Heroes Rising Fiction: Dea Ex Machina Part 12

 

“This is too easy.” Marbled Maverick laughed as he and his fellow teammates zoomed around one of the ghoulish Legion creatures, tying it up with a thick power-line. It screeched and tried to blast powers out of its eyes, but a block of marble was currently covering its head.

Daisy clicked her comm. “Hey, BADGE, we've got another. Sending coordinates to come pick him up.”

Maverick, a man with snowy white skin and the power to create marble objects out of thin air, said, “You know, I thought Legion would be more of a threat.”

Daisy, a small woman with dainty clothes and flowers following her footsteps, closed the cover to her wrist comm. “I’d rather have a simple situation than a genuine threat. This world is still recovering from a lot.”

A purple streak of energy stopped right next to them, and there stood Violet Vanish, still holding the end of the power cable they had used. “Easy? My fat aunt Harriet. These fights are no small thing. We’ve been lucky.”

“Luck?” Maverick laughed. “We’ve taken down and sent off five of these things. None of us has been seriously harmed. Look, I just would like a real challenge now and then.”

“I want a cup of tea,” Daisy said and turned to leave.

Violet let out a small scream and said, “Look!”

They turned to see the creature’s body glowing and the marble on its face cracking. With a shattering explosion, the marble fractured, and the beams from its eyes cut across the ground. Maverick had to dodge out of the way to avoid being cut in two.

“Stop him!” Daisy called out.

“I’m trying. He’s pulling... too... hard.” Violet lost her grip on the end of the power cord.

The creature burst out of the many layers of thick power cables and flew up in the air. With a powerful scream, he sent a blast of energy out that burrowed a deep trough in the soil and found the slowest member of this team.

“DAISY!” Maverick screamed.

***

Gloomy clouds and a hard rain surrounded the old World Corps HQ. The ocean waves crashed against the side of the tilted structure. The building shifted around, but didn’t sink. A blue flash of light appeared, and with it came Strange Quark, Nova, and a team of armed BADGE agents and four heroes.

“Oh, woah, this is... unsteady.” Quark slid to the side as the waves hit the building again.

Nova and the team all knelt in a practiced method of maintaining their balance in unbalancing situations. “This will not work. Can you help?” He looked up at Quark.

“I can try. But don’t blame me if this building becomes a giant duck.”

“I will certainly blame you. Focus.” Nova had to hold the ground again as the whole building shifted.

Quark quickly slapped the ground and lifted his hands. A filmy blue energy connected his hands to the ground. That energy spread across the entire building, wrapping around it and then slowly tilting it back to an upright position. Then, they all shifted around as the building lifted out of the ocean waters and rose into the sky.

“The air’s gonna get a little thin.” Quark warned, “I’ll keep a bubble around this place, but don’t stick around too long.” Quark looked up as they sped toward the clouds above. Passing through the clouds and into the bright, sunny sky, Quark slowed their ascent and leveled them off. “Now that we’ve reached optimum altitude, you can unbuckle your safety belts and move about the cabin. Little depressing bags of peanuts will be served...”

“Enough. How long can you maintain this?”

“Long enough. Don’t dawdle.” Quark said, his hands still holding that blue energy up.

Nova said, “We will make this brief. Team, let’s move.”

The team ran into the building, Nova and the heroes at the lead. They walked through the ruined hallways and wet corridors until they saw the same lights at the end.

EB came rushing toward him. “NOVA, BUDDY!”

Nova intercepted EB before the bunny could attach himself. “Not now. Where is he?”

“He’s in there, but there’s something you should know.”

“Move!” Nova pulled out a gun and ran ahead.

“Wait!” EB rushed behind them.

Nova kicked open the door and ran into the computer-filled room. Justin stood near the seat in the middle. Running around the chair, Nova held his gun out and then his jaw fell.

“Gamer G?” he said.

The nemesis of the virtual reality world sat in a chair with a dozen cords and cables attached to his head and body. His skin was pasty, and his eyes were tired. With a weak shift of his gaze, he looked up at Nova.

“Yeah, it’s me. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you found me.”

Nova fumed for a moment. “Glad? I thought you had died and was happy the world might be a better place.”

“Come now, Nova, that is heartless even for you. I may be a villain, but I’m also a person.”

Nova scoffed, “You tried to help Drocha exterminate the human race.”

“And your heroes tried to exterminate me.”

Nova asked, “How did you survive that? How are you here at all?”

“I shouldn’t be. Every time you destroyed one of my copies in that virtual world, I felt it. I knew that if you killed all of me, I would not wake up in this world. I saw the last of my copies die. I was looking through his eyes at the sight of that vehicle that an old woman threw at my head. Everything went dark. I was sure it was game over. No more extra lives, no more respawn, nothing.”

Nova said, “Don’t play on my sympathy. You worked with Drocha, and he is one of the most calculated minds in this universe. This is all part of some scheme.”

“No!” Gamer G screamed in a rasping, pained voice. “Look, I know I did a horrible, horrible thing. And in that moment when I thought I was finally going to see what comes in the next life, I had time to consider a few things. Death. I mean, actual death. If Drocha killed me and everyone else, humanity is done. I wouldn’t become the epic Legion general I wanted to become, I would only be the end of all human life. And it made me realize how much of a douchebag I had become.”

“This is all interesting, but I still don’t buy it. What do you want?” Nova asked.

“Look, here’s the thing. The moment I realized Drocha had played me and he had used me to try to erase my own kind. I said to myself, if I could have one more life, respawn, then I would do everything I could to stop him. I can’t redeem myself; I know that. But I can make him pay. Then, I felt someone there, something there; I don’t know. But I felt myself being pulled out of that world, and I woke up here. I have another chance.”

Justin asked, “Is that why you led us to you?”

Gamer G. frowned at him. “Led you to me? What are you talking about?”

“The signal we followed.” Justin held up the scanner.

“I know nothing about any signal. Look, guys, I was just compiling all the information I have on Drocha in these computers, and I was gonna send it to BADGE. I hadn’t even figured out how to send a signal, but I was going to try. Now that you’re here, you can help me get you that info and maybe bring me to a place where I can be disconnected. I’m telling the truth, I want to make Drocha wish he’d never played me like that.”

Nova put his gun away. “I refuse to trust you yet. But I can’t turn away a potential ally with the information you might hold. You will forgive me if I don’t roll out the red carpet at BADGE for you.”

“Just get me out of this computer and take the data I have.”

“Justin, tell Gar to get a tech team down here now.”

EB hopped up. “I’ll do it. Be back in a jiffy.” He vanished in a flash of light.

Gamer G said, “Nova, you need to know one thing right now.”

“What?”

“Drocha has a ship coming, and it’s dangerous.”

Nova said, “We know.”

“No, you don’t know. That ship has a power core on it that is specially designed for this process. He crafted this plan of creating a Legion clone army a long time ago. It has loads of components. One of the most crucial is that ship. Once it gets here, all clones near it, and I mean any of them on the planet if it is in orbit, will become ten times stronger. It won’t be a fight; it will be utter slaughter.”