The Good Life: Curtain Call (ch. 34) (Patreon)

You know, I couldn't help but feel a little responsible for our current situation. Like… shit, things had kinda spiraled a little bit. I mean, even if I knew saving Homelander would end with a couple major cities being devastated and a nuke landing in Berlin I still would have done it, but I really hadn't foreseen the consequences of my own actions. We all stood in relative silence, our gazes on the screen that showed a mushroom cloud over Berlin. The first nuke dropped on a population center since the Second World War.

There were a few quiet murmurings, a few panicked whispers, but if I had to summarize the reaction… shock seemed appropriate. No one knew what to do. Even I felt frozen with inaction. Just… probably for very different reasons than everyone else was.

‘Please be okay,’ I thought, crossing my fingers, waiting for an update. I wasn't a religious man but I was about to drop to my knees and begin praying if that's what it took -- please be okay, Homelander. He couldn't die like this. I mean, the fact that they decided to throw a nuke at him was kind of cool, but he deserved so much better than this. He deserved a proper send-off. Our fateful fight had nearly arrived. He had to be alive. He had to.

Robin touched my shoulder before leaning in to whisper in my ear. “Russia dropped the nuke,” she informed me and that… that kind of changed things, didn't it? I assumed that Germany nuked itself to take out Homelander -- that, I could respect. Didn't envy the guy that would have to explain that action, but it made sense. Russia nuking Germany to take out Homelander was a very different equation.

There was a small pause as I watched the screen and… “What's Germany's official doctrine in response to being nuked?” I asked her, something dawning on me at that moment. There were a few moments in a person's life that never left you. Moments of time that you would never forget, no matter how old you got. Sometimes they were good memories. Sometimes they were bad.

I still remember the moment that I heard Michael Jackson died. I was mopping the floors of a restaurant at night when the radio reported it. My dad talked about the moment that he heard that the Soviet Union had dissolved.

This was another one of those moments, I realized.

The moment where the world ended.

“Maximum deterrence,” Robin answered, and I knew the answer before I even heard it. I heard about that. It was some news ages ago -- in the aftermath of the Second World War, with the emergence of Supes, a few nations adopted the policy and there were some talks about shifting down to minimum deterrence. Minimum deterrence meant that only military and government targets would be nuked in reprisal. Maximum deterrence meant that every living being, to the lowest of rats, could expect a nuke thrown at them.

“Huh,” I muttered, my gaze glued to the screen, watching as the mushroom cloud began to disperse while the news reporter was trying and failing to keep the panic out of her voice. She gripped the papers before her with white knuckles, her lip quivering ever so slightly -- she was a professional, if nothing else. “How do you know?” I asked and, despite it all, Robin gave me a darkly amused look.

“We control the Whitehouse,” she reminded. Oh, yeah. That. Robin had set that up -- had to cover up Victoria's current state somehow. “We also have a satellite over Berlin,” she continued, making my heart still in my chest. “He seemed to have heard it coming, and he managed to escape the point of impact. He was well within the death range for humans, but… he's not human.”

A small breath of relief escaped me. I felt it in my bones. Homelander was alive. I could only imagine what effects the radiation might have on him, but he was alive. I felt it. I knew it.

“T-this just in,” the reporter began, her eyes filling with fear. “Germany has given the order for immediate reprisal upon Russia. They have given the order to nuke Moscow, b-breaking their official doctrine-” the reporter stuttered out before she was swiftly drowned out by the panic of a good half hundred Supes.

“Oh my God. Of my fucking god,” Marie Moreau, the girl I spoke to earlier uttered, her hands starting to tremble. “Why the fuck would they do that?!”

“Global tension, I imagine,” Robin stated, a darkly amused humorless smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “There was already a great deal of it when the Kremlin openly announced its intention to restore the Soviet Union and with the UN… weakened like this, without any hope of American support, the German leaders understand that even after this disaster, they will likely have to contend with a Russian invasion.” That… was also my fault, wasn't it? Huh.

I mean, I sure didn't pull the trigger, but I definitely set up the dominoes that led to the triggers being pulled.

