The Revolution Factory

CHAPTER FORTY NINE

Washington, D.C.


Two Suns still sparked the sky, making every day as bright as the summer solstice. Security was higher than ever along the National Mall, and yet the same age-old iron gates protected the White House. A young tourist lets go of the red balloon his mother just bought him. It's pulled into the skies as a storm rolls in. The cloud casts it shadow from the White House to Capital Hill, and the boy falls to the sidewalk short of breath. His mother runs to his side, "Harold!"

The President sees a light reflect off of the clock on his desk in the Oval Office as if the storm had passed already. He gets up and takes a moment to look outside. "But that's impossible..."

The storm clouds still hovered above the Capitol, but the sun shined below them within the boy named Harold by the gate. The power of the sun harnessed in Harold's Heart. The poor boy screams as the energy overcomes him and is released into the atmosphere in a blast wave. The wave tears Harold and his mother to atoms. It dissolves the White House and the iron gates to nothingness. Everything in the radius of the blast wave now floats in the air above them as radiated particles. The red balloon passes through the storm clouds as it begins to rain.

A shadow leaves Columbia in cinder.

The Pentagon immediately went to DEF CON ONE, declaring martial law on the nation after loosing the President, Vice President, and most of the cabinet. The major cities began evacuation. Once the news and internet got the information to the public it was not long before their was looting and rioting in the streets. It didn't matter if you were in a city or suburb, people were scared; democracy and liberty were at its weakest. Like an army without a commander retreating at the first sign of trouble, society was crumbling.


Due to his expansive research in the area, Doctor Mordechai Fitzsimons was given orders to take his team along with the super human soldier squadron to secure and protect the largest city in the country.


New York City, NY


DarkFlood sat on the roof of a skyscraper timing Moses and Vlad running through the city. Moses had learned how to create stone slabs while Vlad held them in the suspended in the air as they ran high above Chinatown's streets. They were both well on their way to becoming super heroes. Soon they would no longer need Philip to be DarkFlood. Vlad was calling himself Geronimo. Moses wore sleeveless shirts, showing the flesh on his arms that was now smooth grey stone from his shoulder down to his fingers, a trademarked look for his neighborhood persona, Stone Thrower.

It had been a couple of weeks now without his skin eroding any further. Moses prayed it was over. They did not mourn Lazarus, for DarkFlood told them that they would all see him again. And Jason used his power to keep them off the grid and hijacked into the system from the desktop and television at Moses Apartment along with Dr. Randolph, who was finding himself more and more useless every day.

As Jason and Randolph found out about Washington, DarkFlood found himself waiting for his team to finish a city scramble. It never took them this long. Something was wrong... He jumped off the skyscraper and the cloak Sensei gave him fixed to his hands and caught the wind like a hang-glider. He tracks down the stone tablets suspended in the air, but no Moses or Geronimo were near. Police sirens echo around the corner. He turns in and teleports onto the hood of the police car. DarkFlood waves his hand behind him and the police sirens turns off. The two officers in the patrol car are dead. He looks down the street and this is what he sees...

A woman out in the street holding her head as her elbows and knees turn to knots and her feet turn to stumbling stumps, her skin turns to bark. Before she can finish transforming people in the shops around her throw Molotov Cocktails and try to shoot her dead. They pull a guy hiding in his apartment out to the street for another public execution. Even the children are watching and cheering the lynch-mob on.

He must do something. DarkFlood scatter-jumped over to them before they killed a man for being blue and able to breathe under water. DarkFlood rubbed his hands together and pulled the blue from the man's face, creating water to put out the fire on the woman's back. The crowd panicked upon seeing DarkFlood and scattered, revealing his men down the block combating another rampaging mob.


Moses was keeping a burning building from crumbling over families still rushing out of their apartments. He threw pillars of stone up from the ground to replace the caving foundation. Geronimo stood back to back with him, holding the bullets away from people who took advantage of them being distracted after catching them use their powers even though they were clearly saving people. His patience was spent. For Vladimir Geronimov proud Russian and father, they did not deserve a second chance. His hate erupted a power more than he ever imagined. He stopped and pulled all the bullets and all of their hearts into the pavement. Moses felt the tremor of death create a schism, but did not dare to look back.

Around Manhattan tanks and Humvee convoys cover all the bridges and tunnels. Joining the police in a city wide lock-down. They quickly comb every neighborhood from Washington Heights to Staten Island, putting down any citizen uprising or rioting mob. Fitzsimons along with the Hatter and Faulkner leading the super human soldiers ride to Chinatown. The soldiers seek out every super human from the neighborhood out to Times Square, along with every other neighboring district where Oliver, Yvonne, and the Alchemist were waiting to round them up into two groups. The first group was to be only a few recruited into the new human army. The second group would be sacrificed to appease the remaining humans, making them think that Fitzsimons was still "following orders".

Jason finally gives up on waiting for Philip, Moses, and Vlad to return home and goes out looking for them instead. He passed through the alleyway and night draws over him like a curtain. Even the floor runs black. The Shadow Man surrounds Jason. He pulls out his cellphone from his pocket and supercharges it to emit a light. Jason stands strong.

One lone beacon in the darkness.

Jason held his beacon for someone to find him. The whole city was crying out. Who would be there to save him now?

The docks and the ships are abandoned. For the first time in years, the Intrepid is active, patrolling the Hudson River. The water shifts with an unusual tide and floods down city blocks. It moves with a mind of its own and tracks a source its been looking for since China.

Jason can't keep the spark alive in the phone forever and the shadow begins to take over the dwindling light. The water carries over its own residual trail of inter-dimensional goo. The Shadow Man reveals himself to Jason whose phone breaks in his hands. The pressure of the darkness brings the kid to his knees and right before the Shadow Man kills him, Lazarus and his son return with a champion from the Realm of the Dead.

Sensei returns from the afterlife as an embodied spirit and swipes the last bit of light up over Jason with his samurai sword clashing against the Shadow Man's scythe.

Hydro reforms from the obscure channel of water running in between them, facing Lazarus.