"Jesus christ, Eyeball. That was Director Thomes!"
Eyeball had a bit of difficulty hearing Gabriel's words over the rush of the wind; his communications were starting to be flooded with static... and the geiger counter was going crazy. Supposedly he should have more radiation resistance now. He was a fair bit tougher in most ways, ever since the whole deal with Fade. But every one of the Olympians other than Zeus had ended up infertile at some point, so clearly extra life force wouldn't just flat-out protect you. "President, Thomes, now. Secretary of Mutant Affairs was the highest-ranking government position left, apparently. All the adults in the Presidential Bunker are gone."
Gabriel missed a flap; dropping about thirty feet before he started flapping more vigorously, moving over the Dreadnaught; he hadn't seen the hatch he was supposed to be aiming at yet, but was considering just dropping Eyeball in the water and running; except that the Emperor of Iron might be upset. "You... you just assassinated the president!?"
"Certainly seems that way, doesn't it? Desperate times, desperate measures."
Gabriel went silent. As they rose over the top of the giant blue metal wedge, he could see the hatch in the rear; a tiny spot where the armor seemed to be thinner; but where a giant mass of hundreds of tentacles made of metal dangled down. Undoubtedly, the ship could simply pull those back; or even reshape the armor, to protect this seeming weakness.
"I'm glad you showed up. I was planning on hijacking a chopper for this part. Could have been a bit hectic. There are some powerful metas on the other ships. Thankfully, the really fast ones are mostly down south, hunting Jotun. And, well. As soon as we got close enough to the Emperor, he and his people could handle anyone that came after us out here. The chopper was riskier."
"Why!? Why did you do that?" They were drawing closer to the hatch now. "The world is in ruins! Do you think Randolph will be better for it than Thomes?"
"Look. The best result from this would have been Thomes taking over North America, Nicky South America, and everybody working for Randolph. Every other route is just different amounts of fucked. But... I couldn't talk Thomes into it. And without either that fleet, or this dreadnaught, to help move things around and handle the crisis that's still ongoing... I couldn't risk a full-scale battle." As Gabriel settled in on the ramp, a pair of camo-clad soldiers wearing 'Kingdom of Africa' badges saluting as the pair settled in, Eyeball considered telling Gabriel the truth.
As soon as the Dreadnaught had gotten close enough, he could see that even with the entire fleet firing at once, they still wouldn't take the thing out in one shot. And with his ability to move metal around... if they came too close, and genuinely worried the Emperor, he'd just dive, and take the whole fleet out from underwater. They had a chance. Just... not a good one. They'd need to fire, twice, at just the right spot, fast enough to take him by surprise.
The first soldier looked at Eyeball. "I've been instructed to take your weapons, and lead you two to the Emperor."
Eyeball smiled. "Both my weapons, and my companion, are extremely dangerous; he's actually radioactive. If you don't mind, I'd like to leave my guns here with him, and it would be best if you put a wall between him and yourself as soon as possible."
The soldier blinked, and backed away a step. "How radioactive?"
"If you spend five more minutes in the room with him, you won't need to worry about having kids. Half an hour, and honestly you won't need to worry about next week."
The first man to speak blinked. "Ahh... so long as you don't take them with you, that's fine. The Emperor just didn't want you taking them to the Throne." The soldiers both turned, and stepped through a hatch rapidly; Eyeball turned to Gabriel. "Just keep an eye out. I'll be coming this way soon enough. The swords might come in handy."
He nodded at the angelic figure and stepped through the hatch; leaving Gabriel standing on the ramp, thousands of feet in the air; two glowing green swords strapped to his waist, holding a pair of handguns that he knew were incredibly devastating weapons for their size... or just in general.
"Goddamnit, boss. Maybe Emma was right about you..."
***
Several miles away, inside the infirmary of the Enterprise, Thomes gasped; slapping a hand on his shoulder, which was in terrible agony... and on the back of his head, which was merely... sore. The two medics who had been standing over him both stepped away in shock; one had been rolling up his sleeve to check for a pulse, the other rolling over an IV; they fully expected the man to be dead already, but just in case...
He pulled to sit up on the bed, staring at the two men; then at his own blood-covered face. His arms and legs all felt horrific. As if some terrible worm had burrowed its way through his flesh. And his shoulder...
He reached back, and felt it. There was an obvious metal piece protruding from his flesh, and blood running down his back. One of the two medics stepped forward, pressing a mass of gauze against the wound. "Sir! I... We thought you were dead."
Thomes looked at his hand; and the small sliver of black metal between his fingers. He examined it for a moment, rolling it in his fingers. Suddenly, there was a loud beep.
