Radiation Kills

[Joe Schmoe]

“You ready?” He’s going to say yes. I don’t believe him though.

“Yeah. You?”

“Duh.” If I could see his eyes from here, I’d say he probably rolled them. I know it looks bad with a code name like Show-Off, it was my people who named me this. But I’m not being over self confident, I am ready. I always am. One of the smartest men who ever lived, why wouldn’t I be ready?

In full Wolf Spider gear, we patrol the Independence Port streets, blending in with the other hundreds of Arachnos soldiers doing the same. It now looks like the slums you used to only see in Rogue Islands; its all over the place now. The water has been drained out to have a makeshift ghettos to house the ever growing army.

Atom accidently bumps into me slightly, because his statue caught my eye once more, so I stopped walking.. Covered in filth and graffiti, it still catches my notice every time. I have done this every day for the past two weeks.

“I still don’t get it.” And I don’t. I stare because.. It baffles me.

“I know,” Atom Slash replies, looking up at the statue as well.

“Do you?” Please say no Peter.

“Duh.”

I have to give a condescending stare, while Atom smirks respectably back. “Then why?”

“Love? Compassion, all the traits you don’t have.” Rub it in you little ass.

“Traits? Flaws.” I scratch my chin. It wasn’t itchy, just honestly, I didn’t know what else to do when I said that.

“And that’s why you’ll never get it.” He urges me along. We can not make our act obvious now, not when we are so close, not when it took a year and five months to get this plan ready.

I must take one more glance at my counterpart, No-Show’s statue. Nobody realizes it except me, but it was eighteen years this day. My plan was to test No-Show and his friend’s limits by using their usual enemies as pawns. I employed this maniac terrorist Slaphappy, who I thought would obey me no matter what because he was so pathetic. But.. In a rare occurrence, I was wrong. Judas grabbed a smaller sized nuclear bomb with the power to destroy the entire city from my lab, rewiring it to his own madness, and making it impossible to defuse.

While his allies took out Slaphappy and I, No-Show attempted to defuse the bomb. He wasn’t able to, nor was he able to port it out of there. Ted had to contain it with a force field, with the strongest shield he had: Dimension Shift Shield. It combines the use of his usual personal force field and phase shift, bringing him just out of sync with the dimension, but not traveling to another one. Trapping himself in with the device, he said his final goodbyes fast, while his friends screamed and protested for him to find another way. The bomb went off, and amazingly enough, the entire blast was withheld in the bubble. Of course, it instantly killed him as well. Atom Slash happened to be there, helping his friend. Its.. Concerned me ever since. The man I’ve grown to hate that he’s a part of me with my entire being, sacrificed himself to save all of Paragon.

“There was no point to it anyway,” I growl. “Look where we are now.”

“What do you mean?” God Peter, can you be this dense?

“The whole world would have been safer in the end if he just let us all get killed in the explosion. Sacrifices must be made for the benefit of mankind.” Because as I worked my whole life around, every hero failure creates a villain, and every villain success creates a hero. It would have finally ended it all if we all died instantly.

“There was one made. You’ll just never understand it.” But not the right one, not the fast way out. You’ll never understand it either Atom Slash.

“Whatever. We’re almost to the reactor. You ready?” No, he’s not. He never will be.

“You asked that already. Something making you lose your train of thought?” Only your incompetence.

“What? Shut up, no, of course not.” Childish of me, I hate it when someone like him hits a pressure point of my psyche.

Atom Slash smiles. And I never wanted to hurt him more then that moment. But we have to trust each other.. Work together.. For now.

[MaligneFamily]

I smiled, but the little twerp still looked hostile. He sometimes confuses me, I begin to imagine that it is No-Show, that he did survive… But that’s just my ‘incompetence,’ as that schmoe would say. He ain’t shiny anymore, hell he’s pressing into his 50s, and I’m already there...


"These are damn uncomfortable, can’t even breath right," I say as we walk silently on the streets of Independence Port, or whatever it’s called now. The air’s breath bites me even through this clanking armor.


