Chapter 6: The Price of Fame
Besides pissed, I felt majorly betrayed. They left me at the rally and anything could have happened to me. The superheroes abandoned me. I was a thief and sort of a murderer and I wouldn’t have left them behind. I put it on the backburner of my mind because now I was faced with Agent Zack Landry. He was a curious man in his early thirties, with greying hair and pale blue eyes. His skin was tanned. He had almost caught me many times before. We’d played cat and mouse for years. He was smiling, so I guessed that he was going to try and nail me to the wall. I wouldn’t be surprised, not after the rally. My body felt as it had been put through a really large, really powerful strainer. He had me handcuffed to a wooden chair. Their first mistake. Little did he know that he was about to make his second.
“Peter Robertson, also known as Huma. After you disappeared off the map, I thought I’d lost you.” Landry smirked as he sat down on the table directly opposite me.
“Awww, did you miss me?” I sneered, struggling under the strain of the handcuffs, “A little tight, don’t you think?”
“Not for you.” Landry said, obviously fascinated, “I’d never have guessed. I mean, the fiancée of a billionaire is a dirty thief. The best dirty thief. Guess I should have expected as much, but the murdering…Something you never see coming.”
I exhaled angrily but then smiled, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I frowned.
“You’re going away for a long time.” He said with a smirk, “They’re going to throw you under the jail, where not even your superhero friends can find you.”
“Why does it feel like you’re taking pleasure in this?” I asked.
“Because I am.” He said leaning forward in his chair, “I’ve been on this planet for years, watching and waiting, seeking out the most capable. I didn’t overlook you. I waited for the precise moment.”
I searched his face for meaning. I’d narrowly caught the words that he said. He’d been on this planet for years…where had he been before that? And something inside me snapped. I found myself, wide-eyed and staring at him, trying to decide if I should kill him or not. Whether to believe him or not. If he was telling the truth and Dana was right…Everything was about to fall apart in the worst way.
His smirk was never more prominent, “I am the first of many. The end of all you know. You can never hope to understand what I represent.” His eyes shone with a purple light before returning to pale blue.
“What are you?” I asked.
“Hadassa. The oldest or the old.” He said, “The king of all my subjects, the Cersai. Bringing forth destruction and chaos to worlds born of it.”
I was speechless. I’d met him before and to reveal this now seemed like he was dropping a huge bombshell on me.
“I merely want the destruction your people have caused my planet.” Hadassa said quickly, “To know the pain of losing something that cannot be replaced.”
“And exactly, what is that?” I asked.
“Security. Take that away and we are the most powerful race again.” Hadassa said, looking me over, “It’s so strange that something so small and useless can be so durable and…brave.”
“I take it that’s not your natural form.” I said tentatively, “What did you lose?”
“My family. They landed here many years ago and your people slaughtered them without just cause.” Hadassa said with venom, “Your people slaughter without cause. This caused a battle for power amongst my people. Many lives were lost, friends and loved ones, and none of that can be given back.”
“Hey, I’m all for an eye for an eye, but these are different people. They haven’t done anything to you. You’re about a few decades too late if your people are who I’m thinking of.” I said quickly.
“The cruelty goes beyond…You murder each other’s young, attack each other in the street, take things that never belonged to you.” His eyes, which had been looking around, centered on me, “It is excruciating to watch.”
“But you did.”
“And I learned. And somehow, I adapted.”
“How’d Medusa come into this?” I asked.
He gave a light chuckle before explaining, “I went to them at their weakest. Or they came to me. It shouldn’t make sense. Your world is paradoxical and confusing. It shines and glistens but is quick to bring the misfortune back onto itself. Imagine humans waging war on themselves. There is no honor among you. Or there wasn’t.” He smiled.
“The Superheroes?” I asked, “The emergence…that was you?”
“One of my scientists long ago destroyed the power of humans, took them away through a bioweapon.” He said with a more serious face than I’d seen from him, “Your women and children would need protectors from themselves.”
“You gave us back our powers, knowing that you wanted revenge? Is that smart? And why don’t some of us have powers?” I asked.
“I am many things, but honorless is not one.” Hadassa said with a hint of annoyance, “Then there was you. A shining example of why humans needed heroes. To protect them from people like you. People who take and never give. It was you who took the life of an even more corrupt man. You brought down an evil bigger than yourself. Someone with so little morals or power brought down something that took generations to make. When you murdered him, your lover, you undermined everything I assumed about this world.”
I stared at him, “You’ve been here for years? Who’s leading your planet?” I asked.
He smiled, “You ask logical questions when you’re anything but logical. You dress up in a costume and fight heroes and citizens and on your new kick, you fight villains. Sooner or later, your logic will have to bring you back to what we both know is true: You can’t be both, so which are you?”
