The row of multiple screens was transmitting the scenes of the intensive fight in real-time. Using the flying drones to capture the sight from different angles, created the feeling of a sci-fi movie of epic proportions – such action-packed the ongoing event was. However, being the senior agent, Sarah Bell didn’t enjoy this realistic performance. On the contrary, seeing how the unknown villain stomped the skull of Raptorman into a pulp, she inwardly trembled from anxiety. Still, her stoic expression as always, masking her true feelings. Not avoiding her look, she continued to observe the confrontation, trying to note as many details as possible.
“I finished the evacuation. May I intervene for the light’s sake? Others are dying for nothing! I know them, even trained some of them… Please, Sarah!”
Demonologist’s voice resounded through the speakers, making several agents turn their heads to their superior. Sitting in the same van and watching the unfolding bloody fight, they couldn’t understand why Sarah was so reluctant to send on the most powerful superheroes not only around, but in the whole world. Such thoughts were easy to read for her, being plain obvious. But despite her own opinion about the matter, her job as a senior agent in the Central Superhumans Agency was to eliminate the threat to ordinary humans, disregarding the casualties in superheroes.
“Until the charges are set, you are not going anywhere, Demonologist. This is an order,” keeping the same calm tone, she spoke, ignoring the emotional turmoil rising inside. It was especially hard when at this moment the White Lotus failed to dodge the strike. Having slightly increased strength and empowered agility, she mostly relied on her gravitational ability to avoid danger. And she did it, gracefully propelling herself through the air. However, one mishap against the formidable foe was enough to turn into a mutilated corpse that was thrown from the fifth floor of the already ruined office building. Splashing the blood on the impact, her forever frozen sapphire eyes were looking blankly directly into the camera as if questioning why there was no help.
“White Lotus is down. Only three left. Another group is on standby, ready to engage,” one of the agents spoke, repeating what everyone saw on the screen. However, his intent to warn Demonologist, who was still connected to the line, was too obvious to miss. Therefore, Sarah immediately reacted, preventing the potential outburst of the superhuman.
“Demonologist, after three missions in a row in the past week, you stopped the sex slave’s traffickers by wiping their main base, retrieved the stolen military equipment, and helped with the aftermath of the earthquake. Tell me, how many hours of sleep did you have? What max level of the demon can you guarantee to control now? Abaddon? Beelzebub? I assume not higher.” Stopping herself from biting her lips from the emotions, the senior agent made an enormous effort to sound as detached and calculative as possible.
“Well, Abaddon for sure, but maybe not Beelzebub…,” the superhero started uncertainly, but was interrupted.
“What will happen if we have two potential class five superhumans clashing with each other in the middle of the city? Or if you lose control and summon someone with a higher rank? How many lives will be lost before you are back in consciousness to put a leash on your inner demon? No, I can’t risk it… And I must remind everyone that our goal is to minimize the damage to the civilians and the city. Preventing a potential leakage of the inventions to villains is one of them. So, stand down and wait for the command.”
Tuning off the connection, Sarah inwardly sighed, feeling the pressure of the situation and the potential consequences of such direct refusal. For the superheroes and most of the other agents, the CSA job looked quite straightforward. Find the villain and put them in prison. If it’s impossible, then the senior agent might give a green light for an elimination. She personally had the same simple view of things in her first two years on the streets until she was recruited directly into CSA. Only after rising to the current position did she start to get a wider picture. Partly it was because of new responsibilities, but the most impact was due to getting the hidden threat that was hanging over all superheroes.
“Check the seismic sensors around the Facility. I don’t want any ability wielder to escape underground. Are all scientists evacuated? Yes? Good… And, Denny, if you once again try to push your own opinion through Demonologist in an attempt to influence my decision, I will send you into such a deep hole that you will regret your work choice. Are we clear? Oh, and don’t forget to put all evacuated personnel through the proper check-up – we don’t need someone with the ability to change the appearance.” Getting the node from the agent, Sarah returned to her thought process, while watching how TripleShot was changing the position of one of its bodies to keep the fire.
The master sniper not only could clone herself, creating two perfectly synchronized copies but also was equipped with the most advanced sniper weapons that were improved by the Sages with their inhuman intelligence and potential to create technological weaponry. Not only that, but each of the bullets cost a fortune. Highly powerful, it had a special material inside that caused a disruption of the superhuman abilities. Even one projectile was enough in most cases to lead to the demise of just another seemed to be an unstoppable villain. And in situations where one wasn’t enough, the accumulation of this poison would still end the business. However, this was the first time the final weapon wasn’t working at all. Moreover, up to this point, they spent way too many of those precious bullets, almost exhausting their stock for any emergencies.
