Chapter Six

Hero's Call: Chapter Six

Acolyte Seven didn’t necessarily dislike Earth. It was just that when compared to his home world, Earth was a dirty, disgusting rock that he was surprised could support even the lowest form of life. Seven’s people chose Earth as the next planet to receive the Hero gene because it was the only planet that could support intelligent life in its solar system. To be fair, there’s plenty of life on a few of the other planets, but Martians are gamblers and drunks, and the people of Venus could barely string together enough words to make a sentence.

News of Czar Destructo’s prison break reached Seven three Earth days ago. Since the only Hero left on Earth was over a century old, Acolyte Seven was chosen to come to Earth and hunt down Czar Destructo himself. Do not be fooled, Seven was no Hero. He had been taught rudimentary self-defense maneuvers, but if it were to come down to it, he would be quickly neutralized in a fight. As such, The Council had seen fit to send him with a weapon.

It hung limply by his side. The weapon designed by his own people. They have no need for weapons amongst themselves, they are a peaceful race, but on the rare occasions they need to venture to Earth on some errand, they would bring those weapons with them. It was a simple design that renders anyone with human DNA unconscious if hit directly. A handy gadget to have in the land of men.

Seven’s objective was simple: find Czar Destructo and deliver him to the proper authorities by any means necessary. He was given a list of all of Destructo’s known hideouts. A small disc sat on his waist opposite his weapon. It allowed him to travel instantly to any point on Earth he desired. He simply had to think of the spot, press the button, and he’d find himself there in a matter of second.

He’d started with Atlantis. Seven had always found the legend of Atlantis fascinating. A city of far advanced technologies sunk into the sea, lost and forgotten. No one can remember what caused Atlantis to sink. Some say it just got too advanced for its own good and God smote them down. The real reason, as Seven’s people remember it, was an old Villain by the name of Killtastic. It was a stupid name for a stupid criminal. He had had too much wine and sank the city on accident. He managed to disappear during the ensuing mayhem and avoid any of the blame.

Czar Destructo had managed to uncover its secret location, and raise it for a base of his operations. He used some of the Atlantean technology to amass an army that was still far more advanced than any Earth could create. Captain Amazing was there to meet him, and destroyed his army, probably without breaking a sweat. The city was still deep at the bottom of the ocean where Amazing had left it.

After Atlantis, Seven visited Castle Destructo high in the German mountain ranges. It was Destructo’s first real hideout. The Council thought he would be most likely to come back here to restart his new regime. It was a logical conclusion, but the walls of the castle had completely been annihilated by Captain Amazing, turning it to nothing but a pile of rubble. So far, he’d done a very thorough job of cleaning up after Destructo.

The base deep in the Rain Forest was burned to the ground. The Ice Fortress he built near the summit of Mt. Everest had been melted. Even the hideout on the Moon had been turned into a crater. Captain Amazing had done his homework and aced the test with flying colors.

There was one last base Seven had to check. It was a massive geodesic dome made of primarily glass on the coast of New Zealand. The massive shell jutted into the sky like a cracked and broken tortoise shell. Four large generators sat at diagonals around the dome. No doubt, at one point, powering Czar Destructo’s evil experiments. Now they sit lifeless and weather worn. A long metal pathway stretched from the entrance to the dome onto the beach. A broken, inconsistent mile or so of luminous highway in the sun.

Seven stepped onto the path and walked casually towards the dome. The metal was marred with dents, and in some places he had to teleport across great gaps in the bridge. Every hundred feet or so stood two identical statues of Czar Destructo along the guardrails of the bridge. Halfway down the path, one of the statues was decapitated, while its partner had been removed completely leaving nothing but a pair of stone feet.

The entrance to the dome was impressive. Well, would have been impressive if it hadn’t been destroyed. It appeared to be wrought of pure gold. Etched into the gold was a mural of Czar Destructo standing atop the Earth with fist raised high. Each of the continents was carved out of thousands of people bowing and groveling at their new emperor. Seven knew Destructo had always thought very highly of himself, had the highest of goals: world domination.

