Chapter 31: Fallen Comet & An Oath Sworn In Blood
PRRRR!
PRRRR!
BOOM!
The sound of something falling fast out of the sky like a whistle was followed by that something crashing ungracefully into a building, the force great enough to crater both the building and the ground around it.
Moments passed by as a dust cloud arose into the sky. Time seemed to hold its breath as, deep beneath the ruined buildings of that crater, Lucas Blake—the second coming of Redline—breathed his last...
[Half An Hour Earlier]
The Redjet seemed to be a crimson streak across the mid-day sky, as it flew high over a ruined portion of the city. In the passenger seat, the Redline saw the gruesome scene below:
The city seemed to be on fire, buildings being ruined, people being captured only to die in tens at a time. Lizardmen alongside Kingpin goons created chaos and misery and death. And whoever didn't die were turned into lizardmen through needle injection.
All the while, a team of seven individuals was spotted heading towards B.L.A.K.E Industries.
'The Defenders are doing what they can against the Hand,' Lucas thought, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. 'With Elektra, Psylocke, Lady Bullseye and Lady Deathstrike against them, I really should back them up. Black Cat and the White Wolf being part of the team should keep Lady Bullseye and Lady Deathstrike busy, especially with the enhancement injections I created and gave to Felicia and Bucky.'
The enhancement injections that Lucas were talking about greatly enhanced physicalities—speed, strength, stamina, healing factor—and minorly enhanced mental acuity. All of this would be mostly temporary, except 30% of these enhancements are permanent.
It was a serum that he created from a sample of his own blood. It wouldn't give someone overpowered abilities, but it would greatly enhance a normal person to super-soldier levels and super soldiers to near superhuman levels.
'It wasn't the Hulk serum. In fact, its more permanent effects were likely closer to John Walker's serum or the Black Panther herb serum. But it should let them handle the Hand alongside the other Defenders,' Lucas thought. 'That said, Psylocke and Elektra will be a problem for them, but, with a city being converted like this—and the company also under attack—should I go for those two—or those 7?'
Whichever Lucas chose, he knew the city and people will be fine. Why? Because he had long prepared a gaseous solution—a cure to the lizard serum injected into nanites controlled by OMNIS incase they were ever out of his control.
'Looks like my paranoia has paid off,' Lucas thought.
"OMNIS, analyze the vials being injected into the civilians. Synthesize my antidote to those specs. And then launch the cure into the atmosphere via Satellite 7B," Lucas ordered.
[Command Acknowledge.]
[Analyzing...]
[Analyzing...]
A pulse of invisible ultraviolet light pulsed from the top of the BLAKE Industry's tallest tower, scanning the entirety of Manhattan in seconds.
[Analyzation Complete.]
[Re-Configuring Cure Sample...]
[Re-Configuration Complete.]
[Preparing Launch In T-Minus 5 Seconds!]
[4.]
[3.]
[2.]
[1.]
[Cure Launched! Wide Distribution of Cure Expected to Land In 2 Minutes!]
[Satellite Reference Image]
"OMNIS, take over autopilot. Cover me from a distance," Lucas ejected himself from his Redjet before even OMNIS could respond.
He launched forward at hypersonic speed, bypassing the sonic barrier instantly, throwing a punch directly at Rhino's head before anyone could react.
Instantly, the massive, armoured brute went flying through a series of buildings, likely breaking several bones and ribs in the process.
Swiftly, Redline psychically sent Kingpin to sleep and then, full force, sent a punch to Mister Negative's noggin, only holding back at the last second and only enough to not kill Martin Li.
The man was unconscious before he hit the ground.
SWISSSS!
Eight robotic arms reached for him but Redline was moving between them like he had a sixth sense to their trajectories.
He grabbed two more arms and rose up, dragging Otto by 4 arms. Then, spinning increasingly until he was but a blur, Lucas threw the octopus man several miles into the far buildings.
CRASHH!
The resulted crash counted Doc Oct subdued.
"Four down, three to g—," but Redline didn't get to finish that sentence, as a massive beam shot out at him from further away.
