Striking A Match

Could you please shut up and listen! It's hard enough to talk about this. I’m not one to...open up. I’m just going to get straight to it: you weren't the first to convince me to rebel Garrett. In fact, that happened long ago. Before I met you. The...what do you call it? The “seed” was planted way before. Just let me tell you where it all happened, when. Please, though, just shut up…

It was three years before I met you. When I was still with the Regime, not running from them. To think, I blindly followed them like a little duckling, but I have to face the truth: I was more like a slave. A slave they called Dragon Fly. I was one of their best assassins for their “righteous” cause. Wherever they pointed, whoever they pointed to, I didn't hesitate to take their life. After the regime’s hostile takeover of the world, a new world order was set. All the assassination and public executions caused some uproar for a few years, but we-they was able to quell it. With time, The Regime was the only world power. As history told us, however, there is always resistance…

Luckily I was cunning and...ruthless enough to get the job done. I can't deny that sometimes. No matter how outrageous or horrifying the orders I got...that I didn't have a feeling that what I was doing was wrong. It was always that fluttering feeling in my stomach, that I just casually brushed aside as fear. I was trained from birth not to have that. If not to have fear, then to at least not show it to the enemy. The enemy being my next assignment.

The objective required finesse and infiltration.  My target made me do that. He was known as Firebomb, a class 5-A pyrokinetic that gave the Regime some trouble. But when didn't the remaining superhumans didn't add to trouble? He was an extremist who led a cult of followers known as The Laborers of Thermite, either desperate or vengeful people who were willing to scald their skin in order to take vengeance against the Regime. I would have to be one of them. It wasn't difficult. Objectives never were. Targets never were-people were easy to kill. Sometimes it just took more steps to get to them or take the superhumans out, but I never failed at them. Most of the time, it required...violent means, but it got done. Maybe that’s why the regime stuck with me with that name. This target was not even close to skipping off my reputation. I would never fail the Regime.

Firebomb wasn’t easy to track though. The superhuman always kept underground, sending his followers or his “Acolytes” up to the surface to do his dirty work. What started off as small arsons at Caliber stations turned to small explosions all the way to bombings that took out square blocks. He didn't need to use explosives as his pyrokinetic abilities allowed him to give his Acolytes his powers, turning them into “gifted.” An unseen superhuman that used pawns, living underground in a supposedly self-sustaining base of operations. He was too careful not to be drawn out with manipulation, so I sought out another idea: undercover. 

I disassociated with the regime, forging a fake identity. Abigail Miagani, the news assistant to an infamous rebel arms manufacturer known as the Emperor, a supposed superhuman himself, which explained why he could never be caught by the Regime. Either that or the Regime wasn't as clean as they claimed to be. I allied myself with the filth for months, establishing contacts, selling some of the most powerful weapons to some of the Regime’s most powerful enemies. Tidal Wave, Electrode, IQuarius, even the goddamn Molten King. Old villain, whose time had long ended and ran scared after the Regime took over, now trying to find a way to fight back. If only they weren't so dumb, maybe I wouldn't have had to kill them.

It was mid-September when all the lies paid off, all the temporary body augmentation came to a halt and I finally had my chance to infiltrate the Laborers of Thermite. It was any other arms deal, only on the chilly, windy day behind an abandoned warehouse(because of course, they would meet there), that tingling in my stomach appeared again. Only this time, I couldn't brush it off. I was ordering thugs to lift some modified artillery that could have destroyed the living island SOHCAHTOA, when I felt it. It started as a rumbling in my head, small until it exploded and I thought for sure my cover was blown and that somehow I was still alive to feel my brains being blown out.  My vision went blurry and the recesses of any bodily function I had were on the verge of piling out of me. I was on my knees when I heard her voice…

Go now….go fast...hurry!

I looked through bloody teeth to see a cloaked woman's Morado-colored hair flowing with the wind, her eyes the same color, all scanning us one by one. I heard a man scream before the sound of crushed skull and wet chunks of flesh stung in my ears. The next one came after. Then the next one. It took me fifteen seconds to slow down my heartbeat and fight through the pain. That was the only way to fight through Mind Scatter’s powers. The hired superhuman walked over to me, ready to kill me too. If it weren't for the sudden intervention of my contact, one of the many masked Acolytes who grabbed her by the shoulder and stopped her, I would have added another superhuman off my list to kill. “Not her! She stays alive!”

