Hero's Call

Chapter Eight

The plan that Czar Destructo had concocted all those years ago before landing in prison was still in progress. He knew it was a sure sign of a perfect plan. Even spending almost half a century in prison hadn't stopped affected the first stage in his master plan for world domination. He hadn't counted on being locked away, but it didn't matter. The virus was perfect. It would last forever, and it had left him the only man on earth with a still active Hero gene. So the second stage of the plan had veered drastically off course when he was sent to prison. No big deal. It wouldn't change the plan. He'd only have to adjust a few things to make sure it went through as planned.

Phase two of his plan wasn't quite as ingenious as the first part. It was just something he had to do before he died, a moment he knew was rapidly approaching. It hadn't been long since he'd busted out of the arctic prison, but he could already feel the time catching up with him. His appearance hadn't changed much, but he could feel the effects of time weighing down on him. The Hero gene had kept him preserved like it should have, but there must have been something else going on there that was keeping him young and spry. No doubt it was put in place to keep him there for far longer than he would normally have been. When he first noticed his joints being a little stiffer than they used to be, Destructo had put it all together almost instantly and did a quick calculation in his mind. According to his math – which was never wrong, or so he thought – it wouldn't be long before he was as old as his arch nemesis Captain Amazing. He had to move quickly to finish the plan he'd set in motion decades before.

While he wouldn't speak of the first part of his plan to a single living soul, the second part wasn't quite so secret. Anyone with a little knowledge of his past would know exactly what he was planning to do. And it was exponentially simpler than the first phase. Destructo was going to clone himself. Simple, of course, being a relative term. His advanced intelligence could easily comprehend the concept of cloning. His current body was not his first. There had been many clones through the years. With each new body he had adopted a new Villainous identity so as to avoid the knowledge of his cloning capabilities to fall into the wrong hands. No matter which Villain he was, his mind remained intact, still bent on world domination. He decided with this new clone, though, that he'd stick with the name Czar Destructo. It had a certain ring to it that just sounded like it would be the perfect title of the emperor of the world.

What most people don't know about cloning is that DNA is like a fine wine. It had to mature to a certain age before it could be ready for the cloning process. Destructo extracted a sample of his DNA just before he was sent away to prison. At the time he thought he had more time to rule the world before having to clone himself. The sample he had taken was a little past the appropriate maturity, but it would have to suffice. Taking the time for a new sample to mature would be fruitless. Time would strike him down long before that. He'd just have to make due.

If his memory served him properly, Destructo had left the sample of his DNA in The Creation Dome off the coast of New Zealand. He had built the compound to facilitate his minion needs. Breeding armies, as it turned out, was far cheaper than buying them. Mercenaries are a lot dedicated only to the highest bidder, and would often price gouge Villains like Destructo because they knew full well how much money they could get. Destructo had never gotten the chance to put any of his biologically enhanced monsters to use however. Such he viewed as a true pity. A full battalion of sand golems would have wrought havoc unlike the world had ever seen.

Destructo knew that Captain Amazing would not take any of his bases offline without destroying any method of transportation that was stored therein, so making his way to New Zealand turned out to be more of a pain than he'd bargained for. Number 1 could make his own way now that his battery levels were once again full. The old robot servant would probably beat his master there, in fact. Unfortunately for Czar Destructo, he was not granted the power of flight when his powers activated. He purchased the cheapest plane ticket to New Zealand he could find, using a perfect counterfeit passport to as ID. It had been a long time since he'd flown commercial. Destructo could have bought first class, but he needed every extra penny to get his master plan back on track. It was a mistake he vowed never to make again.