Last Stand

The long honey colored hair of Ziccarra drape down to the small of her back; her fingers stretched and molested the piano keys captivating the hordes upon hordes of Cardinals in attendance. The style more closely relative to that of Alistair’s graceful aggression, its presentation and delivery, like her skills as an orator managed to steal and capture the minds of her subordinates as she played.

“Heh” she chuckled a bit, pushing her hair behind her right ear, whilst slowly turning in the chair. The moment she sat face to face with the Cardinals they all bowed in respect for their Black Cardinal.

“Sons…and daughters” she finally started; this time glancing around the room to watch the faces and expressions of her most loyal.

“The time period in which gods, empires, and many sophisticated bureaucracies have ruled ends today, for I have won”. The wrinkles on her face expressed years of war and heartache; the profuse veins on her forearms told the tale of struggle and strife; but the look in her Pacific Ocean blue eyes gave the revelation of triumph.

“No more nationalism, no more flags; starting today the world will emerge as One World; one people one country”. The thoughts of the people had been given a fabricated sense of depression one delivered to them by both Clara Mass and an unwilling Maya Lopez. Reality had been altered the reign of the Cardinals would begin with the Black Cardinal as supreme chancellor.

As she spoke, at that moment her high ranking Cardinals were shaping the world’s new infrastructure; religion, politics and most importantly national boundaries were all eliminated; the world had been set up for an eclipse of reform.

The very first decree was the “Hero Act” and the “Aggression Act”. The act was composed over six hundred pages with Two hundred provisions on how to deal with the super powered community in Pax Ziccarra. It became required for everyone to equip themselves with an Ecopshere; being caught without one was a 5 year jail sentence and a fine. Super Humans would be taxed for being super; and were limited to what powers they could display in public.

Many of the people whom were once hailed as great heroes went underground; a lot of them were eventually captured and tortured under the Aggression act. The national boundaries that separated countries like Canada, America and Mexico; were abolished there was now free travel across the earth.

There was now a centralized banking system, with one currency and one fixed interest rate. Socialism had completely overran the capitalist countries; getting rid of the Free Market philosophy in most democratic nations.

A World police and a world court governed the people with somewhat just laws. The Cardinal way of life quickly caught on to the masses; those that couldn’t afford the new change were reduced to slums and living like paupers.

Every time she blink she could see the ashes of the “old world” turning into the riches of her world, the perfect world, The Cardinal World.

2 years ago

When the heroes fell it was soul crushing to witness, dropping not one by one but in groups, some being shipped off to camps, others used for manual labor. Some just killed before they could be a threat. Bishop was used to power the city of Ontario directly below the Palace of Ziccarra Liafador, a sign of her dark humor for him trying to ambush her when she attacked Utopia tose few years ago.

him while he stood day and night with arms and legs clamped into a generator to receive his electric output, His kinetic energy only prominent through a kinetic attack so Slave drivers would beat on him, with enthusiasm. a work release type of program gave old villains turns at the whips, batons, and firearms.

"yumustloosnmuhcffs..." he mumbles weakly before the lightning gets sucked out of his body on the regularly scheduled draining as a Grimm City gangster immigrant with dark yellow eyes to match his putrid teeth continues to whip him. The once proud hero never broke for him, maybe a tear would roll down his face uncontrollably, but never a word or a strain in his face. The thug had to know what he said, "Wuzzat? I couldn't here you 'Bicthup!' " he tazes him with a prod then leans his ear in front of his face, "I said..." A radiated fist cracks the mans jaw off his face, hanging free before it breaks off entirely on the floor and slides across. "You just loosened my cuffs" He hocks a thcick wad of spit onto his dead face then hauls ass down the long corridors below, entering ferocious battles with armed and unarmed guards. they only added to his power, as that was their main purpose.

finding a storm drain down the halls he allows a burly man to kick his chest in, hurling him down the tunnels into a rip current no man could survive

The Underground- now

A collection of misfits and stragglers hide in the shadows of the sewers. An outsider from before what many label the 'Cardinal Night' might find it funny to see plump middle aged men with bed sheets on their backs and children's masks on their faces. Here and now it signified hope. With the upper class living in paradise and the lower dredges in a hell they could never have deserved, the symbol of the hero was always one to have faith in. Bishop brought it back with his reappearance, kids tagging graffiti of his lighting emblem on walls to signify his return, whispers of a lone blue and black man stopping prison transports and stealing food.