For a moment, he was worried it was an explosive. He started to warp and twist space, to redirect energy into the wall... but then he heard it... a voice. The beginning was cut off, the sound actually redirected away by his twisting; but he ended it to listen closely.
~.. can hear this, I apologize. I just turned you into a Pale One, the controller made you play dead, and then I shot you with a paintball round in the back of the head. I've heard it described as insanely painful, but I promise, you'll recover. As soon as the Dreadnaught gets close enough, I'll be able to tell if the plan can work. If it can't, the only hope we have is to take him out from the inside. I've made sure one of the choppers is warmed up and ready, and will be hijacking it to go fly up and meet the Emperor. If I can arrange a private meeting, I'll kill him. If I can't, I've got enough explosives on me to melt that thing from the inside out... but not the outside in. Not a hundred percent that I'll survive the experience; the whole thing may end up at the bottom of the ocean before I can escape. I need to rush this so that I can hopefully meet him and take him out before he reaches the rest of the fleet. So, if this kills me; sorry for shooting you in the back.~
Thomes sighed, and dropped back on the bed.
"... Tell everyone I was dead on arrival on comms. Tell the captain the truth in person. And... get ready to remove this thing. Do we have any of the doctors onboard who've removed them in the past?"
As one medic left the room at a sprint, the other nodded. "Of course, sir. I've done it myself. Its a series of extremely invasive surgeries, painful, and has a high risk of infection, but one we've accomplished over ninety percent of the time without permanent damage, if we take the time to space them out. If we do them all at once, its risky. If we take days, or even better, weeks, we can get all of the control tendrils out and get you back on your feet."
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Thomes glared at the tiny piece of metal. The son of a bitch had shot him in the back, and he was going to end up having to thank him for it. Hopefully posthumously. If the man survived, he was going to pin a medal directly to his balls.
***
The Throne was... truly ridiculous. Eyeball had met the Lord of Iron before; back at Nicky's, and later on at La Famiglia. The man seemed favorably inclined to him in the past, mostly because he'd actually hurt Spike; something the Lord of Iron had never managed to do. Inconvenience, irritate, delay, and even sometimes escape from; but Eyeball might be the only villain to genuinely hurt Spike since... the Jotun's first invasion.
Back then, he'd been arrogant. Pretentious. Always wore a nice suit, and looked down at most people. He followed some sort of supervillain's code he'd either read online or made up himself; believed he was destined to rule the world, and was a nice enough guy to his minions.
Now... he was on a literal throne, with a pair of large silver cylinders emerging from the floor at its base, and a circle of scantily clad women in comfortable seats set below and in front of it; currently just talking, smiling. Was it a harem? None of them seemed unhappy. That was... unexpected. While the rest in the room work work uniforms of a sort; from the diamond-skinned man and his soldiers in camo, to the chef in his immaculate white clothing, and even Randolph himself wearing a neat, clean, unmarked dark grey outfit.
He glanced at the women, then at the Emperor of Iron, tilting his head; and the emperor laughed. "Come closer, lets chat for a bit. And no, they aren't what you think. These are all of the telepaths from Africa who were willing to work for me. Which... with me being the head of government, and the best paying option, is most of them."
Eyeball nodded, and took a deep breath. His helmet told him that Thomes still had the controller embedded. It wasn't too late to genuinely kill the man... but they'd burn that thing out any moment now. This moment was pivotal. Penelope's orders had been simple enough. Figure out who would be best able to keep the world from going straight to hell. And make sure that person won, and would view La Famiglia in a positive light.
She knew he could see the future. She was counting on his power and his judgement to steer things in the right direction. And looking back... he had made quite a few really, genuinely, terrible choices. Even when he followed his instincts, as Odin had suggested, he'd made terrible, irreversible mistakes.
"So. Emperor. I suppose I've got two questions for you. Are you amenable to the idea of Penelope as a queen of North America, and, well. Can you help contain all of this... well. The angry undead, the bio-weapons..."
The Emperor chuckled. "Possibly. Honestly, I always liked the attitude, and the look of Swiftblade, and will probably see if she is interested in the Empress position. If not, I'll probably need to find a suitable asian girl; a white Empress and Emperor would send the wrong message. Regardless, La Famiglia becoming the rulers of North America is perfectly amenable to me. Whether its you, or Nicky, or Penelope; I'll let your organization decide who swears fealty to the Empire, and we'll hash out what that means later."
Eyeball nodded. "Well. She likes dangerous men. She was actually obsessed with me for a bit after I killed Lightning. I think I can probably build you the tools you need to finally finish off Spike; if you make that proposal after being a Titanslayer yourself, she might just go for it.... though she might be interested regardless." Granted, she liked physically dangerous men. Big, strong, fast; people who could handle her. Had absolutely no interest in folks with mental powers, to his awareness. Not the best thing to say here.
