Challenge #01753-D292: Quest's End
"Are you okay?"
"I may be crying, but I can still kick your ass!" -- OohLookShiny
To be heroic, you don't have to be physically strong. It's an advantage to have that, but it is not necessary. To be heroic, all one needs to do is continue in your efforts to improve the world despite the torturous circumstances in your way. People even have a term for the sort who can deal a lot of damage, but also end up almost ruined in the process. "Glass Cannon".
To be heroic, one must be willing to lay everything on the line to right what once was wrong. Even one's own life. Because the stakes matter that much.
Gin had taken the moniker 'Glass Cannon' as a warning to her enemies and her teammates alike. Yes, she could go off. She could knock a great deal of hit points off the bad guy of the week. But she could also end up in a lot of trouble from some relatively low hitters. And now she was here. Facing down the biggest, baddest, big baddie of them all. The one who started this fucking nonsense in the first place.
Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered...
"Stop. Stop! I made you. You should be thanking me."
Gin coughed up more blood. The first two levels had been physical challenges and they had been rough. The meat shields had done what they could, but she'd still taken a dangerously large percentage off her hit points. The next two levels had been mental challenges. And the last... They'd made her relive her worst day.
"For what, exactly? The release of the virus that divided the world into the 'worthy' and the dead? The overpriced cure that most of the population couldn't afford? The fact that I had to sit and watch my baby brother die? Slowly. Painfully. In a filthy hospice while I did everything I could to keep him alive for one more day? Just because he had a different couple of switches flipped in his DNA, you decided he was worthless. Just because we were poor... you wanted him to die. Because your precious economy would flourish without 'freeloaders' like him."
It might have been an impressive speech, were it not for the fact that her eyes were leaking tears that she thought had run out years ago.
For a moment, the grand architect of the world as they knew it faltered. Had a human moment. "Are you okay?"
No, dumbass. I've been through your mincer and I have fresh wounds. Physical, emotional, and mental. Gin charged up her Big One. "I may be crying, but I can still kick your sorry ass!"
For all his enforced social engineering, he was still human. The superior people he made with his virus did not count him. He, too, was missing the vital sequence in his DNA that could have made him one of the many Supers out there. But he was also rich enough to afford the medicine that saved his miserable life.
Until now.
She slowed down the strike. Removed the concussion wave that would have instantly turned his brain into mush and killed him instantly. She wanted him to feel it as his body melted away from his nervous system from the epidermis down. She wanted to hear him scream like poor little Davvi screamed on his last day. When they couldn't even afford the anaesthetic that would have at least given him peace.
She wanted justice. Extracted at below zero kelvin. For everyone on the planet who had had to suffer like she'd suffered. For everyone who died like Davvi died.
And just before this scum of a human being would lose his hearing for the rest of his life, she screamed, "He was only FOUR, you son of a bitch!"
And then there was nothing more than ash, and a white-hot hole in the wall of his golden offices.
The rest of the team scooped her up. The healer started working on her injuries, now that the world was safe.
"Had your catharsis?" asked Crystal Peace as he laid on hands.
Gin laughed as she sobbed. "Oh yeah. Good and proper."
"It's still murder," said Mountain Maid. The embodiment of a brick meat shield. She was usually on the side of law, but Gin could see her softening. "You'll have to stand trial. Assuming there's even twelve people who could be impartial about this one."
Gin sank into full relaxation as Crystal Peace's healing took hold. Sang the pain away in gentle harmonies. "Don't think they exist," she slurred. And then the world just stopped hurting.
She was right. There was no such thing as an impartial jury of her peers. The whole world had been harmed by that man.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / dbvirago]
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