The question seemed to bring itself back into my mind. I was hesitant to move. His view on us, Earth, as a whole was binding to say the least. It was the negative aspects of us. It wasn’t the whole truth. I couldn’t help but feel that his words about me were. It was the same thing everyone was saying.
“What are you going to do with me?” I asked, “Jail? You going to force me to join your side?”
“What choice do you possibly have? Your team abandoned you.” He said with a voice like silk.
“I won’t let you come to my planet and take it.” I frowned, “I’m not joining you. I maybe be a thief and a murderer, but I don’t betray my race or my world.”
His eyes were glassy and looking me over, “Do you know what a Huma is? It’s a bird. A phoenix to be precise. A bird that never dies, but is reborn. “ he smirked, “I wonder, if I eat you, if you will be reborn within me and I shall never go hungry again. They say birds on this planet are truly delicious.”
I began to struggle with the cuffs more blatantly and stopped when I heard his hearty laughter.
“Don’t break my furniture, I do hate that.”
There was a short, timed explosion as I quickly broke the leg of the chair and spun it around, knocking Hadassa back, “Sorry.” I said while breaking the arm of the chair. The cuff was still attached to my wrist and it had cut into me deeply. I walked to the door and turned to see Hadassa with a small cut on his face. Beneath the cut was an orange layer of skin that was reptilian. Before I could move, he jumped into the ceiling, disappearing into the vents. I quickly turned and ran out the door and down the hall. When turning the corner, I bumped into someone who grabbed me, almost shaking me. It was Archer.
“All the superhumans and they send the regular human?” I chuckled.
“We’re not normal.” Archer said looking me over, “Are you okay?”
“Since you guys left me at the rally?” I asked, “Peachy. Where’s the evidence room.”
“Here.” He smirked, tossing me my holsters and weapons. I smiled to him and he chuckled, “We didn’t leave you…okay we did, but we were watching the whole time.”
“What?” I asked, “You used me as bait.”
“Got what we needed.” He frowned,
“We knew he wouldn’t kill you, not right away.”
As we turned a corner, we were confronted by bodies. Archer looked as if he’d already seen it, so I figured that it was his work. I didn’t even want to ask how, probably an arrow with sleeping gas or something. There was a loud his above us and I told him to move faster. We rounded another corner where blood and entrails littered the floor. Archer covered his mouth in disgust; this was obviously not one of his jobs. There was a beat as we lowered our guns, looking at the carnage before a rumbling caused us to turn our attention back to the scene and raise our guns once again. I looked at him, signaling him that we should walk forward. We barely took two steps when something giant and orange fell from the ceiling. A giant, scaly orange creature stood before. Landry. Hadassa. The creature had glowing purple eyes attached to a long, vine-like neck and slender body. It’s arms gave way for its large claws, both on its feet and on its hands. I chanced a look to Archer, who stood watching the creature in awe. He looked to me, expecting me to share the same fascination. I just shrugged.
A loud growl came from Hadassa, Cersai King, as he warned, “You will not escape me.”
I chuckled, “Keep thinking that cupcake.” I smirked.
“What is that?” Archer asked, his bow already aimed.
“Meet Detective Landry. Or you could call him, Hadassa, King of the Cersai.” I said quickly.
“They look like that?” Archer asked.
I nodded, “They do.”
“You could never understand our grace and elegance. To see past your own visions of beauty and splendor!”
“I think he’s angry you called him ugly.” I scoffed.
Hadassa growled, lunging forward. The good news was that he was angry and no good decisions about fighting come from anger. The bad thing was that he was mad and lunging for me. With the first thing being said, you don’t always have to do the smart thing to win a fight. Archer began firing multiple arrows of different consequence. Some of them were normal, but others had grenades and other means to stop a large creature. He roared, pain obviously hitting him but not stopping him. I quickly began firing off rounds before ducking his initial attack. I rolled out of the way and smacked against the wall, barely moving in time to avoid his large hand. Archer pulled a rather large arrow out and shot it with such speed that it whizzed through the air and stuck into the creature’s side! Hadassa roared in pain as Archer grabbed me and pulled me towards the door. There was a quick fluctuation before I quickly dove out of the way of the acid he spit. Archer’s exposed arms weren’t so lucky. The acid clipped him, causing him to stop and groan in pain. Our temporary stop gave Hadassa enough time to catch up with us and he grabbed me, throwing me through a glass window pane. I groaned as I rolled around the broken glass, trying to find the strength to stand. I heard tussling outside the room, apparently an office, and found the strength to roll into an upward position. I pushed myself off the ground and walked to the door, slowly opening it and walking into the hall. It was now that I was worried. I pulled my gun up to me, ready to fire whenever I needed to. There were footsteps and I turned in time to see Archer running forward with Hadassa close behind him. Before he even got to me, I began running to the exit. As I exited the police station with Archer, I was made aware the world, in those few hours, had changed. People were looting and rioting on the streets. It was a riot scene. It looked like the end of the world. I turned to Archer, who nodded for me to follow him. His gaze past me and went to the police station and I turned to look with him. The whole front of the police station was rumbling before the whole wall flew off! Hadassa, in his alien form, stood at the opening of the police screeching into the air.