The words did little to reassure the panicking Supes, but they held their breath as the world held its breath, waiting for the news that they knew was coming.

Germany sent four nukes at Moscow. Three of them were shot down, but it only took one.

A mushroom cloud blossomed over Moscow.

“Robin,” I began, unable to tear my eyes from the screen. “Gather up everyone and send them to Asami's place. We'll be needing the Dias sooner rather than later,” I stated, earning a small nod before she stepped away to issue the orders. I'm sure Asami would have some issue with it, but I didn't really care. We needed the Dias prepped and ready to bounce. I figured that it would be because there was nothing left for me in this world.

Now it seemed to be because there wasn't going to be a world left.

“You humans don't really hold anything back when it comes to self destruction, huh?” Yoruichi remarked, sounding genuinely amazed as she dropped her arm over my shoulders, leaning into me. “I mean, this is a little shortsighted, isn't it?”

I chuckled darkly, waiting for the announcement that we all knew was coming. “Oh, incredibly. But they're mistaking it for long term planning,” I stated as the announcement was swift to arrive.

Russia declared war on the UN and unleashed every nuke that it had in the direction of Europe. Likewise, before the missiles had even managed to leave the silos, the nations of the UN returned the declaration and unleashed everything that they had right back at Russia. Doctrine went out the window and it became about destroying the enemy.

“Just like that, the world has ended,” I declared. It would take a few minutes or so for the nukes to land, but they would land. Dozens of them. Maybe even hundreds. Enough to end the world as the ecology would very likely never recover. What came next would be even more devastating, though. I took out a phone and, thankfully, I still had a signal. Inputting the number, I lifted the phone to my ear as I watched satellite footage of nukes going off across Europe and Russia.

The phone rang once. “H-Heartless?” Came the weak willed voice of a man that was currently at the helm of the nation.

“Whatever we have to take out nukes need to be around New York. All of them,” I stated, my voice flat.

“But… What about the rest of America?” He questioned, fear dripping from his words.

“What about it?” I asked, completely indifferent. I might love the idea of America, but not to the point I was willing to die for it. We were in New York, the Dias was in New York, our exit. No matter what, New York had to remain standing. That was just cold logic speaking. “Arrange for it, and get over here if you want to live.” There, that should be some proper motivation for him.

I went to close my phone but his voice called out, “W-wait! China has launched invasions into Taiwan, India, South Korea, and Japan,” he informed me. “It's part of China’s black book doctrine -- to secure landmass and key points in case of a nuclear war. Resources. It also calls for the destruction of all their local rivals and foreign governments with the use of tactical nuclear bombs permitted.” Meaning that China was about to start lobbing some nukes at us.

What a bunch of bastards, “The moment that they start, start throwing them back, idiot.” I told him with a dismissive voice, ending the call. What even was that question? When someone was throwing rocks at you, you threw them back. The only difference was that these rocks effectively killed everything within ten miles.

It was only then that I paid any mind to the people around me. Marie looked at me with open horror, “What did you just do?”

“Dictated America's response and saved your lives. You should have some time. If your family is in the area, I'd recommend you go get them.”

“For what?! The world is ending, you fucking psychopath!” Marie snapped at me.

“We have an exit,” I said, and instantly, the despair became a blind hope that they clung to like a life raft in a storm. They hung off of my words, and I knew that I had them. Even if I didn't particularly want them. “Make some calls and tell your people to come here. This is probably the only safe place to be in a couple of hours. Well, at least until Homelander shows up.”

Marie went still as the others went to do exactly that. Though, given that they already weren't receiving calls was a bit of a red flag. She looked at me with piercing eyes, but it was Cinder who spoke. “You believe he's still alive, then?” She questioned, an odd note in her voice.

“He's alive,” I said, certain of it. He had to be. “Probably on his way here now to link up with his army. Though, I can't imagine he'll be too happy when he finds out they've gone traitor.” Try as I might, I couldn't keep out all the venom out of my tone, something Marie zeroed in on.