Eventually his lone acts inspired others to try. Though most were quelled and even executed for their dissidents, the deed was done. People saw that the possibility was there. "How's it looking Matt...I mean Stoop Snoop." An older black man with a sock wrapped around his face and a pair of Emerald Canary pajamas salutes him awkwardly,

"Sir, we've just gotten a new shipment of food from the vans topside, shouldn't be a problem when we get some weapons from the cache set to arrive next week." Bishop slaps a hand on his shoulder lowering the mans saluting arm with his heavy handedness, his arm now a bionic piece of machinery found in the abandoned Starks tower. "It's SurKIT Snoop. I'm glad to hear it. Help distribute it and I'll go back up and get us some powdered mix, god knows they deserve it"

He walks off into a the dark cavern before the makeshift beds to see the more able bodied recruits to the allied forces pondering over a schematic of the Palace based on dredge workers own memories "Well?" A bearded man in a leather over coat and golden crown made from plastic turns to him and salutes, "We'll be ready. So far we've got every exit and opening in the tunnels mapped. We just need those weapons and enough food to keep our strength up"

"Damn it!" He smacks his hand in the mans back, "That's what I like to hear! Get excited men, feel good this week, we're gonna make history the next."

He leaves out of the room after giving the men a well needed and deserved boost of moral. They had all lost something or someone, payback was something everyone in these tunnels and many above who didn't have the strength of body or will dreamed of at night. He rubs his scraggly face while passing sleeping children. One tugs his pants, "Mr.Bishop, are you gonna get my mommy back?" It was Maya Lopez's son Sean. He kneels down and gives hima gentle tap on the chin "You now it sonny boy, now gime a hug and go back to bed" The tiny face lights with renewed hope as he jumps in bed eager to make this dayand every other pass until he saw his mommy again.

The latch clanks as he enters his drippy pipe office and sits in a fold up chair in front of combined crates, wondering on the burden, deep down, as any leader does, of how well this plan will actually work.

“No one remembers the old world, simply because here it does not exist” She stood in the middle of the white silk curtains dancing around her body; peering into the menagerie from her window. The Black Dhalia draped in his cardinal turncoat; stood listening comprehensively to the words of his lord and master.

“Thru Chaos, comes order; I fed that world an Ideal; and they became addicted to me. My words course through their veins filling them with a fabricated sense of hope. “They killed for me, YOU killed for me” The Ninjan Queen turned so that her shoulder was pointing in his direction. The Long robe she wore over her body concealed all limbs and body parts.

“All for what?” she said, glancing at him, the wrinkles around her eye’s echoed the pain her heart used to fill. “Is it because this is what I always meant to be? Or is it because, I couldn’t handle being treated the way they’re treated!” the tone of her voice raise a bit; she could see her apprentice actually believed her to be insane.

“No matter, how much of an independent person I am, he still rules every move I make”. Removing her robe, she dismissed him with the waving of her hand. “You showed me how deep love can be…” she said, with a whisper. Her eye’s swelling with the salty smell of tears. A solidary tear cascaded down her face, saturating the carpet at her feet. “I couldn’t even be in the same universe with you…” making a fist, she slammed her fist directly into his picture.

Her Ninjan body quivered with a ruthless anger; the tears slowly evaporated from her eyes as they filled with pure optic energy. “GAH!!” she screamed, blowing a whole through the palace walls in relentless rage.