I looked to Archer, “What’s going on?” I asked.
“It’s time. We’ve run out of time.” Archer frowned, looking to the sky.
I looked up too. It was as if his screeching was tearing the sky apart and bursts of lights shoot through the sky like lightning! The chaotic people on the street stopped and looked up to the sky, in as much shock as we were. I gasped, trying to discern if my eyes were seeing things or if little dots were moving towards us. I looked to Archer, who strapped his bow to his back and grabbed my hand, leading down the street. It was cold in the city today, even in my leather suit. As we ran, I felt mist hit my face. I put my hand up to my face as we ran and it smudged black. I stopped running and looked back into the sky to see that buildings were on fire. The debris was falling everywhere and I felt like I flashed back to years ago. A young girl was standing across the street with her mother. Her mother was screaming in fear as fiery debris was coming down towards her. Archer saw this too, but I was the first to move. I was swift and cunning, moreso than I could have dreamed. As the time passed, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make. The adrenaline was pumping through me…I could feel myself moving in slow motion before I sped up and tackled the girl a second before the debris hit her! The girl yelped and I sighed, looking up. At first, there was nothing…there was something, but I figured it was the adrenaline. As it moved closer, I grabbed the girl and moved out of the way as a desk smashed into the ground and shattered, splintering everywhere. The girl’s mother ran to us and hugged her child tightly. She thanked me and ran away. I stood there, thinking about what I’d just done. As I stood, silent, an arrow whizzed by my head and slammed into something rough and hard, but wet. I looked back to see Hadassa was making his way to me and I quickly ran for Archer, who turned to run too. I could hear a roar behind me but didn’t turn to look as I ran. Quickly, Archer turned to me and grabbed me, spinning with me as a beam of energy clipped his shoulder! We ducked behind a car and I saw that he was wounded. I quickly applied pressure to it, causing it to smolder. I took my hand away quickly and looked at it. The wound was bluing already and he was panting hard.
I nodded to him, “When I do this, you’re going to get to the tower.” I said quickly pulling my guns from their holsters.
“What—“
“Trust me. I’ll be right behind you.” I said seriously.
He studied my face, trying to gauge my seriousness. I stood and aimed my gun over the car at Hadassa, who seemed to be stunned, and began firing. This got his attention. I quickly ran from behind the car and over to a building. I looked up to see that those dots were aliens, coming through some rip in the atmosphere. I smirked when I caught sight of Archer running down the street a few blocks, towards the tower. Hadassa roared again, charging for me. I pulled out my zip line gun and aimed it into the air, shooting. It caught on one of the vehicles that the aliens were riding and I was pulled into the air. I pushed the zip line and began zooming up until I popped over the edge of vehicle. There were two aliens on the vehicle that looked like Hadassa, only smaller. Man-sized. Just my speed. One of the aliens turned to me, speaking in his alien language. I shrugged. What didn’t villains get about heroes speaking English? He quickly pulled up a gun, a laser gun. Out of impulse, I pulled a shuriken from my belt and threw it at the alien’s head, causing the shuriken to stick into its forehead and it fell off the vehicle. The other slightly turned before yelling in the language and turning back to driving the vehicle. I smirked and pulled out my gun, thinking this would be too easy. I stopped at a roar behind me and turned to see Hadassa flying behind us, his mouth wide open. I groaned before turning back to the alien. I had neglected to watch exactly where we were going. When I saw the tower, my eyes bulged a little and I frowned. They were attacking the tower! I ran over to the alien and punched it in the back of the head, causing it to turn and roar at me, to which I put my gun in its mouth and pulled the trigger. The gun exploded as pieces of his head splattered everywhere. I quickly grabbed the controls, trying to figure them out. They were, of course, alien to me. Cersai to be exact. The vehicle was slowing down and Hadassa’s mouth was getting closer and closer to me and the vehicle. I quickly started punching buttons until I hit one that jettisoned me forward. I grabbed onto the pad used to steer the contraption and pressed my palm against it, not ful
ly knowing what would happen. Nothing. I pushed my hand to the right with frustration and the vehicle jerked right. I smiled to myself and pressed the button to speed up again and soon I was over the tower, where helicopters were battling off the aliens. I could see some of the team in action, some in the air, some on the roof. I looked behind me as I heard another roar and when I looked back there was a helicopter in front of me, ready to fire. I cursed loudly as I jumped off the vehicle and spread my wings, per say, gliding downward. I heard the explosion but didn’t look back up, there was no time because when I hit the roof, and I rolled and tumbled to a stop.