“We didn't ‘turn traitor,’” she snapped at me. “Most of us weren't on his side. We ran when he press ganged his fanatics into an army, and the only reason half of us are here is because we attacked them. We weren't his followers, you psychotic prick,” she informed, making me tilt my head. And, judging by the looks that I got from Robin, that was a rather generous exaggeration.

At the very least, I was willing to buy that she hadn't signed on with Homelander. The rest, I'm guessing, gave up when the going got tough and they couldn't hide behind the world's strongest Supe. That was just disgusting. Fair weather soldiers?

“Noted,” I said, and I could tell that the approval in my voice threw her off. “Now, we have some preparations to make. So, let's get started before the world ends, yeah?”

…

Robin and Asami took command of the situation. My army of gangsters turned out to be weirdly well positioned to enforce some degree of order when it became clear to everyone that the end of the world was fast approaching. There was nothing but panic in the streets. People looting, people raping, people desperately crying. Others, however, seemed to take their encroaching doom with far more grace. I saw a man sitting on a park bench, simply enjoying the weather. I saw a mother and her two children on a local playground, trying to give them some good final moments.

They thought they were going to die. And they were right -- it just wasn't likely to be nuclear hellfire. Though, I suppose they could always die of cancer, or something, in the aftermath.

Asami ended up connecting directly into the New York power grid and drained all the power that she could. My gang began raiding for supplies -- food, water, and iodine tablets. They didn't yet know what exactly the plan was, but they seemed rather comforted by the fact that I did have a plan.

My preparations were a little different. I gathered up the Supes that I learned were disloyal, and the ones brave enough to square up. I prepared every trick I had up my sleeve to deal with Homelander when he arrived -- fuel for fire, exposed power cables for electricity, and a lake for water. All the elements were ready. I had bombs and gas grenades ready as well. All of it neatly arranged throughout central park, waiting for the guest of the hour to show up.

It took him three hours to arrive. I didn’t see him at first. And he was well outside of my Room when I first noticed him, but all the same, I seemed to sense his presence. My gaze lifted upward to see him as he descended from the clear blue sky, and I watched him descend -- at first, I felt nothing but relief when I saw his unmistakable visage. Then that relief gave way to a pit of cold fear when I saw him with my own two eyes.

Homelander was burned. Badly. His suit was completely gone, exposing red blistered flesh with parts of him looking like a seared steak. An American flag hung around his waist, his gaze flat as nearly half of his face suffered the same burn. The Supes steeled themselves as he descended into my Room, and it was then that I felt… static. I instantly knew what it was.

Radiation.

I closed my eyes for a moment, a wave of emotion surging through me. I didn't want to know, but I could tell all too easily with my ability.

Homelander was dying.

“This… this might have gotten a little out of hand,” Homelander admitted, his voice rough and raspy. I tore my eyes open to look at him, giving him a sad smile.

“Yeah, a little bit,” I agreed. Homelander looked at the Supes that were with me, at the naked hostility in their eyes. He let out a sigh, but he didn't seem particularly surprised.

“You're blaming me for what the monkeys did,” he said, and there was a bitter undertone to his raw voice. His voice carried a bit, the supes uncertain, if emboldened by his weakened appearance. “I… I just… I just did what I said I was going to do. They were the ones that decided to blow up the whole fucking planet,” he pointed out, and he did have a point there. I'm not sure I would call it a good point exactly, but it was a point all the same.

He searched their faces, seeing only hostility before he clenched his jaw. His gaze flickered to me and I inclined my head to him. An unspoken message that he heard loud and clear.

“You… fuck you, Homelander! You ruined everything! And we're-” a particularly bold Supe shouted out, only to be cut off when Homelander blurred into action to pick him up by his head. With a short lived scream, Homelslander crushed it with a splash of blood over his chest. Even as fear flowed through the gathered Supes, I felt nothing but sorrow.

He was so much slower. He was so much weaker.

Cinder made to join the fight when it began, but I held her off with a hand. Even as one of the Supes shouted out, “Heartless will beat you!” Just before Homelander punched a hole in his chest, tossing his heart to the side and it was that death that spurred the rest into action. The air became filled with the sound of Supes using their powers -- fire, lightning, ice, even light. I saw the Asian boy that spoke before take a backhand to the face before… he became a she and sent… kinetic energy at Homelander?