“Hehehe….” Her face proliferated a sinister grin, one illuminated by the color of the fading sun; as it slowly went down painting a dusky veil over her olive toned face. “Survive...if I let you…”

Later.

“The resistance gets stronger and stronger by the day; we need to implement something to keep them under wraps.” Dhalia said, playing with the tip of his scythe. “There is no church in the wild, padawan” Ziccarra said, fixing her bra in the mirror.

“I’ve heard you say that many times before master what does that mean?” he asked, assisting her in getting dressed.

“An elephant makes an odd appearance in the streets of Paris, reminding the masses that the “wild” in question is, in fact, our society, where people act like animals and the strongest one wins. In this wilderness, there is no Church, no respite from the savagery, just the stone gaze of statues overlooking the violence. These sculptures represent us, the ones who pull the strings on both sides in order to control this repressed society.”

She explained, glancing at herself in the mirror. “Order, through chaos” a smile crept across her face. “How do I look?” she said, striking a pose. “Like someone is going to die…” he said, reluctantly. “If I have my way…” she said, walking whilst putting in her earrings towards the door. Dhalia himself happened to be madly in love with his mentally estranged master; though she was much to blind to see it. Letting out a stiff sigh, he hurried to catch up to her.

“Give the order to raid the provinces around Toronto, let them know the more laws broken will ultimately end up with more deaths.” She said, handing him a decree. As she walked outside to her limo, a huge lightning bolt had been painted all over her limo.

“Well played…but that’s the problem when playing with the big boys…we have bigger guns” With no effort at all she shot into the air.

Her hair danced in the profuse wind; until she reached the right altitude. Extending her hands out towards the city of Toronto; her eye’s sizzled with a perfect dark hue. Pushing her hands forward she fired what appeared to be a gigantic mass of energy towards the city.

“He’ll be there…Dhalia…send in the Cult of Cardinals…”

"And you really...think this is the best course of action Bishop?" One of the newer bottom siders asks with his forearm extended as Bishop plucks the embedded RFID chip from his forearm, "It has to.*clink*" A small pill sized transmitter drops into his forearm and pops out of his middle finger. Surkit stands and allows one of the former nurses to patch the mans arm up with mediocre supplies and re-implement the chip to track and transmit his bio rhythms.

The plastic Crowned man dubbed the King steps forward with blood and oil on his face breathing heavily in his nostrils, "We gott'em, lsot about a dozen men though. It's like they knew we were coming. "

A lanky boy runs down the dark tunnels, men raising the few guns they had, "Stand down! Brandon, what is it?!"

"We, we, *huff*, we were leaving a tag to show that bitch we were coming and she-she.... blew up downtown, all over some paint! Jimmy's dead, and so are a lot of other people! I don't know how but I made it out, last thing I saw was the Queen flying with death beams coming out of her eyes, and guards pouring out the building! "

Bishop rubs his chin and steps away, "You shouldn't have been so close to the target Brandon, what if...wait, how did you escape?"

"I dunno, I was running with Jimmy, then they shot him and stopped shooting, guess they thought I wasn't important"

Bishop's face fills with dread, "Fck, everybody out! grab your guns and leave the food, go!" Brandon looks at him with panic, "What did I do?"

An explosion reverberates through the tunnels as the sound of marching feet rises through every corridor, "You led them right to us"

15 minutes in

There was a firefight of escalated bloodshed and ricochet's. women run with their children screaming, their backs riddled with bullets. Men running forward to be like the warriors they heard about, but to no avail as the black clad swat like enforcers stand in a line with synchronized steps, jackhammering the entire underground with a hail of gun fire. Many made it out, but even more were collapsed and dead or dying on the unforgiving concrete sewer floor.

Bishop uses his Kinetic shield to bouncer the bullets to the side, running at the guards who now took a few steps back as he determinedly flew forward with unparalleled athletic speed, "I'm not going back, come on gimme it gimme all of it, fight a real man you fcking baby killers!" His metallic hand flies forward, jerking one of the guns forward then sends it back to crack the helmet in half on one guard, pulling it out of his hand with a pelvic pivot to spin and send another reeling to the ground, his eye screen breaking from it's clips. The men decide to body rush him realizing their bullets were near useless.

