right!" Eve shouted suddenly. "I give up! I'm the one you want. Do what you want with me, just let Dr. Brandyworth and the others go."

"Let him go?" The bald man grimaced. "This is ridiculous. Child, the good doctor's treason is the reason the new season of this death show started! It all happened because of his retarded coming-out as a hero!"

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"Do you hate me for what I did?" Brandyworth immediately latched onto the overly emotional ending of the sentence. "Kill me if you want, I don't have long to live anyway, but don't take this child's life like you did with her mother."

"Ha ha, you think we killed her mother? I wish I could show you," he even wiped away an imaginary tear of regret with his finger. "Where do you think we got all the other kids?! Mail order?!"

"No..." Elias gasped. "It can't be... Sarah, all this time she..."

"Giving birth to freaks for us, yes!" Erickson grinned wickedly, enjoying the fact that he was able to get moral revenge on Brandiwort. "Unfortunately, a half-dead body made half-dead babies, too... and you didn't leave us anything."

"You're a monster!" The doctor stretched out in shock, as if a rod had been pulled out of him.

"But it doesn't matter, because now we have her, which means we don't need you or your beggar-girlfriend anymore!" The jerk continued to revel in other people's misery. "And you, why are you smiling?"

Suddenly he turned to me.

"I'm glad you're such a jerk, and that you've already talked yourself into a life sentence..."

"What?" Erickson squinted, looking menacingly at the new actor. "This is U.S. government business. Don't get involved if you don't want trouble, Red Rush, it's out of your hands."

Yeah, I really just called the Guardians. Who says that in a superhero solo movie, no matter how critical the situation becomes, you can't use other heroes? We're not in a comic book to adhere to the conventions of the genre. After all, I've already drafted myself into Eve's origins, why not call the Guardians as well?

But, all kidding aside, this guy shocked the hell out of me by showing up. He's standing there long enough to appreciate Eriksen's monologue! How the hell did my dad even manage to kill him in the past world?!

"I think it's time for you to refresh your memory. " Red Rush answered calmly. "We are the Guardians of the Globe, which means that the entire planet is under our jurisdiction."

"Yeah? But I don't see any Guards here," he held up the barrel of his cannon, pointing it at the lone figure on the roof. "Just one foreign freak minding his own business in another country's territory!"

And he fired...idiot. Just an idiot. I don't even know how to justify such stupidity... unless he has a tumor pressing on his brain. The only thing that had held me back up to this point was the fact that Eve and Doc were in the line of fire-suspecting that a girl devastated by the mass resurrection of her family was now unlikely even to be able to defend herself-and I didn't know how destructive Erickson's weapon was. Even what it was capable of firing, besides anti-tank shells, I didn't know. But everything was different now: Eve and Brandyworth were safe, and Red Rush was the fastest fucking man on the planet. I wouldn't bet a dime that he couldn't get out of the line of fire in time.

The energy beam of dazzling white vaporized the part of the ceiling where Oleg was standing, and stretched in a continuous line all the way to the sky, opening the way to the sun's rays through the clouds.

Okay, the gun is really powerful, I have to admit... I'm definitely not ready to take that on my chest just yet. I suspect it didn't fire at full power at once just because it was afraid of jeopardizing its precious investment. But this is her last shot!

Erickson hadn't yet realized his mistake - eyes burning with frantic delight, mouth twisted in a cruel grin - when I was already there. It's too easy, no matter how you arm the common man, no matter how you prepare him - even if you manage to create a weapon powerful enough to pierce a Viltrumite's skin - you just can't keep up with the Viltrumite in battle. The hot aftershot metal of the barrel, several barrels to be exact, crumpled under my fingers with crisp paper, that's all. Somewhere in the center of the gun, where a normal rifle would have had a breechblock, some kind of disturbance started up, the first sparks and a puff of smoke showed from under the outer panels.

A red flare flashed past, barely perceptible even to a Vitrumite's perception speed. Wherever the Red Rush ran, soldiers were disarmed, stunned, tied up, or otherwise incapacitated. And even the massive spacesuits did not save the brave American commandos from the too-fast Russian guy.

But Oleg and I were not the only ones who took action. Eve was still strong enough to put a protective wall between herself and the soldiers, and this wall withstood a couple of green lasers from the Space Marines' guns - and where, I wonder, were these advanced technology and elite fighters in super armor and with lasers when we were repulsing the Flaxian invasions? When civilians were dying under the tanks of invaders from another reality?

The younger members of the Brandyworth family - if Doc's wife, of course, had time to take his last name - didn't stand idly by and joined in the general merriment, either. Fortunately not on the side of their former master. From the corner of my eye, I noticed that they still preferred to modify themselves, and only occasionally did something like acid-gas exhalations or pumping energy into objects, not to mention the fact that none of them was as disturbing to me as Eve, who had removed the mental block.

However, the children's abilities were more than enough for Erickson's soldiers. In general, it was the atomic family that did the most damage to the fighters. Simply because they couldn't incapacitate them as cleanly, almost gently, as Oleg and I could. They had to be more fierce and brutal, though "had to" is not the most accurate word; they themselves reveled in the opportunity to finally fight back against their abusers.

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