Huh.

“They'll be slaughtered,” Cinder stated as the slaughter began. Homelander lashed out, his anger carrying him through the fight even as his body seemed to weaken by the second. Lightning danced across his skin, fire flowed, and ice shattered. He withstood the onslaught and returned the favor, moving through it all to slaughter the traitors.

“S-save me!” One Supe yelped, looking at me with a fearful and desperate gaze, only to be decapitated. The only ones I moved a muscle to help were the ones brave enough to square up to Homelander. Them, I swapped around for the field, letting others take blows that would have killed them. There wasn't an ounce of remorse to be found in my heart.

“I won't ever blame someone for lying through their teeth to save their own skin,” I told Cinder, making her still as the army of Supes -- more than two hundred of them, were slaughtered one by one by the world's strongest hero. “It's perfectly natural. I don't expect anyone to do anything different in that position. What I do take issue with, however, is a lack of commitment. Of follow through.”

Pointing at the slaughtered Supes -- not only was I not helping most of them, I prevented the ones that tried to to flee from getting away. “They were on board with Homelander's revolution. Then, the moment they encountered the slightest bit of resistance, they flipped. And maybe I am making a bigger deal out of it than I normally would because it's Homelander they flipped on. But the point remains the same -- I have no respect for those that can't commit to a course of action. When you say something, when you set your mind to it, see it through to the bitter end and accept whatever consequences come your way.”

Cinder was silent, burning the scene into her mind, understanding exactly what I was telling her. Slowly, she nodded her head, giving me her silent answer.

Good.

Homelander seemed to understand what I was doing since he stopped going for the ones I kept swapping. Or maybe he overheard me. It was an incredible display of violence, and a testimony to his raw power that within ten minutes, the small army of Supes were reduced to a handful of stragglers. Marie still fought on, grabbing hold of all the blood that stained the grass red, before lashing out at Homelander.

Homelander simply flew through it at a casual pace before backhanding her hard enough that she got knocked out. The one that could switch genders at will dove in as a male, took a hit, then switched to female to send a blast of energy at Homelander. He simply dodged out of the way, darting forward while they were still a woman and knocking her out. He didn’t have to. Homelander could have easily killed the two of them. He didn’t simply because he knew that I was protecting them.

My head hung low, my grip tightening on my sword as I took in a deep breath of air and held it in my lungs. The world was ending all around me, but in this moment, I felt something akin to peace. “Cinder. Get those two back to the others. They’re worth keeping around,” I said, pushing myself onto my feet as Homelander floated above a sea of mangled corpses. Cinder hesitated for a moment, her gaze flickering to Homelander, and I could tell she was reconsidering her options.

But, she chose to obey the order, having seen how I treated those who were wishy-washy with their allegiance. I would never blame someone for betraying me, but I wouldn’t respect them.

Cinder grabbed them and dragged them away, leaving just me and Homelander in the very end. We stood across from one another -- Homelander hovering in the air while I stood on it -- holding each other’s gazes for a long moment.

He inclined his head to me, “This is it.”

“Yeah, it is,” I agreed. This wasn’t how I wanted it. I wanted to fight Homelander at his very strongest. Not like this. Not when I could feel him dying even as we spoke. Life was about doing whatever you wanted, not getting everything you wanted, but I had hoped that it would at least give me this.

As we stood across from each other, a rumble traveled through us. Behind me, in a straight shot thanks to Homelander’s previous burst of heat vision, I caught a glimpse of white that blossomed over New Jersey. There was a dull roar that echoed in the air as the city was struck by a nuke, the flash of light fading to reveal a mushroom cloud rising above what was left of the skyline. It could have just been my imagination, but the wind seemed to stir as the shockwave reached us, weakened greatly by some eighty miles of distance.

I gave Homelander a thin humorless smile, “Not a bad backdrop,” I remarked to him. “We don’t have anything to worry about. I made sure we wouldn’t be interrupted.”

Homelander let out a wet sounding laugh before he spat blood out. “You really are in a class of your own, Heartless.” He told me, his lips curling into a smile as he held my gaze. His hands curled into fists that already dripped with blood, his eyes narrowing…

Then it began.