“Tell TripleShot to disengage and hide. She better save the bullets... Did she find any other weak spots, apart from the heart?” Sarah asked, looking at the screen where another superhero was struggling to crawl from the constantly regenerating nude giant. Unfortunately, the swing of the sword made from what looked like living steel had its own objection on the matter. RoboVengeance was just a moment too late with her laser to stop the strike, cutting the body of the villain in two pieces, but the latter was already creating a thin glowing shield, defending against the focused energy with ease. His body healed in a few seconds, making a devastating attack a complete waste as it would need time to recharge it again.
“She said no – nothing,” Denny answered after repeating the question through his personal intercom, “Johny the Eye… what a stupid moniker… scanned the target with his X-ray vision – it seems only the heart differs from the whole body, glowing with energy to the brink like - a quote - “a new year tree ball”. The other parts are barely seen through as if the target is made from metal.”
“That’s the reason why we don’t need Demonologist. Only his high-ranked summons have enough strength to get to the heart, and the fight between two unkillable monsters would lead to massive destruction in the area. We want to avoid such an outcome… Send me the data on the nearest superheroes,” she pointed out, trying to put the thought they were doing the right thing in her subordinate’s minds. Denny only mumbled something before returning to the screen. The following confirmation about the readiness of the charges with no activity under the Facility led to a short nod, while Sarah was under deep consideration about her options on how to deal with the unexpected guest.
She knew that it was some kind of plot for “Gray Lion” to leak his interest in attacking the Facility. Especially if the real villain was lying inside the morgue hidden in the underground laboratory. Not knowing the identity of the potential attacker, she still tried to be prepared even for the worst outcome. It appeared the whole grand scheme was made by just a Gray Lion’s junior brother. Barely an adult, he was quickly stopped by Demonologist. That was the moment when everything went astray.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
Dr. Borston Green Junior, the messy scientist that met her group inside the Facility was the one to connect with her just a few minutes after the attack. Panicking, he used a lot of time and chaotic wording only to tell her a single fact – an unknown superhuman appeared through their experiment with the Door. Further tumultuous explanations made Sarah’s instincts warn her about the incoming danger. The whole interdimensional nonsense was easily broken by the fact that the unknown knew the language, making it impossible for him to come from another realm. His human-like figure was another thing to consider. Moreover, the dramatic change in appearance in comparison to an ordinary human was another indication that this potential supervillain was strong.
In most cases, the weaker empowered humans had the ability to transform by will, like Demonologist with his summons of the demons, or already dead Sunflower, not keeping the form all the time. However, all cases where the physical change was permanent was a confirmation that the power manifestation was too huge for the wielder to handle, mutating them into real monsters. Often, it led to the switch in mentality, creating more than eighty percent of the villains with their uncontrollable desires and the absence of any restraint. Thus, Sarah assumed that the fake Gray Lion was a distraction, while the real villain had teleported inside the Facility, made something, and immediately attempted to flee.
The first confrontation and how easily the giant man started to kill only confirmed her suspicion – something was going on, but she lacked the info, leaving with a single solution to the potential threat – to end it right here and right now before it would lead to something bigger. Thus, she tried to organize the ambush, dramatically underestimating the rank of the enemy, which caused the loss of dozens of lives. Escaping the carnage, she attempted to minimize the overall damage, which by rough estimates was going to be a real pain in the ass.
Her first focus was the Facility itself. Disregarding the opinions of other agents and their attempts to change her mind, she ordered to place the charges in prepared spots to collapse the whole structure. No matter how valuable the place was, it was not the single one, nor was it the most important. Having the scientists, it was easier to destroy everything before rebuilding the projects with potential from scratch than to put a possible weapon in the wrong hands. And if one villain found a way to get in, there would be more for sure. And what if more joined in an attempt to get something from the unprotected laboratories, while CSA was already dealing with one? She simply wasn’t allowed any risks, preferring to cross out unpredictable variables. The whole mess already started to look too huge. Another major goal was to stop the villain from leaving the place while trying to figure out his weakness to create a perfect counter. Therefore, the sacrifices were necessary.