“Meh, you're just weak” he quips after a few seconds of thought. Figures, this is what you get for the service of men who were under the command of Poison? and Lord Paragon, Lord Paragon the Second as I like to add seeing as he did steal the name from my father, his brother. It’s funny how he disappeared right before the Arachnos Invasion, nobody has heard from him. Then again many things disappeared because of the invasion…


Crossing the bridge in an almost uniform manner, I look below and see the shanty houses that are barracks. The rows of houses stretch till the island of Terra Volta. There the old war walls that were torn down were made into a dam. Conveniently making the headquarters of the Arachnos Army at the base of Paragon City’s old generator…


“You damn sure these codes work?”


“Only I coulda made these,” he replies with a smirk.


Go ahead smirk, you ass. You know that there was one other who could make those codes, you know damn well No-Show would’ve provided the codes… Even years after his death, I still blame Show-Off. Slaphappy got his justice in the end, but we let the other work for us. Granted, times had changed and whatever was against Recluse was an ally, but why did they have to bring one who killed my mate. The torture of having him look the same made it worse for me. But we were the guys for the job, or whatever…


Its funny, under all those brash words, I know his fears thanks to the Maligne curse, err our family trait. The job is suicide, only two radiation ‘experts’ could do it…


“One more time…”


“Again?! Sheesh Peter, your dementia is coming quick,” he proclaims. I hate it when he calls me Peter, only Elle called me that…


Elle… It’s hard to believe it’s already been 5 years since she died in the invasion - Marrow Lash, Centurion extraordinaire. She was all I had as a close family, I had to take in her son… Dylan…You know it’s kinda funny, mutants never have kids anymore… Guess there aren’t enough left…


“I don’t want this to f**k up, we only have one shot. Repeat what we’re doing…” I say via our commlink, trying with all my concentration not appear out of the ordinary.


“Well, son,” he replies derisively, “We get in, drop a bomb to accentuate and attract matter, disrupt the fission reactor, and then get the hell out of there… Duh.”


“Wrong. You really need to listen.”


“What? What’d you forget to tell me?”


“Free the Freakshow gang contained in a barrier there. Duh.”


It’s pure irony to me. For years on end, the Freaks were one of the most feared groups in Paragon, bringing total anarchy wherever they pleased. Now? We’ve had to ‘compromise’ with them, letting them have free reign on anything they want to do. Yes even civies were killed from time to time, but whatever was left there in the city were usually cronies of Recluse. The Sky Raiders sided with Recluse instead…


“I ignore stupid plans. We don’t need them.” Villains never love other villains. They just stand at the sidelines.



“Those are orders… You will follow them.” I say in an authoritative voice that I have acquired as the years go by.


“Fine, idiot.”


With all these ‘kind’ words, it’s a wonder that I trust him. Though I admit, his mind seems to have no ulterior motives.


I notice how the purple walls of Recluse patched whatever was left of the original barrier in Terra Volta made you forget how it once was... Taking a final look at Show-Off, we march silently to the check point, letting the sweat burn down my back.

[Joe Schmoe]

Can't think of what to do next for this one, but this is what I have so far:

We hand in our identification cards to the guards at the check point to scan check. “What’s your order of business here?”

“Fixing a problem in the reactor.” I say calmly and official like. Even pretending I’m below somebody else.. Irritates me.

Some of the guards look at each other. “Wasn’t aware.. There was any problem with the core. Why weren’t we notified?”

Atom Slash spoke quickly before I opened my mouth. “You think Lord Arachnos would have word spread around that the ‘nuclear reactor’ is having problems? No one would want to stand guard there and would rebel.”

He hands us back our cards and scratches his chin. “I guess.. That makes sense. Even if it was a tiny problem, it could be exaggerated. Go ahead.”

We enter Terra Volta, and I turn to show my new found respect for Peter. Instead I say “I was going to say something better then that.” Why? I really do not understand it either. "And I would not have had to read his mind to do it."