Ironbolt had the news playing at five-times speed in the background, no more than a buzz of noise echoing through the station. As soon as their ship had landed back in Pensacola, the strike was already done, he heard. An algorithm automatically downloaded the stream for him, and now he was catching up on the circumstances. Trying to figure out which way they had gone.

Seraph had started evacuating the Southern Border, but they hadn't given the inhabitants of the Favela much time. Just enough to get away from the outermost blast radius. Those that were willing to listen to the men they saw as evil, anyway. Many subsequently hid and died.

Ironbolt was rushing around the station as the sound played, gathering up things. The others were just now loading off of the ship, though in his time, each of their steps down the ramp was long enough to fill a minute.

The news confirmed outright to him what he had suspected. In order to prevent a panic, Seraph was upfront with information about the blasts. It hadn't been nuclear weapons that they used, but something far deadlier.

They'd salted the land, both figuratively and literally.

He wasn't sure if Creep would survive such a strike. Personally, he suspected the beast would endure with how versatile Walter had proven in the past. Those traits could only have intensified, as he understood their Power. It was a rather linear progression.

Always, Ironbolt had days to think over things. Merely in their transit time alone, he had come to a hard conclusion. Even now, as he stopped for a second with what he was doing and stared off into space, it was like thinking about a plan made weeks ago.

There would be no going back, he acknowledged. The stakes were too high now to keep waiting around and watching. All the waiting he had endured had to come to an end. If there was any name to his true Power, it was patience... Yet, there was definitely a time and place for decisive action.

As he darted back and forth, he loaded up the craft while his teammates left it behind. He got six or seven heavy pieces of equipment inside before Maximal finally extended a hand to stop him.

"Hold on for a second," Ironbolt told him, forcing his words to slow enough that they were comprehensible. He needed just a few more minutes to fetch his personal belongings before the inevitable confrontation.

Maximal was complaining in the distance, his head barely keeping track of the speedster. More demands came out of his mouth, like always. More domineering and swinging flaccid authority across the room.

But Ironbolt took his time. Looking over the entire station and all of the equipment he would be leaving behind, there were only good feelings that came over him. Ever since he had been demoted from District Leader, it had been years in the dark. An eternity.

He had to take so much care in each of his steps. He had to wait weeks between doing the slightest amount of research or subterfuge, lest Seraph caught on. But no more.

The news concluded by saying that the strike was successful. From coast to coast, all the way from the Panama canal to the Southern border, everything had been decimated. "Experts agree," Ironbolt noted with some venom, "that the threat was neutralized." Deep down, he increasingly suspected the opposite. Nevertheless, propaganda served its purpose.

A King was dead and at little cost to the American hegemony. The monster might as well have been theirs, for all the world knew. Today would represent a blow to every Six Ring Terrorist in the world. Truly, a victory for all Democratic societies.

If only they knew who they were really working for.

Turning to Maximal, Ironbolt, at last, announced what he was doing. He might have smiled or expressed content, but in the long minutes it took to speak, his face always settled into a dull stare. "I'm leaving. Going AWOL. Whoever would like to join me is welcome to do so." He was quick and factual. It would be counter-productive to indulge in drama or flourish. There was work to be done.

The clock had already started ticking, at last. It had gone off the moment their ship landed. The same moment he had activated malware that had long been waiting in place.

All cameras and audio were down. Thus, Seraph could not hear as Maximal exclaimed. "That's treason!"

Before anyone could blink, Ironbolt was already on the other side of them, standing at the top of the ramp while they watched from the bottom. Up above, the landing hatch was still open, letting in a cold wind. Jammed for the escape protocol. "Things are moving faster than any of you can appreciate, now. Alejandro was a major piece on the board. Since he's gone, the Iron Tyrant will be weakened. Without a constant supply of Crystal, he is at his weakest point in almost sixty years. And there will be nothing stopping a full acceleration into the Great War."