Homelander darted forward while I swapped places with a corpse, his fist smashing through it and I stilled the molecules inside of it to splash ice over him. He broke through it effortlessly, but it gave me a half second to trigger the traps that I had set up in advance. Bombs went off, napalm splashing over chemicals and coal to make the fire burn that much hotter. The heat gathered above my shoulder, but I gave it focus instead of forming a ball of lightning.

I compressed the ball of fire, using what I learned from the ball of water. Pressure was an application of gravity, mass gave it, but so did centripetal and centrifugal forces -- spinning them intensely, like one of those carnival rides. The fire compressed over my shoulder even as I fed more heat and oxygen into it, becoming a thin pinprick rather than the size of a baseball that it wished to be.

Homelander seemed to sense what I was doing because he quickly gave chase, particles of ice falling off of him as he darted for me. He wasn’t as fast as he once was, but he was still fast. A game of cat and mouse began as he blurred forward, each fist striking air as I bounced between objects that I swapped with. He was pushing me to the edge of the Room, which suited me fine. “Room,” I said, recentering it around me, and the new Room eclipsed another burning pile.

The heat made the ball of fire over my shoulder swell even as I compressed it down as much as I possibly could, swirling the ball in on itself to draw it into a single point. When it was the right size, I fed my sword into it, and I felt the carbon breaking down and condensing. The heat and the pressure turning the carbon from the blade and the burning charcoal into diamond. I took greater care this time, properly tempering it as I withdrew the blade.

I couldn’t afford a hack job. I needed sharper than sharp. I needed harder than hard.

The blade sang as I withdrew it as I dodged out of the way of Homelander’s fists. Each one missed me by the breadth of a hair, and while before, my heart had been in my throat, this time the near misses didn’t feel like near misses. As I dodged another, I launched my first true attack, slashing at Homelander. The blade caught him in the forearm as he blocked it, and the edge of the blade sank in.

For the briefest of moments, Homelander froze as a trickle of blood fell from the cut that was barely skin deep.

Homelander’s eyes narrowed into slits before he threw another punch. He was faster than me by a pretty large margin, but I could teleport and he gave me a field of materials to use to do so. We danced around one another -- me swapping places with corpses, branches, and everything else that was around while he relentlessly pursued me. We clashed where we met, sometimes he nearly took my head off with a punch or he would block the blade in my hands with his forearms or hands that were rapidly accumulating cuts.

Another nuke went off. Philadelphia, if I had to guess. They rained down upon America, laying waste to the world, but in that moment, I found that I couldn’t care less as we danced a deadly dance. A single hit from Homelander would be enough to kill me. He wasn’t holding anything back, and I could feel all of his considerable strength behind every single punch. His eyes glowed a burning red, searching for an opportunity to use his heat vision, but he didn’t dare to.

The longer the fight went on, the more it became in my favor. Homelander was weakening. It was a trickle of a drain on his strength and speed, but it was a noticeable one. Meanwhile, the longer the fight went on, the stronger I got. The more heat folded into the compressed sun over my shoulder and when it began to reach a point of critical mass, I siphoned some of it into a ball of lightning.

When I formed a ball of compressed water, it was then that Homelander’s heat vision erupted from his eyes at me. I dodged out of the way, and with a long look, his gaze swept across the buildings that lined central park, toppling them like they were towers of blocks. As he did so, I launched an attack of my own. Water shot out of the compressed ball of water before it was joined by a clap of lightning. Homelander endured the attack, having accepted worse, but I just needed to create a layer of mist to obscure my approach.

I darted forward, the tip of my blade lashing out and slamming into Homelander’s ribs on his burnt side. The skin started to give way, but stopped cold on the thin layer of muscle. I simply didn’t have the raw strength to get through it. My lips thinned as I felt the static that clung to him. Weakening him. Sapping his strength.

Homelander lashed out with a hand, nearly taking my head off, and despite how close the blow came, I found that I was unbothered as I simply leaned my head out of the way rather than swapping with something. The radiation was killing him. Weakening him.

