Kings of Hell

Alyssa’s POV

You’re a professional… whore. Armageddon was a giant asshole, and my grandson, the son of Wade and Ariel, he was raised in a test tube and had one experience in this world; violence.

I sit down on the sofa in my townhouse, gun in a too-steady hand.

My mind is racing. Dale insulted me in my home, rejected me, then without hesitation sent in our grandson to come and arrest me – to force me back into a prostitute’s role. Merciless. I was more than a body.

I was right about Dale, I was right about the Ultimates.

…peace is no longer an option.

And neither was negotiating.

Yet in a complex dystopia, where Ultimates ran the world, with the Zenith Alphas in Atlantis with one of my daughters, the Ultimate Cyborgs, A.R.M.Y in Avalon with another daughter… then a gang with an army in FC… the core of the Ultimate web… it all centred around one man.

He had leopard genes interfering with his humanity. A lethal killer had a web of predators ruling the only hell left. There was a simple solution to break the network. To begin to restore peace, weapons had to be off the table, war should quickly be an unfathomable legend of the past with the end of the world. But the end of the world had continued, with the genetic experimentations that destroyed the balance of the ecosystem of humanity.

Ultimates, including myself, were designed to out-kill and out-hunt humans.

Why were Ultimates dictating to the human species.

We were murderers. Violent and short tempered.

Peace could only be achieved by the dismantling of that structure. Making Ultimates unimportant. Neutralisation. But how could a human army dismantle the Ultimate network? They couldn’t. Only another Ultimate could bring them down.

I had to annihilate the King of Hell.

Dale.

I.

Had.

To.

Kill.

It’s like he was pushing me to it. The arrest by Armageddon was a trigger.

Now my hand holds a lethal weapon and it doesn’t tremble.

Dale’s purple tyrian eyes are all I see.

My life’s purpose was not peace – it was the very fabric of my being to intercept the four soldiers who started a race to Ultimate supremacy. AI, robots, war machines, clones – were all massively accelerated because of their existence. To combat them. But none of that was needed.

Dale had already engineered his own end.

And it was me.

****

12 hours later. The Dead of Night.

I was on the move.

My life stoking the fire, making beds and buttering toast was over.

I sit on top of a skyscraper in the middle of Frankincense City, just opposite the Black Lair itself. My bare feet dangle as I watch the activity thrive below.

I am wearing an old leotard, which Wendy had found for me. Curtesy of the thug standing outside having a smoke, looking up and down the street, looking past lines of mutants – looking for his kitten that he raised to be a good easy fuck and a killer.

At some point there is a fight with a drunken group of young boys. Serge struck them out of the club with lightning, and they stood up in the street, smoking, hair raised and traumatised as they limped off.

I don’t watch any of the alcohol fuelled drama with any particular emotion.

I’m not interested in the personable sides of these soldiers. I’m looking for a blind spot. You know, I really was hoping to find one, or to think of an alternative plan, however… this operation would involve dramatic choices for the desired consequence.

I’m not alone on the roof, more kids are up late, graffitiing the building. It’s a popular activity in FC, it puts colour on the buildings, so it’s accepted, not illegal. Art by innocent kids before they grow old and distressed by the futility of the world, is the only normal thing that happens in this city.

I hear the door to the roof open and it slams shut with a heavy hand.

He arrived just in time.

“Hey. Mum.”

Casey had to use that word. Mum.

I don’t turn to him, I just stare at the gun I hold as he approaches my position, “I came as you requested. So you’re ready to talk about everything? I promise… I’ll fill you in, whatever details are missing. Even if it takes months, we’ll work through this memory-loss together. Alyssa?”

I don’t turn to him, so he sits by me.

Casey’s long legs are dangling off the edge with mine, and we both kick them in the wind.

When he notices the gun in my hand, I notice him tense up a bit but that’s all.

“There’s rumours about you and your strength,” I start, staring off, down, down, to the concrete, “…one time… I heard your own father… shot you in the head… and you lived.”

“Why are we sitting out here, anyway?” Casey avoids that subject.

“The only blind spot on that man is his first son,” I smile as I finally glance at Casey, “He adopted you, yes?”

“Yup, a little rascal off the streets,” Casey chuckles, “Dale liked me.”

“What’s his weakness… Casey?” I ask, seriously.

He considers my question just as seriously.

“I have no idea,” Casey murmurs, looking to the sky, “Only he knows.”