"Still. Sorry for putting you on the spot like this, your highness, but this fleet is inconsequential in a fight. They might be useful as your servants, helping to keep the peace and move medicine and goods, so we should preserve them if possible... but if you have any ideas for containing this before it snowballs any further... the sooner the better."
The Emperor nodded slowly as Eyeball spoke... and when he finished speaking, he leaned back in his chair, relaxed. Eyeball noticed that his hands weren't inside the cylinders; he couldn't see any wires. Did he not need them anymore? Or could the ship fly without him?
"I've had people use 'Your Majesty', or 'Emperor of Iron', but you, Titanslayer? You can call me John. Almasi will need to move on to a more leadership-oriented role as the King of Africa, so I'll need a new right-hand man as we expand. And if you put Nicky or Penelope on the throne of the new, bigger, La Famiglia, you'd be an excellent candidate. So..."
He looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. "North America is a relatively easy solve. In Africa, I built a series of walls, carving up earth and stone to create impassible barricades, allowing the regions to control access to an entire area with a small number of guards. Almasi's loyal people will survive the coming plagues, and when they have run their course, the rest of the continent will be empty and ready for proper use. Can I get a map of North America, please."
He stepped away from his throne; to the massive display table at the center of the circle of women. A holographic projection of North America appeared. "Canada has come out of this mostly intact, as has the western coast of the United States. I suspect what would be best is to offer the individual states and major cities the chance to surrender... then isolate them. I can build walls in minutes that would take armies of people decades; whichever areas surrender first, will get protection. The rest, we'll let die off. I'm thinking we should look at a target population for earth of, say... three hundred million, for our starting point. After the outside is safe, we rebuild. Fresh. New. All as loyal Imperial subjects, under my immortal iron fist."
Eyeball blinked. "Three hundred million... what about China and India? China was amenable to surrender, and between the two far more than a billion survivors in asia. Their efforts at the wall... they managed to save most of the country."
The Emperor laughed. "Oh, Eyeball. Don't worry about them. I'll accept their surrender. But the plagues are already running wild there, some of the labs that produced them were in China. Those who swear loyalty to me, I will, of course, protect to the best of my ability. The rest..."
He reached out, laying his hand on the hologram. "So many years of failures. So much wasted effort buiding doomsday machines and stealing statues, robbing banks and collapsing skyscrapers, taking hostages... decades of failure, all leading to this moment. My ultimate victory. With you by my side, even the..."
The sound was a sharp crack. One moment, the Emperor of Iron, ruler of millions, devastatingly powerful metahuman, was joyous at his success. The next... his blood was splattered across the table, causing numerous tiny holes to appear in the displayed hologram; a hole cleanly through his head, back to front. He hadn't even seen it coming.
The women screamed. Some ducked behind chairs, or under the table. Others ran from the room, jostling the guards who were charging forward, and ignored them. One of them simply glared at Eyeball in anger, remaining in her seat; a young hispanic woman wearing something that seemed more appropriate at an anime convention than the bridge of a ... starship?
Almasi stared, and started to raise his weapon, as did the guards; but Eyeball raised his hand. "Wait. I can fight my way out of here if I need to. I earned my reputation honestly. But with him gone, I don't think anyone else needs to die today."
The diamond man frowned... and looked down at Randolph. "You..... Do you realize what you've done? What a difference that man made, in the war, in my homeland? And what is it you want me to do?"
Eyeball stared at Almasi. "Go home. Rule Africa. Help it recover. Let the rest of the world do its thing. This... Dreadnaught... might not be unkillable without the Emperor on the throne. But its still the most dangerous military power on earth. You've got a chance to shift the balance of the world. Upend the old order. Europe is gone. America is devastated."
"...It flies, without him. Those are Jotun thrusters and reactors keeping us aloft. But he steered it. Aimed its weapons, its tentacles."
"He wasn't a scientist. Your people had to help him with that, I'm sure. You can figure something out."
Almasi sighed. "I... had considered betraying him, before. The idea of a foreigner ruling my lands, even if I made the day to day decisions, didn't set well with me. But." He smiled. "You assassinating him? Well. That lets me paint myself as his loyal successor. Still. You've killed Titans. And I have no idea how you just killed the Emperor. So. Go. Quickly."
As Eyeball nodded; and started walking quickly back the way he'd come, Almasi walked up to the throne; at first resting his hand on it... then sitting down. He might not have the powers of Johnathan Randolph to work with... but the vessel's crew would obey him. And after he got this thing turned back to Africa... perhaps a different sort of Emperor would end up ruling the world. A Diamond Emperor?