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Legacy
🕑 Added 2024-01-25 10:34:09 +0000 UTCI've needed to take a small break from Marked. It's been preying on me, a bit, the writing, the editing, the research of both source material and what I've already written, because my notes are haphazard and unorganized and a phone really just doesn't do the job when it comes to large scale organization of documents. I've spent about a week on Reddit reading and doing writing prompts, something to bring back my enjoyment of writing, and I've written something there that I actually think I want to explore, a little. So I'm posting the original here, and I will be posting a chapter here and a chapter there as the muse strikes me and the work is finished. I'm still working on Marked, but it's slowed a little more while I dabble with this. I'm hoping to have the next chapter of Marked out by February 1.
Enough babbling.
Legacy: Chapter 1. "Lucky Thirteen"
As I turn over the boss's steel mask in my hand, it feels heavier than I expected. From the outside, it always seemed like... well... armor plate. But the interior is lined with sensors, diodes, and braces. From the outside, armor. But the inside... like technology.
Fusion has had a career spanning decades. Driven away, thrown into retreat, comebacks. Each time stronger than before. Never captured, never killed. Until today.
My eyes drift to Fusion's cooling, stilled body. I try not to think too hard about the gaping wound in the left rib cage, torn through armor and costume, person rendered into mere flesh and bone. And I can't help but look anyway. Torn, bruised, no burns. Not Pulsar, then. His beams punch, but also leave burns, scorches. Charring.
Not Animus, either, too large a wound and his lance is sharper than any razor. And Animus is too slow to wound Fusion anyway.
Empyreon? Strong. Fast. Would a clean punch have done this? Perhaps. If he landed it just right.
'Fusion is legendary,' Fusion had said. 'And Legends do not die.'
I know what we have always fought for. When criminals become world leaders, they write laws to favor their crimes. When laws are written by criminals, being honest, being compassionate, these become the only crimes that are enforced. We fight to bring down the criminals that have weaseled their way into leadership.
Fusion is the glue that binds our resistance together. Untouchable. Invincible. Inevitable. The bane of tyrants, the ender of corruption. The last hope against the corpos.
I know what I have to do.
I lift the mask to my face, feel it secure itself, mold to my features. The interface powers up.
Interface reestablished.
ERROR! Unauthorized user. Scanning area.
Registered user located. Life signs null.
Registering new user. Amalgamation initiated.
My mind spins, and the room with it. Memories assault me, invade me. Knowledge. Powers. I feel my own powers, enhanced reflexes and perceptual accuity, suddenly accompanied by... more. Desiccation field. Flight. Enhanced strength. Technopathy. Super speed. Pyrokinesis. All the powers that Fusion is known for. All inherited. And now I understand why every base is staffed with one of us. One of the empowered.
Amalgamation 25%
I have to dispose of the body. Fusion made it back this far, but he was dying. A journey he's done... eleven times before. Sometimes to primary base, sometimes to a peripheral hideout, like now. And I know now what happened. Typhoon... And Empyreon. The driving rain and winds infused with mud, clouding vision, inhibiting mobility, just enough... just enough for Empyreon to land a single, clean blow. Hard enough, catastrophic enough, to overcome Fusion number 7's toughness and 4's regeneration.
Amalgamation 50%
Empyreon's laughter as Fusion 12 flailed weakly, impaled on the corporate 'hero's' arm.
"Finally got you, you wannabe Robin Hood."
Fusion 12 had issued a mental command to the mask, taking over vocoder access. The return voice was steady, with none of the pain or uncertainty 12 had felt... that Empyreon WANTED. "Inconvenient... but not insurmountable. Catch me if you can, lapdog."
A field of water and mud surrounding me, preventing any exercise of pyrokinesis strong enough to matter, but electrokinesis is another matter. Fusion 12's power, held in reserve since taking over from 11. Plenty of electrolytes in common sand and dust, more than enough to make the rain and mud in the air plenty conductive.
Amalgamation 75%
Lightning flashed in all directions. Empyreon's arm pulled free, taking something meaty and drippy with it, but that didn't matter now. Empyreon spasmed, Typhoon was slowly falling and the cloud of mud and rain was thinning. Fusion fled in the only viable direction, the only hideout near enough to make it before he bled out. But radar sense pinged, and Fusion could tell that Empyreon was recovering. Not as fast as Fusion, not fast enough to catch him... but fast enough to follow. Perhaps even track Fusion down.
Amalgamation 100%
Empyreon is coming. No, scratch that. The concrete floor of the based vibrates solidly as something, or someONE, smashes through buried kinetic dispersal slabs rated for tactical nukes. A thought, and my dessication field shrivels the body of 12 into dried husk. A kick, and it crumbles to dust. I begin fitting plates from 12's armor onto hardpoints of my uniform.
No time to come up with a technological solution... but even if Typhoon managed to keep up with Empyreon, my enhanced perceptions and reflexes mean that little combo trick of theirs won't work twice.
Fusion Mk. 13 online.
Footsteps echo down the hallway. One set, two feet. Around two corners, about thirty meters.
I wait until only one corner separates us, finishing attaching the armor plates. "Empyreon. Lovely little stunt you pulled there. Very clever, more innovative than I'm used to from corporate lapdogs. Actually needed a couple minutes to regrow my stomach. My actual stomach organ, you psychopath, not the colloquialism used referrentially to the human abdomen. You have any idea how much that stings? I'm going to have indigestion for at least forty eight hours."
"I'll just have to pull a little harder this time," Empyreon says as he rounds the corner. "You think if I pull you apart in two pieces like a wishbone, I can make a wish?"
My... No, 12's... blood streaked with mud covers his forearm to the elbow. A lucky blow. But I am 13... and Empyreon's luck has just run out. "You know, ordinarily I like to play nice. But I'm still a little put out with you for the straight out murder attempt, and I believe in practical forms of therapy. So I'm afraid you're all out of wishes, corpo."
Five minutes later, the bare bones staff in the hideout is evacuated. I leave the base, and Empyreon's corpse both burning. It's not a longboat, but at least 12 will have an honor guard.
And Fusion lives on.
Comments
MagusZanin
This is a facinating read, and I would love some kind of anti-corporate Robin Hood/Dread Pirate Roberts but with Super Powers. Should be a lot of fun!