A pile of black ballistic shielding enforced limbs cover Surkit, the pressure felt unbearable, and more and more as they suffocate each other in attempt to make their Queen Cardinal proud. He pushes on, his worn knees trying to buckle, he tells them no. Imperial guardsmen slam into the walls, the ceiling, and slide across the floor. "Y'all are just lambs...show me the shepherd! Show me...! wuh...?" He grows woozy while pulling something small and feathered out of his neck, a slender young woman smiling behind her helmet.

His body slams the concrete slack, the sound of his enforced jaw shaking the soles of the mens feet, "Alpha Squad this is beta, target acquired. Refugees scattered, half accounted. Proceed to bring in the box"

16 men, in separate groups of eight, carry two different boxes. One in the shape of a vibranium coffin, the other a crate with a timer on top. Surkit's limp body is thrown in the coffin and sealed shut with a botlt gun, the vizzing of the gun the last thing he can hear.

"Set it for 4 minutes, even the bacteria will be dead after this goes off; The queen said no survivors." Another nods and in puts the time, as it takes the entire 16 to carry him out with enough haste to avoid the explosion.

Bishop lay in the coffin semi-comatose. In the darkness...a smile creeps over his caramel, face as the world closes up around him

An arid smile slithered across her face, explosion after explosion ripped through various parts of Toronto. “They’ve captured Surkit…” Dhalia said, appearing behind her; she could see his rose colored hair in the perfectly in the window. The explosion of orange and red flames that spewed over the skyline brought a tense smirk to her face. Truly bittersweet; even though the leader of the “rebellion” had been captured, she hadn’t crippled his forces like she intended. Famine depleted food and water, natural disasters toppled cities and organized establishment, many of them managed to overcome it.

The collapse of economies on a global scale; called for the institution of the Cardinal Verichip; made it impossible for those without it to purchase or sell food. Without an effective way to track Surkit; she knew that eventually she’d have to give the most brutal order in her arsenal.

“I want you to step up a camera in the cell that Surkit sits in” her voice callous and methodical; the moment had come; there was a faraway stare in the eye of the World Chancellor. Her right eye twitched before spinning around into the arms of her slave. “Give the final order…Anyone wearing the mark of the Cardinal….must die….”

Dhalia bowed, almost reluctantly and went off to give the order. All across the enslaved world, the Cult of Cardinals mass murdered those who pledged their allegiance out of fear. Ziccarra stood in front of the holding cell with Surkit on the inside.

“You’ve eluded me for years…” she said, pressing her back against the wall; smoking a cigarette. “I chased you across this earth myself; and you managed to get away; and even managed to escape once I had you” she said, taking another puff of her cigarette.

“You got captured by a couple of grunts… you expect me to believe they overcame you?” she said, resting her head on the wall. “You are smarter than that, tougher than that…but I’d like to show you the results of your infringements” pointing towards a screen positioned in his cell.

Media coverage of the Cardinals storming villages towns; murdering all forms of life; men, woman and children; shot, burned or hung.

The rose haired Dhalia eventually joined her at right side, handing her a gas mask. “I believe in another life we could’ve been friends, comrades…maybe even partners” she said, strapping the mask to her face.

“Look at what I’ve done to those who pledge allegiances to me; think about what I’m going to do to your rebellion” she said, sending a paralyzing stare through the eyes of the mask.

“I guess I should rephrase that…” she said, looking at Dhalia with a grit-like stare. “Guess what you’re going to do the rebellion”. Dropping the canisters of knock out gas into his chambers; she attempted to knock him out, in an attempt to monarch program him.

The rebellion wouldn’t feel the wrath of the Queen, but of their own elected messiah.