“It’s you,” I tell him, “You’re his weakness. His blind spot.”

“Are you working up the courage to confront Dale?” Casey asks.

“We had an altercation in the morning, and I decided I don’t want him,” I explain, “…I don’t want any of this… the world is in an ultimate state of disarray...”

“Chill. It’s not so bad,” Casey argues, “This is peace – the last few months since Ultimates took control of each city. We’ll manage it well. We’ll fix the Earth. We’ll restore everything slowly. It takes time.”

“Everything I read online points to only one reason the world ended,” I counter.

“S.P.A.N.K.Y dust?” Casey snaps, “That was a long time ago, Alyssa. We’re past that.”

“It was the idea behind it, improving genetics, to make the human race immune to disease and illness, instead it led to the massacre of 85% of the human race, left three cities standing, and encouraged the development of Ultimate human beings – the poster soldiers for genocide. Perfection is overrated – all these wars since have shown that since the apocalypse, perfection is brutal and costs the world, the world is dead and the Ultimates… well… they’re the only problem, Casey.”

“You’re sounding cold and kind of crazy,” Casey gives me a sideways judgemental glare, “That’s what being isolated from everyone does, mum, you need to talk to people. Don’t just read shit online… live… see with your own eyes.”

“You make a lot of sense, Casey, and you’re sweet to me…” I compliment him, murmuring, “Forgive me if I’m cold, I just don’t know you. Even so. I want to be open with you. I need to create an opportunity, or this will never work. I want to admit something to you first though... I’m going to kill Dale,” I hold up the gun to admit I’ll use this weapon.

“Why? What’s the point of that?” Casey asks, furrowing his brows, “Violence is not the answer. Even Dale knows that – he taught me that. It’s only a last resort… m-mum…?” Casey trails off as I raise the gun casually and press it against his temple.

Casey more than didn’t expect it… it was an impossibility… so he didn’t even react as I moved.

So it’s that easy, pressing the barrel of a gun to his head.

Casey breathes, and it’s rattled, in that moment, everything slows down.

I blink.

Logically, I wanted to hurt Casey to open the door to force Dale into a position of vulnerability, so I could take my rare chance to kill him.

But then Casey’s eyes glance up to mine.

And he looks… nervous.

His big, wide, totally black eyes – they haunt me –

Whatever... mum, a little version of a younger Casey murmurs while seated on a couch, holding a television remote, glancing at me, anxious, he was testing out the word ‘mum’ for the very first time and it made my heart contract, I look down quickly and stop whisking pancake mixture to stare back at him… what did you say, I ask him, only for him to blurt, NOTHING! As Casey blushes a bright pink and looks to the tv, terrified of rejection, loneliness, abandonment…

The flashback lasts a second – before a wave of vertigo smashes through my brain, a searing flash ignites in my head like all the nerves are on fire.

My own voice screams at me, DON’T SHOOT, oh god, please!

I start to shake uncontrollably, eyes rolling up.

Seizure.

The gun trembles out of my hand.

I lose all sense of balance as pain shoots through my entire brain.

I’ve leaned forward involuntarily, heavy as I lose control of my body.

I slip off the rooftop of the skyscraper and the wind catches me as I go down.

“…MUM!”

Casey’s scream echoes, a lion’s roar.

As I’m falling, I only recognise that a memory had crawled out from the deepest part of my subconscious, to the forefront of my mind, it pieced together from small fragments, only for it to kill me as I accidentally fall to my death.

Dale’s POV

60 seconds earlier

I can’t shake this final dread. It’s made me paranoid all day. And I don’t even know of what exactly. My brain is trying to work it out, but I can’t focus. My thoughts are scattered.

“I don’t know why you didn’t just… kidnap her?” Serge stands with me outside, standing in a new silver suit. Ace and Jose are throwing out more trouble makers as we take a break in the smog.

There was an extra stench in the air tonight – bad omens. I didn’t believe in that fanciful bullshit but the feeling in the city just felt awful.

“You listening to me, boss?” Serge asks.

I draw on my cigar, looking down the street, looking for her.

She had left the townhouse and disappeared earlier in the day –

“Yo, fucker,” Serge hits my shoulder with a painful zap, “I asked you a question.”

I turn to Lightning, taking the cigar from my mouth, “What?”