Half of the golden doors were missing allowing Seven to enter freely. To the left and right of the doors on the inside were two turrets crushed into tin cans. Seven couldn’t imagine that they even affected Captain Amazing before he destroyed them. A step or two past the turrets laid two crumbled security droids. One’s arms were missing. The other has its partners arms jammed through his head and chest.

Even with the windows shattered on the dome, the air was stagnant. There were no footprints, so he knew Destructo hadn’t been there since his escape, but it wouldn’t hurt to look around. The entrance hall was small, made, presumably, out of the same metal as the path outside. Seven could tell it gleamed when it was built, but now it was lackluster and dirty. There was a retina scanner at the far end of the hall on the floor. About five feet above the twisted piece of metal, there was a small hole where the scanner would come out if it were still intact. The doors were pried open; the metal curled up like a cardboard box forced open on Christmas day.

Seven stepped over the threshold and found quite an interesting scene. A single pathway wound out in front of him like a great metal snake. To his immediate right of the path was a dense jungle. The leaves were withering, and he could see the bodies of giant ants decaying in the trees. To the left of the path was a vast desert wasteland. Several birds had swooped in and were perched on some of the cacti. A small colony of sand golems have hardened and turned to stone. The generators outside weren’t actually for extra power supply. They were there to keep the eco systems stable. This wasn’t just some lavish fortress to stroke Destructo’s ego. It was an eco dome designed for breeding monster armies.

Acolyte Seven walked further along the path to find a large pool on one side. The water was crystal clear, and he could see leagues of coral and seaweed. Lying motionless at the bottom of the water were several skeletons of enormous fish with razor sharp teeth. On the other side was a meadow with hundreds of small mounds feeding into the ground. Next to one of the nearby burrows is what appears to be a dead prairie dog. It didn’t appear to be anything special or formidable, but knowing Czar Destructo they were probably poisonous or at least had super strength enough to topple a skyscraper by burrowing. He was an evil madman, but, damn it, he was a genius.

The door at the end of the path slid open without any urging. Obviously the first two sets of security measures were enough to forgo security further into the dome. The doors lead to a large command center in the center of the artificial eco systems. The walls of the room were covered with computer screens. One showed the status of each environment. At the moment it read that each one of them was a catastrophic failure. Next to that was a large map of the world with several small lights that had gone out. Each light marked one of Destructo’s hideouts. None of them were lit any longer.

Against the far wall of the room was a small cabinet with its door slightly ajar. A faint glow was emitting from the inside. Seven opened the door slowly, afraid that what was inside might be unstable and cause an explosion. He was wrong. Two small vials were sitting on the middle shelf glowing with a jelly-like substance. One was labeled ‘T.S.’. The other was labeled ‘Czar Destructo’. Seven’s knowledge of human DNA wasn’t sufficient, but he knew enough to recognize two phials of the substance when he saw them. He wasn’t sure Destructo wasn’t going to use these vials for some sort of cloning scheme, but he wasn’t going to let him see it come to fruition if the Villain ever did come back looking for the sample. Seven grabbed the one that belonged to Destructo, and left the other. To his knowledge, there hadn’t been any Hero or Villain in Earth’s history to share the same initials as the ones on the vial. Well, not any that Czar Destructo would bother cloning. They wouldn’t be powerful enough. Yet Destructo had the sample for a reason. He reached for the other vial, planning to take it just in case, but he stopped as a message came through the telepathic link The Council had created between their minds and Seven’s.

“Urgent message for Acolyte Seven,” a voice said. It was devoid of any emotion like a recording. “Visit 170 Mercury Cir, Buckland, Ohio. Matter of extreme urgency. Great haste needed. End transmission.”

Acolyte Seven assumed it was a sighting of Czar Destructo, the news of which had come to The Council’s attention. It was a grave omen that it came from Buckland, Ohio. A matter of extreme urgency, indeed. Acolyte Seven left the command center, and walked along the winding path taking one last look at each of the dying artificial eco systems in the dome. He stepped outside the dome into the fresh New Zealand air. Just before he pressed the small button on his teleporter, he tossed the vial of Czar Destructo’s DNA into the ocean and watched it sink like a stone. That should save Earth some trouble in the future. The thought of the other vial had left his mind completely.