Tulpa, always the fastest to speak and so the easiest to bear was incredulous as always. "You're overreacting, Ironbolt. This was a disgrace, yes, but they're not going to prosecute any of us, least of all you. It looks bad for the whole Heroes Corp. So there's no reason to be making up reasons to run away."

Ironbolt's window was closing by the minute. Even though he had prepared his hacks for the equivalent of decades, the only thing protecting him from Seraph's tech division was the time it took them to take notice of their system's subversion. Ironbolt simply looked to the plane's seats. "Fortitude, Dupe," he said, knowing who his audience was, "you need to be warned. There won't be any coming back if you choose to follow."

"This is so sudden," Fortitude told him, confusion still in her eyes. To her, they had just parked and stepped halfway out of the ship. Before that, it had been a short flight back from Seraph Headquarters. "Does this have something to do with your 'retirement?'"

"I didn't retire," Ironbolt explained. "I was retired. After I became District Leader, I created an aerospace division of technicists using my allotted resources. We set ourselves to a serious problem-" He rushed through the background information. They needed to be brought through rapidly up to speed.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Not this again," Maximal tried to interrupt.

Ironbolt was not having it, however. He merely talked louder. "We wanted to kill the Lich King!" Those words caused Tulpa to spike an eyebrow, while Maximal sighed. The other two Wards went wide-eyed. Only more so as he added, "we could have done it, too. That was what showed me the truth. Today, they Glassed everything south of the border. People have been asking for years, why not do the same to other Kings? And the answer was consistent. Each one had countermeasures in place. We all know this. But the Lich King's were weak."

"Thousands of dead Supers protecting his airspace... Some of them with precognition; some of them with pinpoint disintegration beams and instant reflexes. Hardly weak," Tulpa said, shaking his head.

Ironbolt countered. "We used drones to track their precognition time down to the millisecond. All of the models confirmed; the designs I created for a hypersonic warhead were completely unstoppable by the Lich King. I had the money in my budget to construct the craft, I only needed governmental support for the plan. We were just one signature away from ending the scourge of Eastern Europe. Saving the millions of lives that have ended since then..."

"There were classified reasons that the strike was predicted to fail, Ironbolt!" Maximal's frustration peaked, and he took a step up the ramp. "All of it was in the dossier they gave me when you arrived. You're an arrogant, obsessive personality, and you don't know your place! You compromised national security by leaking your idea, and now you're talking about vast conspiracies!"

"I knew from then on, the enemy had penetrated our organization," Ironbolt adamantly declared. "And I had to stop them... No matter the cost."

Everything fell quiet after that, uneasiness and tension thick in the air. The two leader's faces were blank as they stared each other down. Inside, only one of them was calm. The other found years of resentment welling up.

Ironbolt, placid as could be, had been planning this day for a very long time. He had done his digging and confirmed his every suspicion. The only reason he was still alive was by the force of sheer planning and thorough caution. "It's up to the wards whether they believe me." He knew their personalities inside and out. Every individual present and their every possible action had been accounted for via the brute force of time. Psychology, neurology, sociology, and those were just the relevant categories of PhD-level expertise in his belt. It all informed his careful tack.

"No. I've made this mistake once before, letting Creep go when he was a threat. None of you are leaving. Not to fight against this country, you're not." The determination was staunch on Maximal's face, and it was clear to everyone who he had on his side. Tulpa was a true believer in the system and a loyal dog. To them, the state and the nation's interests were synonymous.

Finally, it was Dupe who voiced his concerns. "None of this makes sense to me... Are you saying that Seraph is working with the Lich King? Who else are they working with?"

"Avenger's intel suggests it was an even split among the Kings. Alejandro was in it for himself, running Crystal to anyone who would pay. Including us, I might add. The Iron Tyrant is their strongest adversary, though, followed closely by King Solomon. All of it to keep the lesser Barons in check and to keep the war machine fed."