“Why are you so tense, huh?” Serge snarls, “You’re sweating. You’re fidgeting. You’re not listening. Wake UP!” he screams at me, the sergeant coming out, “You wake the fuck up, Dale, there’s no threat. What are you scared of?”

How was I meant to tell him?

Sammy won.

Alyssa…

…she was dead.

Louis. Sammy. One of them, if not both, cut out a part of her brain. Permanent memory loss. It was Alyssa’s soul they took and discarded. Her brain worked, her body worked, her soul was gone. I confirmed it this morning. I refused to believe there wasn’t something left of her until I did an analysis of her at breakfast.

After that I panicked. I rushed in Armageddon. I wanted to rattle her. I watched the way she moved.

Alyssa was gone.

She was just another girl who had no idea who we were.

Everything we bore together. As a club, as a team, as a family, as soldiers, as horny freaky mother-fuckers – it was extinguished.

I had a strong hold of science.

But nothing could defeat this.

And that is what was driving me insane.

The love of my life was dead –

“She’ll come over eventually,” Serge lowers his tone, “She will. I know our doll.”

“You don’t fucking know what I know… she’s gone in the head,” I snarl at him but I get choked up by tears at the end, “Now she’s just… Lisa,” I try to hide my emotion, but already two tears escape –

Serge’s backhand meets my face – and I don’t even move out of the way. I didn’t even see it coming, I was thinking too inward – but the hit does strike me back into the here and now.

I meet Serge’s fury.

He stands with wide grey eyes, rippling with rage and blue bolts of lightning from disbelief. Serge was great at denial.

“…really?” Serge asks in a monotone, “You’re not kidding me? They fucked her brain up that bad?”

“No doubt Louis wouldn’t want her braindead to us, but they went too far, her brain regenerated but they took it all away – she’s a shell of the woman we’ll never know again,” I explain quickly, breathless, before turning and swearing in an animalistic hiss, “…fuck!”

Serge is dead ass silent, he holds my eye when I look back to him, he acknowledges what I say – and I see something in him almost break, like it did in me this morning.

I had never felt this fucking broken, I didn’t know I had a heart until it was shattered in the morning. Her words – and most of all, her truth. You’re a liar… you’re an animal… I’ll never forgive you. Alyssa’s enraged face burning with pure hatred as she looked at me this morning, it was not an expression you could manipulate or convince.

She made up her mind.

Serge looks up to the clouds casually, away from my face, probably unable to witness what was going on in my own screwed up expression.

“We cleared out those rowdy fuckers, boss,” Ace rubs his hands together, approaching us, while Jose shoves his bloodied knuckles into his pockets.

“What’s wrong?” Jose asks, a quiet question.

I’m staring at the rubbish on the ground, by my foot.

But my ears prick and pick up on a weird inconsistent frequency.

Serge stopped breathing.

I glance up quickly to see him still staring up at the sky.

We all follow his gaze.

Ah… not the sky. A skyscraper rooftop.

Two figures, so small, so high up they are barely indistinguishable in the smog aside from their silhouettes.

They sit on the edge of the roof.

“Ace?” Serge murmurs, entranced, “What do you see?”

While I could see in the dark, Ace had the superior long-distance.

“Oh… holy… doll…” Ace breathes so quietly – just as we all see a slip.

Some chick is falling.

“DOLL!” Serge reacts quicker than any of us, sprinting across the street.

Then there is a second scream.

“MUM!”

Casey…

It’s a travelling echo a moment later.

Did Alyssa jump to her death!?

My heart races, as Serge holds his arms out, and she falls right into him.

They both crash into the concrete, and her head narrowly misses smashing into the sidewalk, as Serge caught her neck in his hand just in time.

When Serge broke the fall, we all heard the crack of bones. However, he’s just wounded, nothing fatal.

I look closer to the doll.

Alyssa is shaking… my eyes widen in shock – she didn’t jump, she’s just having a seizure!

I grin uncontrollably.

Because her nerves were overheating. Seizures were a severe disruption in brain activity.

Everything was on fire.

She’s not dead. She’s just trapped. I fucking know it.

I walk across the street, while the others run to meet Serge.

Serge is carefully sitting up, “I think my legs are broken,” he growls out, while he cradles Alyssa to his chest, “She’s having some kind of seizure, Dale. What do we do?”