You can see everything in a man's eyes; Windows to the soul, microscopes to the mind. The stories inside those abysmal black and blue irises; They'd make a weaker man weep. He'd give anything for the luxury of knowing the sensation. Bishop's burn red, itching. The clamps around his skull holding his lids wide with crusted sleep. Off white fluorescent light bounces from the mad doctors lab coat. Images of unabashed mass murder, rape and torture on a genocidal scale flash in milliseconds and repetition on strobing flat screen televisions, the words rebel and kill blinking past in short intervals, three intravenous drug drips in his protruding water deprived veins.

Leaning over his steel barred gurney, with coffee caked teeth and the pungent stink of Marlboro's on his lips the doctor asks with a dead face "What is your name"

"..."

Cranking up a dial from 7 to 15 on the IV bag, the doctor stands with hands clasped behind his slumped posture and waits "What, is your name...?"

"...Cardinal Zero" His answer cold, preordained and transcribed in a once spotless mind. The doctors smile creaks past checkered creases on his grayed goatee covered face.

"And, your mission?"

Internal screams of a man lost in his mind fall on a deaf world, the words pouring from his mouth effortlessly, "Destroy the rebels of the Cardinal Age. Lead the ushering of the queens enlightenment." Unencumbered he sits up right, the steel bars buckling with a whine of dis-approval. His grafted metallic arm wincing to the recieved nueron trail of information after being decommissioned "I need necessities....clothes, weapons, soldiers. "

A red headed pale skinned follower in a black suit approaches from the back corner with a sinister smirk to match his queen's, "You'll have them...Sir" An image of a man with a caring old fatherly smile flashes in the darkness of his mind, "After all the work you've done these past years, quelling the rebellion; Just your, genuine devotion in all, inspires us. "

His head turns with robotic tension, a flaccid smile on his rose colored borwn trimmed lips " It's the least I could do."

The uppers. What the rebels described the lucky few who ran the world in bright lit towers that skimmed the sun. "Tragic really, just apalling how they treat the lowlies. Dare I say, it's inhumane!" Nodding with grumbles and yesses in clean suits, manicured nails gripping sterling goblets of chardonney. "Perhaps...we should voice our opinions to the queen" The room grows quiet after a rotund operetta speaks her mind, her husband coughs, "Err... no, no need I'm sure she's running things properly, taking good care of them all. Maybe another relief fund raiser is in order" And there it was, the answer to how the rich stay rich, and look at themselves the next morning. Silken pockets laiden with the recycled currency that never touches the drab streets below, explosions sounding like a clockwork symphony as they speak of a world they dilude themselves to believe is just

"Get that truck open we got... *peering at an old mickey mouse watch* four minutes!" the ratat of a galiel echoing off the high rises. A group of sully clothed masked avengers crack the lock on the 18-wheelers back trailer

"We're in, get everybody over here! " Three men rush to the truck strapping their rifles onto worn shoulders, pulling the doors back as Cardinal owned law enforcement lay down surpressing fire. "Pull it pull it pull it! err" The gun fire turns to drowned out noise as The King smiles peering into the dark caravan, "Let's see what the queen's given us today..." He shines a flashlight down the steep van to see one lone crate. His anger rises with a mix of confusion, before he throws the flashlight inside. His anger turns to shock as the light for a moment, gleams on blue rimmed eyes. He knew those eyes as he knew his own, but didn't see the man he once called his best friend "The hell...Bishop...?"

I, the fact his head exploded in an orb of placed plasma only caught their attention, the rebels felt fear when they heard the unmistakable chuckle that was Bishops joy. Stepping out with guns trained on his body, in a tight red under armor shirt and black leather duster, Surkit jumps down off the trailer. "Rebels of the Queens world order, you are here by under arrest by the Rebel repression act, Failure to comply will end in a painful death. Stand down" The words leave his lips calmly and devoid of deep emotion, as though someone pressed play on a pre-recording. By the time he uttered down, they all were, decapitated and disemboweled with blue lava like energy seeping from the wounds.