Mind Scatter stared at him with hot purple energy. “Why not?” she gritted. “She’s the reason we’re here dummy! She tipped us off to the shipment and its location. She’s one of us!” the contact said. Mind Scatter could have splattered his skull too across the graveled ground if it weren't for the amount of money Firebomb promised her. She scanned me, up and down, and as expected, inside. I could feel her tendril of telepathy slide into my mind. Apart of me wanted to smile, because like all the other targets before, she was falling into my plan.

I didn't know for sure a telepath and I would collide, she was the second telepath I crossed as the Regime’s first task before setting the world “right” was to eliminate all telepaths using a psychic virus, but that only left level five and above telepaths angrier, especially at the fact that we tried to make their heads explode after reading just one thought. I’m glad I stuck with my first instinct to have a Cognizant Percolator in place. It allowed false memories and a series of invisible psychic networks to be placed in the mind to prevent any enemies from sucking information out of you. I was glad to be one of the first volunteers to try out the newest counter-weapon against the enemy. Enemy. How wrong I was.

She looked through “my” memories. Only what I wanted to give her. Her shoulder relaxed and she scoffed me off before leaving the rest of the Acolytes to steal up the remaining weapons from our shipment. After that debacle, I would have no choice but to seek desperate refuge from the Laborers of Thermite. The Emperor would be after me soon for my betrayal and he wasn't kind to traitors of the cause. At least, The Acolytes would think that. The Emperor was dead a long time ago. I should know: I killed him myself. A little holographic image inducer did the trick, especially when it's used for a Regime trained agent.

Step two was done. Now step three was for me to earn my place in the cult, and locate Firebomb, then end him. I’ll admit, of all my years of training amongst some of the world’s greatest assassins, soldiers, psychologists and even supervillains themselves(before they died), The laborers of Thermite were a different breed. They were the first cult I’d encounter and they were the most memorable. I don't know what was worse: the fact that the top-ranking Acolytes could choose and have as many concubines as they wanted, the constant masses lighting flames under their hands in allegiance to Firebomb, or the Acolyte recruitment ceremony. The smell of burning flesh...I see why Raizen is a vegetarian.

It's even worse when you have to be under the flame. No technology could help me take the wrath of fire cooking your skin. The first was just to get in the cult. To be ranked among the best, the Acolytes, you would have to get burned across half your body. 

It was…

Anyways.

Acolytes were granted access to the deeper levels of the underground “city’ they called it, but to be honest, rooms upon rooms of artillery, banisters of preachings, and rooms filled with the smell of barbecue mixed with sweaty sex was not something to call a city. To them, it was their paradise and means of resistance. Until I came. I stayed for three months, absorbing information after information, learning of their next attacks, their secret allies within Regime institutions, and even learned that there were more insurgents across the world than I realized. Yet even as I had enough to take down their operations, I still couldn't meet my target. Firebomb was nowhere to be seen. Until that day.

Enough bowing, enough of praying, and shrugging( and breaking the fingers of) fellow Acolytes, and he appeared. A ghost that sent my blood on fire. I remember that day...or night. I didn't see the surface for months so I had no idea the time of day. He was a tall, ghoulish-looking man, with dead white skin, emaciated to the point he might as well have been a skeleton. Not like the last photos the Recon unit of the Regime had of him. His tan skin and blonde hair were gone, now bald, and his blueish eyes were pale. Yet the fire in them...they never changed. He could decimate the entire base and would be able to walk out of it without a scratch.  Yet the only thing he cared about was choosing his next line of Acolytes.

It took about suppressing seventy percent of my skills and masking it as training and pure luck to survive his deathmatch, making me one of seven of the remaining standing. He congratulated each and every one of us, looking us each in the eyes. He must have seen something in mine. Most likely the same fire he had, the same urging, compulsion to destroy everything, only it wasn't for the Regime as he thought, but to him, to rip him apart tendon by tendon, muscle by skin, and leave his eyes for last. It took a year and a half, but I finally found him. I found Firebomb.

...I should have killed him then. I should have sliced him apart, then gone through the rest of his Acolytes and gifted and left the base in shambles, called for reinforcements, and let them clean up the rest. Yet that tingling in my stomach again. It led me further down into the city. Deeper into Firebom’s tomb. His eventual grave. I pushed it off as all the teachings and scriptures he made us read, that may be the reason why those red, orange, and yellow suited Acolytes of his were so crazy was because of that and the fire. For me it was different. I wanted to know more. I needed to.

