Kingdom of Heroes (17 page)

But as strong as she is physically, I’ve personally seen her fall apart mentally and emotionally in the years since the war, since she’s made herself a prisoner to that house and the corpse she’s chosen to devote her life to. Maybe I’m a little jaded on the subject. When it comes to her, I have certain personal feelings that tend to get in the way. You see, she’s been using me for the past few years as a shoulder to cry on, along with, of course, other certain creature comforts. Am I in love with her? Yeah, to a certain degree, I think I am. Is it wrong? Probably. But it felt right at the time, and that has to count for something. Of course, why am I trying to defend my actions to you, someone who has most likely murdered me and stolen my most precious piece of tech.

As I was saying, while she may not be as strong mentally as she once was, she is just as powerful physically as she ever was. Through our relationship, I’ve had several opportunities to examine her DNA over the years, and I have yet to find a weakness in the metal alloy she can change her skin into. I’ve burned, frozen, drilled, and done anything else you can think of to try and find a weak point, but a weakness just doesn’t exist. While this research has given me the opportunity to craft weapons to use against other members of our little group (see files on Fire Maiden and Ice Queen), it has done little to identify a method of stopping my sweet Hope.

Not that she is completely impervious. Obviously, in her non-powered state, she is just as weak as the average normal, vulnerable to a number of ways of being incapacitated, but like Fire Maiden and The Ice Queen (see files), the transformation from her powers occurs with but a single thought, and the change takes place at that same speed. Much too fast for this piece of armor to sneak anything past her.

Aside from the weaknesses of her non-powered state, her mind is also completely vulnerable to any type of psychic attack, which only does you any good if you have some type of psychic ability. If you don’t, there may always be some type of way of using Quincy’s powers against her. Just remember, that man, in the end, is her greatest weakness. While she has spent all of these years living for him, if given no other choice, she would just as easily die for him, and that may be a situation you can somehow use to your advantage.

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CLOSE DOCUMENT

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REPAIRS COMPLETE

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OPEN TELEPORTATION SYSTEM

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SET TELEPORTATION SYSTEM DESTINATION: QUINCY ESTATE

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ACTIVATE TELEPORTATION SYSTEM

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The Iron Knight armor teleported into the middle of nowhere, or just what seemed like the middle of nowhere. It was more like the middle of nowhere and a house. Sitting on a hillside in the country, without a neighbor in sight, the house was the four story home to Psychosis and Metal Girl and their hundred or so normal servants. The house had been built in a clearing, while the thousand acres around the area were dominated by the largest forest in the state.

The armor looked around and started to walk towards the house, until a twenty-eight year old woman with flaming red hair stepped into his path, barely a hundred feet from him.

“You were stupid to come here,” she said, her five-foot-six frame barely revealing the power hidden beneath.

Without a word, he raised the wrist gun on his right hand and fired several shots off in succession. Faster than the human eye could see, her white skin changed to metal, blocking each bullet from its intended target.

“What do you think I am?” She asked as the noonday sunlight reflected from her now metal body. “Stupid or just slow?”

“
A little of both, to be honest
,” the computerized voice answered. “
But I had to take the chance that I could shoot faster than you could change.
”

“Well, I must say it was a nice try.” She said as she ran at him, punching the armor in the chest plate and sending it hundreds of feet into the air.

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Journal Entry

[Found on page 41]

Note: The following is a transcript of a prewar radio show featuring Speed Demon as a guest. The recording itself was found archived in Barren’s personal computer. According to rumor, North’s appearance on this particular show caused a rift between him and Psychosis.

Host (identified only as Rick): And we are back. I promised you guys a big guest today, and I always keep my promises. Today, we have Seven member and, I guess, unofficial spokesperson, The Demon himself, Speed Demon. Welcome back, Demon, and thanks for coming in.

Speed Demon: Thanks for coming in what? Just kidding. Thanks for having me, Rick.

Host: Okay, before we get started, tell our listeners where you were thirty minutes ago.

Demon: Me? I was in Shore City.

Host: Shore City, California?

Demon: Yep.

Host: For both of you who don’t know these things, our show is taped in New York, so that means you covered the distance between the two coasts in half an hour?

Demon: Well, I could have done it in less, but I stopped off in Chicago for breakfast.

Host: In all seriousness, we know you’re the fastest person on the planet, but is there a chance you could be the fastest thing period?

Demon: I don’t know. I’ve heard your girlfriend is pretty fast, so there could be some competition there.

Host: (Laughter) Whoa, low blow, low blow.

Demon: I kid; I kid. Honestly, I don’t know. The Iron Knight keeps wanting me to measure my speed, but there isn’t a measuring tool that can keep up. The Knight did tell me that he put a teleportation device in his suit that, technically, can be a few steps ahead of me, but that’s teleporting, not running; I personally think that’s cheating. He’s not faster; he’s just able to disappear and reappear where I’m going to be sooner than I can get there.

Host: Hang on a second. You mean The Iron Knight has invented teleportation?

Demon: Well, yeah, he’s been working on it for a while.

Host: So you’re saying he can just push a button and teleport anywhere he wants to go.

Demon: Well, I mean, there’s a limit on the thing. He can’t teleport from here to China or something like that, but yeah, he can push a button, disappear, and reappear across town.

Host: That is huge. He invent anything else we should know about, like an escalator to the moon or something?

Demon: Well, he told me the other day that he just finished a repulsor ray.

Host: A repulsor ray? What does it do, repulse old girlfriends away?