Looking around he smirks, quickly wiping it away and applying a pair of thin rimless sunglasses before stepping back into the trailer, taking his seat in the darkness, and waiting for the next drop spot on the rebels raiding route.

The Cardinal Age brought forth a time of fear and uncertainty; foreseeing the age before it happened, she concealed herself in the Appalachians. She spent her years in seclusion, training spiritually and mentally, conditioning her slender body for the long fight ahead. She fasted often, eating only berries and onions to maintain her body weight, while not the graceful of meals, she wasn’t going to succumb to the destructive Cardinal lifestyle.

Even in the mountains she could hear the destruction caused by the Cardinal regime; on the inside there was a conflict between who she was, and what she wanted to be. Before the time of revelation, she warned the world about the consequences of allowing the Cardinals to achieve a one world society; the small number of people whom heeded her warning was now called the resistance, everyone else walked the Earth bearing the mark of the Cardinal.

She lay on her pallet using her finger to massage the jawline of Benji, he seemed to appreciate her soft fingers against his whiskers. “The world is in trouble my friend…” she said, in deep thought. She clearly showed worry in the welfare of her family and friends.

Her eye’s grew heavy a feeling of emptiness grew within her heart, as tears begin to run the course of her face; she slowly wipe them. “He was on his way to the store, *sniff* they rushed in killing everyone…everyone that didn’t bear that mark.” A series of sniffs and sighs channeled into full on sobbing.

“I have to stop this…” she said, standing up placing the rat comfortably on the pallet. “Mommy will be back baby…” she said, kissing the rat on the side of its head. Placing her tattered cloak on, she made sure the parts concealed her face; sitting right on her chest a symbol that meant nothing to the ignorant, but to those who understood what it meant, it was a symbol of significance.

One that found itself on the side of both good and evil; truth be told it’d had been several years since anyone saw the symbol; Fantasy brandished it once more, it was to instill hope in the world. Standing in the mountain trail wind, her cloak flapped violently behind her; her emerald stare caught the sight of a turbulent city skyline.

“Let’s go…” lifting into the air; she slowly descended down upon the city of Toronto; destruction was so prevalent it was hard to believe anyone was left in the city. “I must be the only super left…” she thought to herself, reducing her flight to a slight hover.

“I let this happen…it’s my entire fault…” her eyes showed her illusion of little children playing only to have been gassed by the Cardinals. Balling her fist, the anger could be seen in her protruding veins, her attention was taken by the sound of piercing screams, which eventually ended; her eye’s quickly turned towards the southwest direction.

Syncing herself with her light energy, she sped across the sky with completely synched in light; she could tell that this was an assault squad; landing right in front of the truck, she extended her hand forward; stopping the truck in its tracks.

“You want to hurt people…” she whispered whilst watching the men, struggle to get out of the mangled truck. “You want to instill fear…” she whispered again whilst stalking them. As she walked a gust of photon wind swirled over her body painting her pupils white.

The men screamed, shooting in fear; projection a light screen, she watched as the bullets bounced in various directions. Her anger visible by her pulsating temples; the gust of energy swirling around her body grew violent; pushing her hands forward the sheer heat from the light energy burned through both men; whilst simultaneously setting the front of the truck on fire.

“Don’t underestimate what I’ll do…” she said, realizing this was the first time she had ever killed anyone. They deserved it; this regime; these people murdered and killed because of an ideology.

“Look…it’s Sha…” one of the rebels said, pointing at the huge “S” that had been cut into Fantasy’s uniform. Removing her cloak, the short haired blonde woman was not only challenging the authority of the Cardinal Age; but joining the résistance.

Her thermal retina scan picked up the signature of another inside the truck; she winced a bit as his scan was a hostile one. “Stand back…” she said throwing her hand to the side.

“Don’t let there be a clown in here” she said, opening the door on the truck.