Indecision wracked me for but a moment as Homelander lashed out and our dance began once more. Faster this time as central park became filled with lightning, fire, steam, and beams of heat vision. The park was completely unrecognizable within seconds, trees toppling or burning, the ground upturned to reveal brown dirt. All the while dust encroached from the falling buildings while air sirens began to ring out, declaring a state of emergency.

I needed to create an opening. My lips thinned as my blade sang, darting out like the tongue of a snake to carve a thin line into Homelander’s chest as his fist nearly tore a furrow through my ribs. I leaned out of the way even before he threw the punch, and when I swapped places with a branch, my blade flickered out again, jabbing into the same cut that I marked his chest with. It was impossible to tell if I was cutting any deeper.

Homelander knew what I was trying to do, and instead of defending, he launched a flurry of blows at me. Missiles streaked across the cloudless sky, the sun shining brightly before the lights flickered when there was another blossom of light in the distance. I endured the flurry of blows, watching carefully for an opening and attempting to make one with flashes of lightning or jets of water. Homelander simply barreled through them, tanking the attacks, but it left him vulnerable to my jabs at his chest.

A cold sweat began to drip down my back, the short battle already starting to wear down at my stamina as I constantly jumped around. A trickle of blood down Homelander’s chest was the only hint my attacks did any damage, and the more he endured, the more convinced he became that he could simply ignore the jabs. Homelander’s expression was a driven mask -- he knew he was going to die. He simply wanted to beat me before he did.

I took in a sharp breath before I committed to my gambit. A fist sailed by my ear, the wind ruffling my hair before I started to thrust out with my blade. Homelander didn’t react to it, simply ignoring it in favor of following up the jab with a haymaker. He only realized his mistake when the blade in my hands vanished, replaced with the compressed sun over my shoulder.

I slammed the ball into the cut I made into his chest and Homelander barely had time to react before it erupted in a blast that probably had everyone left in the city thinking that we had just been nuked. The very same instant that I let go of the compression, I took myself as far away as I could from the blast that erupted. For a moment, the world was pure noise as trees were uprooted by the intense force of it. The blast didn’t have as much fuel as the last one I threw at Homelander, but it was a lot more intense at the point of impact.

The blast barely lasted a second, and in the wake of it, there was only silence as devastation. Dust hung in the air, obscuring Homelander. And, despite it all, I couldn’t help but smile as I brushed the dust to the side with a wave of my hand.

Homelander still stood, though his feet were now on the ground. His ribcage was blown out, though most of his ribs were still intact, while the burnt arm was missing entirely. Blood wept from his wounds, flowing over him as he stood in a crater that had him at ground zero. I couldn’t do much about his bones, but the weakened muscle and soft internal organs were as close to what he had to weak points.

“You…” Homelander muttered, his voice a low rasp. He looked up at me, and I saw that he was missing an eye from the blast as well. He started to take a step forward, only to collapse to a knee. I closed my eyes for a moment before I began to walk down to him, a heavy feeling in my chest. “This… this… isn’t… how it’s supposed… to go,” Homelander rasped out, blood pooling underneath him.

“Yeah, I know,” I agreed. I took advantage of his weakened state. Of the radiation that had sapped his strength and weakened his flesh. I came to a stop in front of Homelander, and he tried to rise to his feet, only for his legs to give out from underneath him. I dropped my blade to catch him, gently lowering him to the ground as he looked up at me.

“I-I’m dying,” Homelander breathed, seemingly only now realizing it. I gave him a small solemn nod as what sounded like a disbelieving laugh escaped him. A tear fell from his eye that he blinked away, reaching up with a hand. I took it, and I felt him squeezing down with all of his strength. It was a firm grip, but nothing more. “I’m…” He trailed off before swallowing thickly.

His breathing grew shallow so he took a deep breath, holding my gaze. “I’m glad. I’m glad you were with me, in the end,” Homelander said, uttering his last words with his final breath. Emotion clogged my throat as I squeezed his hand, tears burning in my eyes.

Then Homelander’s eye clouded over with death, and my hero was gone.

It was only then did I let myself weep.