He reacted instantly, weaving and dodging, but they were relentless. Coming at him hundreds of highly powered cosmic beams at a time. Whatever was firing at him wanted him down—and it got it.
After dodging a series of beams, managed to get Lucas square in the chest, sending him crashing through 4 skyscrapers before making a final indent on a fifth's outer wall.
"Ugh," Lucas managed to look up, nose bloody, mouth dripping blood like a bloody waterfall, body battered and sore, despite his physiology absorbing most of that condensed energy. His bones were splintered and his rib cage was surely not where his ribs belonged… particularly in his lungs, if his senses were accurate. Blood dripped from the top of his forehead down his face—and through the haze of blood and fatigue, Redline noticed him. His eyes widened as he recognized who was in the pilot seat of the celestial ship. "It's you!"
"Yes! It is me," Apocalypse grinned in malice, picking Lucas from the wall by the throat, his ruined mask showing his bloodied, shocked face. "I intend to walk from this fight without a scratch—But you... You'll not have the ability to cling to life after this day."
A beam of light shot out from the Celestial ship, beaming in Mister Negative, The Octopus, Kingpin and the others inside it.
Then a beam of light fired through a hole in the forcefield surrounding B.L.A.K.E Industries, traveled through the Earth, entered the Restricted Sector, and hit Electro's containment, capturing the Elemental and beaming him to the ship too.
"Don't feel bad. You were never going to win this, young mutant," Apocalypse chuckled, his eyes glowing even as he proceeded to choke the life from Lucas' lungs. "I will leave your city, your world, for someone even greater than I have laid claim to it. That said, everything you've worked for, evetrything you've built — Or, everything's he's built — will come crashing down. You have my word there. You just happen to be the first in the game of Chess to fall. Make no mistake, he will be the last to join you there.
"You don't have enough hate in your heart... You aren't…HIM. And he's not here. And because of that, you cannot stop me. In your death, know that your weakness has killed everyone you love, including him."
And, with that, Apocalypse chucked Lucas through two more buildings, having his ship fire at the mutant body 300 more times at once, forcing Lucas to endure excruciating agony as he fell to the Earth like a fallen comet, crashing into a building that fell atop his dying body
The last thing he ever saw was Apocalypse's figure, cackling as he ascended Earth's atmosphere....
Death was not how Lucas expected her to be.
Sure, she was cloaked in black, pale-skinned and had enormous melons for a skeleton; she seemed to shift from a skeleton's face to that of Aubrey Plaza, which wasn't a turn off... At least, not with Lucas.
'And damn, those juggulous melons are basically basketballs,' Lucas thought privately.
"You are one strange avatar," Death seemed to narrow her eyes at Lucas, clearly not impressed by his thoughts. "You are at my doorstep, and are astrally between my realm and the Architect's, and you focus on worldly appearance?"
Death tilted her head.
"They're so big," Lucas muttered, taking in the forests around him. He saw rivers and ponds and a mountain just beyond that. "Where... am I, exactly? What is this place? And why did you claim me to be an avatar? Shouldn't I already be dead?"
"You are, technically, dead, but at the same time...."
Death snapped her fingers and the environment shifted; he saw himself bruised, bloodied, pale and cold beneath a mountain of rubble.
"You aren't meant to be... At least, not clearly. Your soul isn't mine to claim."
Lucas' eyes widened at that.
"So... I'm assuming..." Lucas looked at his body as he remembered Adam Blake's story—how he died before and brought himself back through cosmic psionic willpower—and help from the cosmic entity, the Wierd—but specifics. "I can just..." he reached out to his body, physically using his psionic abilities to repair damaged tissue and force his heart to beat at the same time.
Eventually, he felt himself being pulled back into it as it stabilized.
The last he saw of Death was Aubrey's face and her words: "Don't die again. It is amusing watching your story."
And then Lucas opened his eyes, gasping in an unimaginable pain—And, alongside that pain? He felt an unimaginable fury.
In his fury, he completely atomized the fallen building atop him, destroying it on an atomic level, freeing himself of dead weight.
That day, the Redline died—And Lucas Blake's The Revenger arose from the ashes.
He made a promise to himself right then and there: The next time he saw Apocalypse, he'd kill him—Permanently!