Still, Sarah felt awful, watching how previously cheerful members of the local team were dying on the screens, being not ready to face such a powerful enemy. There weren't elites, prepared to face the most dangerous supers. Just a bunch of weirdos, who tried to make the world better, despite the pressure from society. The worst threat they had to deal with was an armed robbery, committed by a drunkard in a search for easy money to get wasted in the nearest bar. Rarely it was something more dangerous, like a crazy super, who wanted to take revenge on his abusers. Or an insane shooter with pseudo-religious beliefs in need to cleanse the world from a specific group of people. And even in these situations, often all their task was to stall the time until CSA and elites would come. Nothing else.
“Where are the helos? We need those plasma missiles and fast,” Sarah asked, not turning her head from the screens.
“Two minute tops. Everything is set. The pilots are ready to shoot immediately… And the air force sent three bombers in case of failure. Do we need them, ma’am? It’s like using a machine gun against the fly.”
“Focus on the screen, Ben,” instead of the answer, Sarah ordered in a cold tone, inwardly feeling how the time was slipping through her fingers. Other agents didn’t realize the real threat from the army and the government. CSA, despite being the product of the higher-ups, wasn’t an independent service with full trust. No, it was constantly monitored. Each of the operations went through the evaluation in search of potential treason or hidden agenda. Even now the army was observing the events with attention, ready to act. In the end, CSA was a watcher, who was watched in return, no matter how stupid it looked from the outside. The reason was simple – the supers had lost their credibility long ago.
The appearance of the powers was eighty years history. But with such dramatic changes in abilities, some individuals thought that it could change the ruling party. To put newly empowered humans to lead others, the weaker ones. It didn’t end well. Not only were the supernatural abilities not passed down through the following generations, being the result of getting in contact with the concentrated spot of “omicron-particles”, but the humans once again showed why they were the dominant species. It was never about physical strength, but adaptiveness and creativity. Moreover, not all superhumans wanted to create a class system, where their own children would be treated like second-rate.
Therefore, the confrontation lasted for a decade, ending fifty years ago and leading to the new controlling system that was never dropped after so much time. The humans simply didn’t wish to believe blindly in the absence of ambitions of their “gifted” counterparts. The newly created CSA was granted the task of controlling the superhumans, making saving the lives of ordinary humans a priority. It was their task to handle any villain who went on a rampage, basically cleaning their own mess.
Depending on the scale of danger, the army would step in with its own action if it saw the need. Any grand failure would lead to a tactical nuclear strike by the military, with the blame put on the superhumans. The media would immediately write a horrible story of another mad empowered human, who decided to destroy the world. Society would demand the heads of responsible for it, and the following reassurances of such a situation not to repeat once again. Often it led to new strict laws against power wielders, like a need to confirm own location even when traveling on vacation, or the quarterly visit to a psychotherapist to monitor the state of mind. Limitation on jobs as no superhuman could serve in the army or take a higher position in the government, especially in the High Court. There was more, turning the whole system into a set guillotine, ready to drop in at any moment after a single mishap. And only fate knew what it would cut this time.
This was the main reason why Sarah had to close her eyes on the ongoing deaths of the heroes, focusing solely on the elimination of the threat. Her hope was that the missiles created by the group of Sages would be enough to turn the undying villain into ashes. Equipped with the special warhead that created a plasma sphere in a small area, they might evaporate the whole body of the giant, not giving him a chance to regenerate. The group on standby would end the task, already being formed to counter the murderous giant, considering available resources. Otherwise, the military would flatten the center of the city, not taking any risk to let the unkillable monster run wild and free. Humanity had been always cruel to itself and even more toward other species. Sarah knew it personally, especially after getting her powers.
“Be ready to start the second stage… Tell the supers to move to the starting point. After the blast, they need to quickly engage before the villain regains his state… If he regains it… And send Demonologist away – we will need him later…,” The last part was spoken quietly as Sarah had to calculate the potential aftermath of the failure. The world needed powerful heroes. No, the supers needed them, “Yes, and increase the mandatory evacuation zone up to two more blocks.”
“One minute for helos to get to the launch position. TripleShot is already guiding the aim through the lasers. The last hero from the first team is dead. The target stays on the spot,” Denny briefly commented, looking at the screen where the bloodied figure of the giant was silently observing its own hands, covered in red liquid. Motionless, he was standing in the ruins of the building, which was missing several floors and had a huge hole in one of the walls, exposing almost half of the tall structure. Still, despite the level of destruction, there was not a single wound on his body. His expressionless face showed nothing, while his green eyes were glued to his palms.
“Good. Blow up the Facility,” Sarah finally ordered, firming her resolve, “We will kill him no matter what!”