Heir To The Elements 2: The fall of Sar City

My enemy's enemy

Vulcan stepped out onto the street from a back alley; he looked around nervously, even though it was night time, it was still unsafe to be out in the open.

It had been three nights since his first meeting with the armed men who had attacked the house, the next night they had struck again, but not at the Heirs who had relocated to an abandoned warehouse. The men’s companions had struck at the town hall and the police headquarters of Sar city, another had been directed at a sky scraper in the central business district and the junkyard outside of the city limits where Vulcan had lived with Conduct before their attempted bank heist.

All Vulcan knew was that the police leaders had only just managed to escape, but the politicians who were in a meeting were all killed and hung from metal spikes in front of the old parliament building. Ripple had gone out to confirm this that morning, which felt like it was almost an age away.

He glanced back to the alleyway. It was mainly pitch black, nestled between two large buildings, the kind of place only an idiot would walk down alone on a dark night.

“You’re still there right?” he asked the darkness.

For a moment there was no reply, he turned to face it, worried slightly.

Suddenly a face appeared in the darkness, it was shade, but only her face was visible in the darkness, “yes I’m still here, don’t worry about it, I’ve got your back, but I bet he will have someone too,”

“Yeah, I know, probably the ice guy who froze the looters back at the bank,”

“Just because we don’t know him, but I thought it would be him too,” she paused then sighed, “go on, seriously, you act like a little kid sometimes,”

“This could be dangerous!” Vulcan protested.

“Go, I’ll make sure nothing bad happens,”

“Okay, okay, I’m going,” Vulcan turned and with his hands in his pockets he strode towards the small park nearby. He struggled to not look back at the alley as he went. It took him almost all of his focus to just look at the ground. He stopped in the middle of the street and glanced around.

“Where is everyone? Come on, when the riots were on there were still people around!” He sighed and kept walking, questions flooding his mind.

Eventually he reached the park and after a very short journey he found the spot the contact had told him to go.

A man sat on the bench, he had a straight back and broad shoulder, despite his fine tailored suit, he had the distinct look of a military man, or one of the Agencies goons. However Vulcan could sense something about him that just didn’t fit the goons, he just didn’t have that, human vibe. It made him anxious, just as it had done three nights ago when they had met.

“Kinetic,” Vulcan spoke up, the man turned to face him calmly.

“Vulcan, how is the biker?”

“You mean Bolt, well he is no better than before; you don’t recover from something like that easily do you?”

“No, I suppose it was a grave wound wasn’t it, even for you and your people,”

“He never showed fear towards anyone, even Skull,”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner but there are other matters to attend to,” Kinetic stood up suddenly, clapping his large hands together.

“I know, is he coming?” Vulcan didn’t react to the display other than shifting his gaze to the tree line around the path.

“Which one,”

“The one I really dislike,”

“Ah that one, he said he would come, the other… I far less willing, apparently he doesn’t fear the Directors army,”

“Aren’t they called the Ultimates?” Vulcan asked.

“It’s what the people are calling them, after all, their healing and raw power has made them the perfect super soldiers, the police were massacred trying to hold them off,”

Vulcan half laughed, half grunted, “but the ones sent to the sky scraper, weren’t they butchered then disposed of in front of the old war memorial?”

“Correct, I believe this is only a setback in the director’s schemes however, just like how you managed to best the unit he sent after you. After all, he has many more where they came from; you are merely fighting the first batches,”

“You sound like you are referring to someone’s cooking,” Vulcan scoffed, beginning to pace slightly.

“They are, the cooking of a biologist with access to some very, peculiar DNA,”

“So they were the prototypes?” Vulcan asked, his pacing, pausing for a moment.

“No, they were more like the beta stage, although they are actually already in mass production, he is just throwing away the older ones who still possess some faults which have been eliminated,”

“Cruel, even for the Director,” Vulcan spat.

“Well aren’t you the little angel. Sudden change of heart I take it, you were robbing a bank not too long ago,”

“Circumstances change,”

“Not really, only very slightly, deep down I think you would rob the bank again if you could,”

“Why didn’t I take things from the vault when the Director fired me then?”

“Emotions, mere emotions, maybe you felt threatened by the biker and his imbecile accomplice. After all they did manage to best you,”

“Two on one odd,”

“Yet you claim to be one of the best,” Kinetic scoffed, “I only recruited you because it was easy and I need numbers,”

“Right, of course you do,” Vulcan turned to leave.

“Run away then, everyone will know you are a weakling if you do,”

“I’ll fight them on my own; I don’t need your help,”

“I think you do Vulcan,” a voice chimed from the opposite side of the path.

Vulcan spun around, his fists unintentionally flaring, “you!”

The Conduct stepped into the light of a nearby lamp post, “who else would it be?”