Demon: Well, not quite. According to him, and this is all according to him cause I barely had any idea what in the hell he was talking about, it’s a beam that shoots out of his palm that looks like a laser, but it doesn’t burn or anything. Instead, it hits with a force, like being punched. So basically, it’s a laser that feels like being punched.

Host: That seems overly complicated. If he wants to hit someone, why doesn’t he just go over and hit them.

Demon: I really have no idea. Maybe it’s for when he wants to hit someone, but they’re really far away.

Host: Speaking of wanting to hit something, let’s talk about my favorite subject: Fire Maiden and Ice Queen.

Demon: They’re going to kill me for telling you this; but they came down to their old stomping grounds in Shore City the other day, and I saw them at the beach. Oh my God.

Host: Okay, I speak for a very large syndicated audience here when I say that I need details. You have to tell us what they were wearing.

Demon: Fire was wearing a basic two piece bathing suit, but she looks hot, pun intended, in anything she wears. But Ice, like I said, oh my God. She was wearing this tiny, barely there, two piece, you know, the kind of bottoms that tie on the sides.

Host: Oh yeah, I know. I’m imagining it right now.

Demon: Dude, seriously, don’t take that thing out in front of me. That’s not right.

Host: (Laughter) Okay, I’ll put it away.

Demon: I’m kidding; I’m kidding. He didn’t take his dick out; he was just rubbing it through his pants.

Host: (Laughter) I totally was. Okay…I have to be serious for a minute. You know their secret identities. You could totally hook me up with a phone number or two, and we would be best friends forever.

Demon: Dude, they would actually kill me if I did that. I’m not even joking. They would seriously murder me.

Host: Speaking of other hot members of The Seven---”

Demon: Me?

Host: Not quite, I was actually going to ask about Metal Girl. There are all of these rumors going around that she’s in some kind of a May-December romance with Psychosis.

Demon: Well, it’s more like February-December. Look, this isn’t really mine to talk about, but---

Host: You’re going to anyway, right?

Demon: Of course. Dude, she’s barely sixteen; he’s got to be pushing sixty, and they’ve been dating for like two years. It’s absolutely sickening.

Host: You’re just jealous, aren’t you?

Demon: Hell yeah, I am. She’s hot as all get out, long, flowing red hair, nice body, doesn’t talk too much, and I can’t officially or publicly say a word about her being sexy for another two or three years. But he gets to date her. Okay, I know he’s this all powerful psychic; he can rearrange your mind, make you believe you led a whole life you never lived a minute of, make you quack like a duck or believe you’re a dog or something. But it’s still totally unfair.

Host: (Laughing) And criminal.

Demon: Cops couldn’t arrest him. He would just make them think they took him in and had a trial, and he was found not guilty or something like that. Hell, he’s probably in the process of erasing all of our memories right now and making us forget we even had this conversation.

Host: (Laughing) What conversation?

Demon: Exactly.

Host: (Laughing) Okay, okay, we’ve got to pay the bills and go to some commercials, but when we come back, I’m going to ask the question that’s on everyone’s mind: Does Agent America wear red, white, and blue underwear?

Demon: He totally does. I’ve seen them.

Host: And I’m going to find out how you’ve seen them when we come back.

(End recording)

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The Detective rode the elevator to the top of the parking garage, where Ice’s little red sports car sat waiting for him. He still wasn’t exactly sure where he was going to drive it. Did he take her advice and make a run back to Canada, back to freedom, or did he drive upstate to where, probably by now, the psychic and his metallic girlfriend were being murdered? Or maybe he would just drive around the neighborhood and look for a donut place; after all, he had yet to eat, and he was still hungry.

The elevator was slow and decrepit, with graffiti covering the three walls and the inside of the door. Someone, according to what was written above the button panel, claimed The Agent took it up the ass every Saturday night. It made sense to him; after all, who was he to argue?

The Agent, the name brought back years of hate. Especially now, after The Detective had been stupid enough to believe helping would entail gaining his freedom. It was amazing the asinine ideas a pretty woman could convince him were real. He asked himself how much had been an act? How much of the past eighteen hours had been her, and how much was just her following orders? He knew the idea of trusting her was farfetched, but he had truly believed his inevitable run for freedom would have occurred after they had managed to stop the killer, not right in the middle of the chase. Nothing like a curveball, he thought to himself.

He took the gun from his coat, pulled out the clip, and pushed it back in. He still had bullets, not a lot, but he had enough for the moment. Maybe he was losing his touch, but he couldn’t see The Agent’s endgame in sending a kill crew after him. Here he was, The Detective, trying to find this killer before he worked his way up the food chain to The Agent, and here was The Agent, trying to take him back to prison at best and kill him at worst. He had his money on the latter, and he’d die before he would allow the former to happen.

The elevator stopped, and the door slowly slid open. He left his gun in his coat; no point in drawing any more attention to the strange looking man in the overcoat and fedora than he had to. He looked around and saw nothing but an outdoor parking lot half full of cars and no people other than him; Ice’s car sat all alone on the other end. The noon sun stood high in the sky, making it almost impossible to walk across the lot unnoticed. What he would have given for some darkness and a few shadows.

He stepped out of the elevator and began to make the long walk. Out of nowhere, four men teleported onto the other side of the lot, three in black paramilitary swat team outfits, one a short, slightly overweight, balding fellow with a laminated name tag, all appearing almost two hundred feet ahead of him. The Agent’s personal hit squad was using a teleporter to track him down. Goddamn, he really hated teleporters.