The Revolution Factory

 CHAPTER FIFTY TWO

 Times Square, New York


Moses threw obstacle after obstacle into the ground after retreating from the stage. The Alchemist walked through the air like a mist was carrying him. He swiftly kicked and jumped over Moses' obstacles. Moses was worried and tried to keep up with everything around him. He fell back into the battle between revolting refugees and the soldiers imprisoning them. Moses used them as a means to get his shit together. He backed up next to a parked car and tried to visualize everyone fighting around him on the concrete.

DarkFlood blocks another strike from Faulkner as he pushes back and feels Moses' mind projecting from the square. He needs help. DarkFlood closes his eyes and transmits his sonar and visions to help access what Moses needs. Moses screams in hysterical pain and a cliff shoots up out of the street that lifts him and the parked car up twenty feet. DarkFlood takes the hit from Faulkner and Fitzsimons moans on the floor, distracting both of them.

"You don't understand..." Fitzsimons coughed on the floor, "Soon I will become him completely."

"Then who is really the enemy!?" Philip yelled out as Seventh and Broadway were decimated by razor sharp cliff spiking out of the ground. "THE THIEF..." the two streets hemorrhage asphalt, "...OR THE MURDERER!"  The stone spikes come to a fine point where many have plunged into the hearts of Fitzsimons' mindless soldier drones. But it does not stop the Alchemist.

Moses turns himself into a stone giant. The Alchemist laughs, he feels his opponent is now ready to fight like the gods they were.

He pulls a giant golden sword out and cuts a curved slice up to Moses' stone giant head. The Alchemist puts the sword away and runs up the slice before it fades, leaping onto Moses' shoulder. Moses shrinks back down to normal size, his head last, and they both plummet back down to the floor. The Alchemist throws two golden ropes from his hands attaching to the walls of the towers and Moses raises the ground below him to catch his fall. The Alchemist throws two golden discs at Moses and he counters by raising a wall to block them.

The discs shatter into dust and dissolve the wall. The Alchemist blows the gold dust forward and it forces Moses to inhale the golden slivers, scraping his lungs. Moses coughs and heaves. He doesn't know what to do. The Alchemist drops down on his back with his elbow. Moses turns over and pulls the concrete of the street through his chest knocking the Alchemist in the face. Moses slams his fist into the road and pulls up electrical chords connected to a streetlight. He swings the chords down and they crush the street light into the Alchemist.

The ground shakes and a short earthquake drops Moses down into the trench he formed from the pulled-up chords and the crack. He looks for his enemy. The Alchemist runs in the dark cavern, his shadow shining off a reflection for Moses to see. He chases him down and the Alchemist jumps out from behind him. He grabs Moses' face and turns him to gold. He is frozen into a statue. Moses pulls the earth beneath his feet once again and manifests enough pressure to break the golden hold. The Alchemist loses control over his opponent and the gold cracks. Underneath the shedding gold skin, Moses is pure stone...

He can feel it. He is more dense. It takes more to move but he adapts. Moses feels everything more as the weight of the world folds all around him. His gravitas shifts and he sees the world a little differently from now on. He is the stone, one in the same. And he could do whatever he wanted. The stone skin re-solidified into different colors. He could mimic his old appearance. Luckily he was bald to begin with, along with the black vest he was wearing it didn't take much. And what the hell, he decided to keep his grey-stone arms.

Moses was reborn in his natural habitat beneath the earth's crust. 

Lazarus and Yannie hold each others hands, father and son, and bend the light around Hydro. He is bound by the light. If he touches it he will be thrown through time and space. Randolph pants on the ground as the build up of unnatural energy is forcing him to go into cardiac arrest. He releases rogue pulse blasts to try and ventilate the overflow. They cut into the skyscrapers and cause them to buckle and break, plummeting into the square. The Hatter walks up to him and stares down at the dying doctor, smiling "Just as I thought..."

"No..." Randolph squirmed.

"I knew you would be an easy win..." The sociopath laughed at the mistake, " especially when your so-called friend already signed your death warrant."

The Hatter was not making any sense. Randolph could barely concentrate. His heart was failing. The pain was blinding, it cut him off from the world. All he could hear was his heartbeat dying out. This was the end for him. Lazarus and Yannie slam the cage down on the Hatter, trapping him with Hydro. Hydro extends his arm into the Mad Hatter's face as he mutes his screams. Yannie closes the cage, combining it with Hydro's water, and the three of them are sent off through space and time.

The alleyway fight is over. But all is not lost... Lazarus looks at his hands, they are flesh, he was no longer like Sensei or Yannie, a being of light. He was human once again. Lazarus knows the selfless sacrifice his son had made, and loves him for it. He could only hope that one day he can join him in glory, but right now he was needed by his friend. The kind doctor who looked after his boy for free after he nearly died in the fire. Laz runs over to the still body on the ground. He stands over him, never expecting to see that...

Dr. Randolph was dead.