I needed to know how he survived the first onslaught of the Regime’s cleansing. How he built his following. How he was able to give his powers to worthy Acolytes, making them “Gifted.” I wanted to know why he was truly fighting against the Regime. They were heroes. They ridded the world of the superhuman menace and laid a protective netting over the world from them. It was messy, yes, at first, not as messy now, but still, progress was happening. How dare he get in the way of an eventual utopia, a world free from mindless super villains and heroes.

I sometimes wish I didn't follow that wanting to know. Because it led me there. Lead me to that...tomb. He called it a laboratory. If you call a spacious lab containing dozens filled with luminous red liquid that sped up the process of birth, then yes it could have been a tomb. A tomb for the future. Because inside of those pods were embryos of the next superhumans.

I don't know what snapped me out of it. Was it one of the next-in-line Gifted’s hand on my shoulder or the hard thumping in my pelvis, the same thumping that sounded when a beacon was activated and my location was being tracked as we spoke. I don't remember activating it. Turns out I didn’t. They did.

That Acolytes hand was clean off him, and the rest of them followed. The Bio-Enhancements finally paid off. The clicking of false skin, unsheathing graphene laced blades and wrist magnums was the best feeling in the world. They never had a chance. I blasted through the followers like meat. Firebomb could flee but justice was coming. The Regime was coming. Justice...how fucking wrong I was.

Like I said before, Firebomb was a high-level Pyrokinetic, that meant fireballs, gouts of flame, heck even fire breathing. Carbon tri-weave under-armor helped against that. I remember sprinting towards him, a smile creeping on my face as I dodged gouts of flame, making the air itself get out of my way. I remember the pain. How the bright white flames danced to eat away at my skin again. I ignored it all. I only saw him. The crimson-cloaked pale madman who for once, the fire left his eyes, and instead, something else took its place: terror.

My blades were in him before he could blink. I made sure to kneecap him to prevent him from fleeing again. That thumping in my pelvis started again. It almost went with the rhythm to the beeping of the half-destroyed pods around us. The revelation would click later.

“You...you have no idea...do you little girl?” he coughed up blood.

I sighed. They always had last words. Superhumans still could speak, even after their lungs were punctured. “I was the only hope for this world. For this city,” He eyed the pods. I followed his gaze. A network of pipes led up to a generator far above in the cavern. The source of his self-sustaining energy. He tried to laugh but I sunk my blade deeper into him. “You think you are the hero-don't you?” he forced a smile. “How do you think I got these children? Where do you think they came from?”

What was he talking about?

I let my eyes wander over to the pods. The beeping. Bump...bump...bump...bump…

Their signal blocker didn't work when an outside source connected to the Regime was in the vicinity. The pods...They belonged to…

He laughed. Warm streams of red coughing out of the holes of his body. “You really think...hah! That I would let the next generation of you monsters be so powerful? Why not have the next super-killers on my side! Hahahahaha…”

He laughed. I sunk my blades deeper. But he still kept laughing. He cackled. His eyes started to glow white-hot. Smoke bellowed from them. That smell of charred flesh...and he still kept laughing… I blasted a dozen holes into him with my wrist magnums and he still was laughing. His skin started to glow red hot and I knew what was coming. Even when I blasted a hole in his head his body still glowed. I was sprinting off with bio-enhanced legs before his laughing left my rattled skull.

I barely made it to the surface. Luck. That’s what it was Garrett. Lucky that I survived. The Regime’s cleanup crew came shortly after. I told my superiors the “truth.” I found nothing but plans for an attack. I didn't tell them about the pods. Why would I? Should I? Tell them that their little superhuman babies were stolen by a crazy cultist? That their next generation of soldiers they were so keen to hide was there? That was why they really wanted him dead. He knew too much. I didn't want them to know I did too. I didn't want to let them know that I knew they had placed a tracker in me. I would cut it out a week later on another objective while fighting a bladesman from hell. That was the spark, Garrett. Like...striking a match with it…

I almost questioned everything after that. Every target, every plan to trap, expose their weakness, then kill them. I would always ask what did they do to piss the Regime off? 

Why you? Who are you? And am I on the right side?

I never showed it though. Never told them. Then you came.

A boy from another dimension. I was to track and kill you, prevent you from helping the resistance and obtain that device of yours...A.D.O.N.N.A. But you...you only finished what Firebomb started. You changed me...Sometimes I think I should thank you or hate you. Because the truth is, yes, I am free, and can finally seek redemption for my past mistakes but...they know.

I thought I could hide. That I was escaping from them. But somehow, The Regime found a means to find me, to travel across the Multiverse and find me? They found me Garrett. Do you understand me? And they’re coming…the Regime’s Scions are coming.