"Avenger?" Dupe asked. "You mean that Mercenary Eurotrash? Oh, hell, man. We are all in so much trouble..."

Turning to face him, Fortitude pushed Dupe's shoulder in rebuke. "Does that mean you're not coming, Conner? You're really going to pass up this mission?"

"This isn't a mission!" he protested. "This is desertion for some grand conspiracy! Do I believe that Ironbolt would lie to us? No, of course not. But frankly, I don't know what the fuck is going on anymore. One day some guy walks into our station and I feed him chips. Now one of the Six Kings is dead and a bunch of assholes have got tattoos that no longer make sense. Somehow we're responsible for it all and we've got to save the world? How does that make sense?!"

"I can explain on the way," Ironbolt reassured, worry finally breaking through to show on his face. This was all taking too long. They needed to make their choice. But there was still one last hurdle to cross. "Right now, you both have to decide whether you want to be involved. You're strong Supers. Not as strong as these two," he said, gesturing to Tulpa and his mentor, "but that's kept you humble. Now it's time. You have to choose what kind of Heroes you will be for the rest of your lives. Loyal to man or loyal to the good. Think long and hard about that. But think fast. Because we don't have long."

"That's enough!" Maximal stepped fully between Ironbolt and the young Wards, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You used to have my respect for your post and your achievements. You brought down the Vanguard Militia. You helped to kill the Queen Devourer; one of the only people to make in and out of the Amazon Basin alive. You were the man who stopped Azathoth! But it all comes to nothing because even you couldn't resist man's deadliest sin. Pride."

"I know what's right," Ironbolt said, standing up just a little taller. He took the accusation head-on. "And I will follow my conscience, no matter what that requires."

Slowly, the white-clad Hero brought up his other hand, taking ahold of Ironbolt by both arms. "Then you are... under arrest," he said, resigning himself to his duty, his stoic demeanor returned. 

"Stand back, you three," Ironbolt warned.

Tulpa was suddenly shrouded in shadow as his Power, which normally generated controlled ghosts, was concentrated to create a fully encompassing suit of armor. His strongest form.

"Don't make this harder than it has to be, Isaac," Maximal warned, using the man's real name. "I'm begging you."

But Isaac Faraday had made his choice in the milliseconds of his partner's first movements. He had set the cues and primed a response, all to lower their guard and establish naive confidence. All because he knew what he had to do.

His own hands moved at superspeed to fall into a grip around Maximal's forearms. His eyes were barely beginning to widen when the first pulse was sent out.

Many who worked with Ironbolt knew that he experienced the world at a faster pace. Those that were close knew that he could fuel ships with his Power and that he did not need to eat or sleep. But what they didn't know was how this was possible. Inside his body was a store of electrical energy greater than any nuclear plant. In keeping up with its output, he was made to think and move faster. He operated on a higher energetic level. But all of that could be traded for the singular marvel of explosive release.

Never once had he revealed to Maximal this trump card.

As the energy flowed violently from the unlimited well in his core to his bare hands and finally into Maximal's flesh, sparks exploded throughout the landing bay.

A second later, the thud of a heavy man hitting the ground went out. Unconscious, but not dead. Overwhelmed with a shock greater than any lightning bolt.

Making no more bones about it, Ironbolt simply told his Wards. "Come," and both did.

For just an instant, Tulpa's body lurched forward as if he was about to act; to be a Hero and uphold the law and stop a criminal. But the shadowy figure did not move another inch. It was frozen, facing a threat and a man that it had known to be on its own side. One that had just dropped a mentor without a second thought.

A coward, Ironbolt thought, turning his back. Lost without his symbol of authority, because his convictions are not his own. "I hope you'll come around one day," he said. "But today, you step back."

Obliging, Tulpa moved off the ramp so it could close. Maximal merely finished rolling, tossed to the concrete by its rise.

Once the hatch was properly locked up, their ship took off, fading into the clouds...