Chapter 107: Black Dinner (1/2)
Ryan wondered how many lives Felix ‘Atom Cat’ Veran had left.
He had died at the Meta-Gang’s hands at least twice, once to Fallout’s bombardment of Len’s underwater base, and probably alongside everyone in New Rome when Bloodstream escaped confinement. Which should leave him with five lives out of nine?
“Felix!” Narcinia almost rose from her seat, only for Mars to put a hand on her shoulder and force her back to her seat. The young teen looked at her adoptive brother and father in confusion.
Fortuna’s response was far less subdued. “Felix, you ass!” she complained so loudly that Mathias winced at her shrilling voice. “How dare you come to a family dinner dressed like that! You look like a plumber!”
“Glad to see you too, sis,” Felix replied as he rose up, swiping ashes and dust off his clothes. His eyes wandered to the table, meeting confused looks from the guests. “Jamie, Ki-jung… Dad.”
“You could have used the door,” Mars said, his eyes tense. To Ryan’s surprise, he didn’t immediately go for his son’s throat, perhaps because of his daughters’ presence. “We invited you.”
“And I’m sure the guards outside are for show. You would never have let me close to Narcinia if I went through the entrance.” Felix turned away from his father, before noticing Mathias and Ryan. “Who are you?”
“Your sister’s boyfriend,” Mathias replied with mixed feelings. His tense eyes met Ryan’s, silently waiting for a signal. He too understood that the situation would soon degenerate.
“Which one?” Felix asked, curious.
“The right one,” Fortuna replied.
Her brother rolled his eyes, before looking at Ryan. “And… who are you, a new member of the Killer Seven?”
Ryan considered a dozen ways to introduce himself; as Quicksave, as President of the Free World, conqueror of Monaco, immortal and all. All more dignified and flowery than the last.
But only one sentence came to mind.
“I’m BLEEPING your ex.”
The awkward silence that welcomed his declaration delighted the courier.
“Don’t give me that look,” Ryan said to Felix, as the younger hero looked at him with astonished eyes. “It was your ex or your sister, and she’s almost as pretty as you are!”
“Almost?” Fortuna asked angrily. “He doesn’t even groom his hair!”
“Whatever,” Felix said, though the revelation had clearly shaken him. “Narcinia, come with me.”
“What,” the younger Veran asked, “where?”
“Away. My current bosses are a huge disappointment, but working with them will still be way better than making drugs.” Atom Kitty extended a hand to his sister. “Now that that death factory has been burnt to the ground, you can put an end to this tragedy here and now.”
Narcinia didn’t answer, instead anxiously looking at her father. This frustrated her brother. “Narci…”
“Did you do it?” Mars asked his son, his tone dangerous. “Destroy our production center?”
Felix shrugged. “I had nothing to do with that, though I wish I did. Whoever blew up that toxic dump deserves an award.”
His father frowned, and Ryan felt a chill going down his spine. A mobile phone materialized in a purple flash within Mars’ hand, the Olympian immediately making a call.
Livia’s vision was turning into reality.
“Ki-jung, don’t you have anything to say?” Felix asked, but the woman in question avoided his gaze, much to his annoyance. “And you, Jamie? I heard about your promotion. It’s not enough to close your eyes anymore, now will you help Augustus peddle the poison that almost killed your girlfriend?”
Ki-jung flinched, her fiancé taking her hand into his own. “Why are you here, Felix?” Jamie asked, uneasy. Ryan could tell the young hero’s words had struck a nerve. “To open old wounds?”
“I’m here to close them. Bacchus needs chemicals from your division to make his drug. Just by taking that job, you’re enabling the death and ruin of thousands—”
“Felix, I…” Narcinia took a deep breath. “I don’t think now is the time to discuss that.”
“Now is exactly the time,” he protested, taking a step towards his adoptive sister. Jamie rose from his own seat, perhaps to stop him, while Mathias glanced at Ryan and waited for a signal.
Meanwhile, Mars spoke on the phone with a scowl on his face. “He’s here, Janus, but he doesn’t know… he swears he’s not involved… yes, but… please, not before my daughters… some other place...”
The Olympian’s face strained, and though Ryan couldn’t hear what was said on the other end of the line, he could guess. Mars was trying to convince his boss one last time not to execute his godson, or to at least make the hit discreet.
But Ryan knew the older man was wasting his breath. Lightning Butt was convinced Felix had provided the Carnival with the intel that made the devastating Ischia raid possible, and his organization’s myth of invincibility was in jeopardy. A brutal, public murder would carry a clear message to both his foes and followers.
“No traitor shall survive, not even my godson.”
In the end, as Hector Manada once said, Lightning Butt was a gangster with too much power. When threatened, the answer was always more violence and terror.
The time-traveler looked at the fireplace behind Atom Kitten, noticing the tip of a gun’s barrel sticking out of the stone.
“I see.” Mars sighed, his face dark and sorrowful. He looked at his stubborn son, the phone in his hand. When faced with a choice between disobeying his invincible boss and paying the price, or offering a sacrificial lamb… the Capo quickly reached a decision.
The click of a revolver’s trigger echoed in the room.
Ryan froze time, leapt from his seat, and pushed Felix out of the bullet’s way.
When it resumed, the projectile impacted on the wall, Fortuna screaming in surprise while Felix stumbled in shock.
“You should stop shooting people in the back,” Ryan said, as he glanced at the fireplace. Mortimer had phased halfway through the stone, a gun in hand. “It’s getting predictable.”
Mortimer answered with another pull of the trigger, and the room erupted into chaos.
The windows exploded into a rain of glass shrapnels, Narcinia screaming as Ki-jung and Jamie hastily grabbed her and dived down below the table. Mortimer missed and retreated back into the wall, while the shards avoided a horrified Fortuna and a focused Mathias.
The projectiles struck Mars, only for a Roman-styled centurion armor and mask of steel to materialize over his skin. The Olympian moved his hand over the only part of his body exposed, the eyes, and rose from his seat.
“What the—” Felix said, utterly shocked.
“Later, boomer,” Ryan replied, grabbing him by the chest like a princess in distress, and jumping through the opened window. The dining room was on the first floor, and so while the time traveler gracefully landed on the grass below, his favorite cat rolled on the ground. The courier whistled, calling his Plymouth Fury to the rescue.
“Get up!” Ryan ordered Felix, helping him back to his feet. A storm of glass kept Mars busy on the first floor, but not for long.
A car’s headlamps emerged from the night’s darkness on their left, just as lightning struck the earth.
Felix and Ryan looked up in terror, as a man of ivory descended from the night sky, shrouded in a cloud of crimson lightning. Lightning Butt looked down on the duo, his eyes flaring with murderous fury.
But while Felix seemed to give up on the spot, Ryan wisely activated his time-stop. Instead of moving within the frozen time, Augustus vanished from his sight, alongside his red lightning.