“Oh my holy goddess, my sweet pancake ass, my cupcake, my doll, my honey my – bebe,” Ace falls to his knees, going to kiss the side of her head, he gets a punch to the face from Serge first, then he leans back in and kisses the side of her head anyway, while Jose stands over them, arms crossed, looking to me expectedly.

“What now?” Jose asks.

“We don’t do anything, Serge – keep feeding volts, not too much, just a pinch – keep her brain burning,” I ask.

“You’ve lost your mind, I’m not doing that,” Lightning directly disobeys me, “Dale –?”

“It’s PETSD, post extreme traumatic stress, her memories have scattered to other parts of her brain, they encrypted themselves… something triggered them to release – Casey did it, she loves him,” as I explain to Serge, he finally understands.

“Okay boss,” he spreads his fingers carefully over Alyssa’s skull, hovering an inch behind her hair, “I got a better idea – ECT. Just once. One jolt. It’s better than slowly burning. She’s in too much pain. Poor doll –”

“Alright, not a bad idea. Do it, ECT will cause brain fog for a while, but when the fog clears…” I trail off, unable to keep my eyes off her face, she’ll be back.

Serge nods. He understands.

Ace and Jose watch on with me.

A crowd rushes in, worried she’s dead.

Serge carefully holds her still while she continues to seize.

Lightning shoots between his fingers, preparing to pass it through her.

“I’m sorry about the pain, doll, I’m sorry… I’m sorry,” Serge whispers and then sends the volts firing into her head.

Alyssa’s seizure gets significantly worse, while Ace can’t look, Jose can’t look away.

Serge stops sending in volts after 6 seconds, he holds her close and kisses her temples, now he’s crying.

She’s stop seizing and passed out, finally going limp.

“Fuck me,” Jose shivers, “Fuck that.”

“I can’t fucking walk,” Serge looks up and glares at Jose, “Fucking carry me.”

“No. I will, Daddy,” Ace is hyper excited for her return, he jumps in and scoops Serge up before he can protest.

Jose snorts at their predicament, while Serge is holding Alyssa, and Ace is holding him.

“You’re lucky my legs are broken,” Serge warns Ace not to push it.

“Mm, noted, but… you don’t need legs for me to ram my cock into your ass, Daddy –”

“You’re the only one who needs ECT, you fucking dog,” Serge is infuriated, as they’re carried back to the club and the nervous onlookers.

Jose passes me a knowing look.

“Thank fuck our Kitten’s back, I need to fuck the nerves out of my system after that,” I admit, smirking.

“Boss, it won’t be that easy to fuck her again,” Jose advises, “…our baby doll can think straight past Ultima dick now. With her memories or without.”

I walk up to him, putting my arm around his shoulders as we walk back, “Jose – sometimes, the answer is simple. When she wakes up, let’s break her pussy in, before the brain fog clears. While she’s confused.”

“You really have a thing for confused women,” Jose mocks me, raising a brow.

“Nah, I’m just sick of being nice,” I keep in a laugh, “Nice guys finish last. Let’s be fucking mean and fuck her back to life.”

“Mm, well,” Jose murmurs, “…I’ll admit, sometimes I just want to rub her feet. Rub her back. Hand feed her ice cream. But I also want my dick in her throat. It’s a conundrum. If only our doll knew how fucking hard it was to decide.”

“Shut up. One at a time, so she’s getting dick, no matter what – so the moment she snaps to it, I want her really fucking confused, and then you can give her chocolates and flowers afterwards.”

“Sex deprivation doesn’t suit you, boss,” Jose laughs while I shrug, “You’re crazy.”

“If only she knew how much I fucking love her,” I take my arm from his shoulders and take out my cigar again, murmuring to myself, “Bitches think it’s hate. I just hate how much I love her.”

“Careful, Ace will fuck you next,” Jose warns me, “He likes emotion, that’s why he targets Lightning. He can’t fake a poker face for the life of us. Always feeling shit. I’m the only one of us who has their shit together.”

“You don’t feel shit, Boner. But have you ever wanted to suck Ace’s dick?” I ask.

“Fuck off,” Jose shoves me away from him and I grin and dance ahead a few paces, “Although, I’ll share her asshole with you, boss,” Jose shrugs, giving into the beast. That’s more like it.

I breathe in toxic burning smoke that my lungs consume effortlessly, and I exhale with pleasure. Mm.

Alyssa was alive.

And I only had one thought. Remind her.

Should I be ashamed?

Fuck it.

Fuck her.