If I could write any story..
'The Last Shot' would be the name, and it would star CV Prime Longshot and Cain.
Cain would discover he has inoperable brain cancer. All that time running around fighting with heroes has exposed him so much strange radiation no magic or technology he can afford will save his life. He's going to die.
He only has a few weeks left. The pain, sickness and confusion are already starting to affect him. He'll spend his last days in horrible pain on his deathbed.
Watching the famous hero 'Longshot' marry the intergalactic Green Lantern Sam Heller on national TV.
Cain just can't take it anymore. He snaps. He goes father then he's ever gone. This is his last chance, he has to make it count.
He calls in every favor he has, cheats everyone he's gotta cheat, and kills who he's gotta kill. He works frantically he has only a week to do the impossible. Prep for the final battle. He doesn't sleep. He drinks whiskey like water to dull the pain. His hair starts to turn grey. But at last everything is ready.
When everything is ready he breaks into a hospital, takes everyone hostage, and rigs the place with hundreds of traps.. and cuts the heads off of a new born baby. Longshot gets it in the mail with a note. One child is beheaded every hour until he comes to face Cain.
Sam is away in space, her last mission before their wedding so he can't call on her for help. No other hero can respond in time, and besides Cain promised to blow the entire hospital if he sees anyone but Longshot.
So Paxton comes alone.
The meet in the darkened coders. Both know this is the end. This is the final battle.
Longshot fights with all of his heart and skill against his arc rival, the way he always does.
But Cain.. Cain is a man possessed. He has not slept for a week, yet fights with the strength and fury of ten men. He doesn't seem to feel pain. There is no fear in his eyes, only a fanatical madness only the Irish mercenary can understand. This is his lifes work. His magnum opus. Animated by something beyond space and time, that primordial spirit that drives men to everlasting greatness he does the impossible.
He beats Longshot, in the pooring rain and flashing lighting atop the hospital roof.
He defeats him physically. Both men are beaten to near unrecognizable pulps of shatter bones and hammered tissues. But while Longshots body fails him, Cain stands still. As if already dead, his body driven by mad willpower alone.
Longshot only has one arrow left, and Cain a single bullet.
But Longshot in his heart knows that even in death he fought the good fight, and finished the race. He did all any man could do, and more. It was never his will or his courage that failed, only his body. In truth he always knew he would die fighting.
As Cain raises his gun, and dozens of news helicopters record the final moments..
..Sam Heller arrives. Around the world hearts lift. This was the moment. Longshot had one arrow left, and his soon to be bride had arrived in all her power. This was the reversal, the moment when once more the hero emerged from certain defeat.
But it wasn't. Cains final round pierces her shielding, killing Heller instantly. A mocking Cain tells Longshot about the Hellers DNA that coated the bullet while Paxton holds her lifeless body in his arms.
Cain laughs like the devil himself, the echo of his final shot ringing in their ears.
At last Longshot breaks, and his last arrow takes Cain in the heart. Its the last arrow Paxton will ever fire.
Cain laughs all the way to hell.
--
Longshot hangs up his bow. No dramatic 'I quit!' moment, but.. he just stopped going out. He is afraid he'll kill again, just.. one more who deserves it.. and one more.. and one more after that.. And where does it stop?
He starts to drink a lot.
Eventually he takes the bow out and buries it. He can't take looking at it anymore. Hanging there like its taunting him.
After a while his friends don't come around anymore. They give up on a man who has given up on himself.
Sooner or later he finds himself homeless.
Eventually he's found dead in an ally, frozen to death, malnourished.. with a whiskey bottle clenched tightly in his icy fist.
Its Cains favorite brand.
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