by Chewy Walrus and GoozX
EPS headquarters, Chicago:
"I know you," Dr. Charles E. Walker said tonelessly, staring in deep concentration at the large metahuman before him. "I do, don't I?"
"Do you?" bellowed Rothman, his breath smelling of something that Walker didn't even want to think about. "Forgive me if I don't know you... I meet so many people..."
Rothman sat on a small steel chair, his massive frame almost filling the seat to capacity. His eyes, shining a glossy black, combined with fangs protruding from the underside of his mouth, giving him a truly menacing persona. Walker, however, was unimpressed.
"I believe I saw you at the Zoo during the original onset of the Pathogen," Walker said, recalling the incident in his mind as though it were yesterday. "I see your boils and dry skin have healed up nicely," the doctor smirked.
Rothman raised an eyebrow and looked down at his huge body, then slowly he began to chuckle. "Yes," he said monstrously, nodding. "Yes, the Zoo... I was there. I remember that very well."
"So, we're no longer strangers, are we, Rothman?" Walker said, crossing his arms and leaning back in his seat.
"No," the behemoth said after a moment of reflection. "No, I don't suppose so..."
An awkward silence filled the room as the two men stared at each other, neither flinching nor fearing the other.
"So," Walker began, breaking an uneasy silence, "why revolt? Why uprising? Why revolution?"
"It was time..." Rothman said slowly, as if talking to a child. "You hew-mans... you can never understand the enormity of our cause. Meta is the future, and anyone who stands in our way is not worthy to be a living being."
"Basically, you're telling me that the human race is a dying breed?" Walker asked, raising his eyebrow.
"No 'basically' about it," Rothman said, his rumbling bass voice resounding in Walker's ears. "We are the next evolution of mankind, living proof of Darwin's evolutionary theory with all the potential of the 'master race' that Adolf Hitler dreamed about."
"Hitler?" Walker said, leaning forward. "You're talking about fascism here?"
"No," Rothman answered in his grave monotone. "I'm talking about revolution here, about the new order of things, life as it should be: a world filled with metas, all living in peace with no interference from our extinct hew-man oppressors."
"You're mad..." Walker whispered.
"I am liberated," came Rothman's reply. His black eyes seemed to soften as he glanced up to the ceiling, envisioning the world he had dreamed of. "'O, brave new world'..." he quoted, "...'that has such people in it'..." His eyes turned back to stare into Walker's. "Do you know who said that?"
"Shakespeare," Walker answered, not even needing to think. "William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon. What is your point?"
"The point," Rothman said, a certain venom now lining his words, "is that the utopia has been envisioned for many years by many different people. Sir Thomas More. Karl Marx. William Shakespeare. Adolf Hitler. And now I... Rothman.
"I will be the one," the large meta continued, rising slowly to his feet, "to bring balance to the world and to realize the dream of these daring men. Actualize their fantasies and fulfill their hopes and desires. Turn their whims and fanciful flights into the glorious reality of the future!"
Walker raised an eyebrow, standing slowly. Although he stood some three feet below the towering form of Rothman, he was unshaken and unafraid. His eyes narrowed and his pulse quickened as he spoke.
"You seem to forget, Rothman," he began, "that for every utopia that has ever been dreamed, there have been dystopias -- worlds of seeming perfection with so much fault. They, too, have been envisioned multiple times over the years, by many men. Aldous Huxley. George Orwell. Ray Bradbury. And now you... Rothman.
"You fail to realize," Walker continued, "that your 'utopian' society cannot work. It cannot prosper. Do you know why Sir Thomas More named his imaginary city 'Utopia'? Not because it meant place of happiness and perfection, but rather because it meant 'place that does not exist.' Even your visionaries admit that utopia is a pipe dream, a lost cause. Give it up, Rothman... just give it up."
The obsidian eyes of the beast that was Rothman rested on Dr. Walker, gleaming as the light refracted off them. The beast smiled, licking his lips as though his appetite were insatiable. "You misunderstand," Rothman rumbled. "My cause is noble, not lost. My dream is admirable, not hopeless. And my followers... well, let's just say that my followers are more than content to carry my dying wish of a one-world metahuman government to the four corners of the earth!"
"Providing they survive," Walker said, turning his back on the large man. A massive hand found its way to Walker's collar with ease as Rothman slammed the scientist against the wall, hard.
"What did you mean by that?" the self-proclaimed visionary growled. "'Providing they survive'?"
"In exactly one minute, that plane will explode in a blaze of glory, a glory that was the metahuman revolution," Walker said, talking slowly as if to a child. "Your plans, your dreams, your hopes, your vision... will be nothing more than a burning smudge on the runway. I am saving the future of mankind. I am preventing dystopia..."
"You..." Rothman seethed. "You... I should kill you, little man!"
"And what would that accomplish?" Walker asked calmly. "Instant gratification? A momentary soothing of your already raging hatred? Let me tell you something, Rothman: nothing you can do to me will help you get your dream back. Nothing you can do to me will make you the next world leader. The only thing you can do is kill me. And what, in the grand scheme of your master plan, would that accomplish?"
Rothman's features softened as Walker drove home the final blow.
"Nothing."
The word hit Rothman like a can of bricks as his hand slipped loose of Walker's apparel, allowing him to slip to the floor.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other engagements," Walker said, excusing himself and leaving Rothman alone with his own thoughts.
As Walker took his time, savoring every moment of crushing Rothman's dreams and aspirations, he didn't notice a small beep on I.G.O.R.'s security systems.
"Alert 102045 -- active meta intruder."
A small red light flashed on the control boards, and the monitors began recording. A figure floated through the hallways of the huge complex, wandering aimlessly. Dressed all in red, the figure held a cane and had a black top hat on his head. His eyes sparked yellow. After a few minutes, he disappeared. The tapes recorded it all.
In a few hours, Walker would review the tapes. Right off the bat, he would recognize the figure as Mick Harrison, also known as M'xy. This would anger him, how one of the "Revolutionaries" could slip into his headquarters, his home, without his full alert. He would blame it on the Chicago Revolution getting his full attention.
He would vow to finally do something about these pests. He would get conformation that his plan was already set in motion, soon.
Elsewhere, two figures sat around a table.
"How did it go?"
"Just as planned."
"Ssso, Walker took the bait?"
"He will, just as the Revolutionaries did. By this time tomorrow, they shall be at war. The victor will be met at his weakest point, with MY army. And I will have fulfilled my end of our bargain, just as you shall fulfil yours."