A thousand excuses pass through your head. Admit to working with Syndrome, tell them how you left, deflect, deny, disengage. You can… you can…
Something breaks, at long last, within you. Your eyes close and your face twists in an attempt to hold it back, but the barriers are scattered in turn as a choking sob escapes you.
"I am… a monster." You begin.
And so you tell them everything. You know time is short, but you do your best to leave nothing out. Of the handsome man who seemed to be on top of the world, of grand plans to bring a revolution to the world. Of darker whispers, carefully tested one after another, and which you had decided were unimportant in the face of
everything. Of KRONOS.
The real KRONOS. Syndrome's revenge for a petty slight you could never begin to justify. Your employees simply stare at you, mouth agape. Hego watches silently, considering you with eyes you dearly wish would look away, as you tell of more dead than you could even count, offhand, an entire generation of heroes decimated. Gazerbeam, Everseer…
"...Mr. Incredible?" Hego asks, quietly.
The tears begin to flow freely down your face. "He would have loved you." You say, in between heaves that wrack your thin frame. "He was kind, professional, brilliant. He never stopped fighting, ever, until…"
You close your eyes. "He could have killed me." You say slowly. "But he didn't. Maybe he should have."
"This- this is insane!" Marco declares, leaping to his feet despite his many, many serious injuries and pointing an accusing finger directly at you. "She was going to say murderer- you're a murderer!"
"Marco, you shouldn't get upset." Lizzy says tonelessly.
"Don't you 'don't get upset' me, Ms. Clinically Detached! This is a blatantly appropriate time to be upset! What could possibly justify-"
"Marco." Lizzy interrupts.
"
What?"
"Your ribs are broken."
Marco blinks, as if he had momentarily forgotten. "Oh, right. OW, JESUS-!"
Marco collapses back to the ground amidst a litany of invectives. "This changes nothing!"
Lizzy looks at you with a slight tilt of her head. "No, it does not." From her, it might as well be a gunshot.
"Well." Mezmerella, still holding the actual gun, "I guess I was right."
She's started pacing. "I had my suspicions. The omnidroids were obvious on the scale they acted. Compared to any other company, Kronos' 'incidental' Super kill count was way too high for it to be anything but deliberate. That and-" She pauses there.
"I'm sure you don't need to hear
me monologue about it, do you?"
You shake your head, quietly. You don't trust your own voice right now. You shy away for a moment before forcing yourself to meet her gaze. A part of your mind you wish you could force down quietly lists off the known conditions of her power, and what she could do to you.
Mezmerella stares long and hard into your eyes, looking for something.
There is a quiet click of metal.
"Oh well." With that, Mezmerella shrugs, and holsters the safetied gun between her wings. "And I only got to use those like, once, too."
"What?" you ask quietly.
"What?!?" Marco complains, from the ground.
"
What?" Mezmerella quips sardonically. "Everyone involved is dead now except for you, right? Shallow graves, one and all. There's no one left to apologize to."
"We can't just-"
Lizzy cuts Marco off before he can finish. "She's the super."
"Hey!" Mez snaps. "I am a perfectly normal super affairs consultant." Nobody buys it. After a moment the attempt at levity fades, and an uncomfortable silence descends on the four of you.
That silence is shattered by the sound of sirens. How long has it been since the police were called? Twenty minutes? Thirty? It might as well have been months. Regardless, you can see snipers taking up positions on the roof in case of active supers, and think you can see the blue of EMT uniforms picking through the rubble. The party is very… over.
"What… happens now?" You ask, your ability to control the situation long since drained away.
"I'll figure that out once I'm sure there's no internal bleeding." Marco snarls from the floor.
"I see no reason to involve the authorities." Lizzy says. "I will be informing the doctor."
With that she is already walking away, possibly to guide the first responders.
Mezmerella glances at you. "I'll make sure she doesn't feed them her ants. Or vice versa." As she turns to go, she pauses. She looks like she wants to say something, but instead she simply leaves you alone, with one exception.
Hego looks at you for a long, long moment. He's hardly spoken since you began your story, eyes hardly leaving your face since admitting the truth. The man has been an open book as long as you'd known him, yet now you might as well be staring at a locked door.
Then his hands grasp your arms. Faster than you can even process, you are held in place. Hego gazes directly into your eyes.
"Anyone can cook."
W-what???
Hego's face twitches for a moment at your incomprehension, the beginnings of a snarl passing over it before he smoothes it away as quickly as it came.
"Anyone can be a hero. At the right time, for the right reasons. Anyone can make a difference.
"You
have to."
He sets you down, you try not to stumble.
"Be better." he says.
And then he too walks away.
===
The paramedics arrive moments later, lifting Marco up onto a gurney before moving on to Evelyn, Warren, Winston, and the countless others unconscious or worse throughout the convention hall. You pause for a moment as Cyrus Bortel is carted past you, arm bent horrifically in at least three places from falling rubble. Before they can move on to the ambulatory, however, Winston stirs, his burned arm gripping onto the hem of the responder's uniform. "Wait… Evelyn-"
"She's alive, sir, but we need to get you both to the hospital."
"Make sure she's guarded." He adds, surprising even you. "Hego? Elizabeth?"
You walk over to the man, bereft of anything else to do.
"Thank you." He says, eyes shining with tears even as his arm shakes from the effort. "You, and everyone you brought with you. DEI has stood with Supers time and again, and tonight… you helped to save them, save me, save my sister… from herself. Whatever shape Olympia takes, you have my support. Will have my support. Always. Thank you for all you've done for supers."
You attempt to smile. You accomplish a grimace. Lizzy coughs. Mez rubs the back of her neck.
You are saved by a horrible, crackling screech, and then a rush of static. "Hey, is one of these doodads actually still working? Oh, fantastic. It's a new day for all of us!"
You look up to see a single surviving intercom device, dangling from the ceiling by a thin black cord. "What in the-"
"Yep, it's me. Surprised? I did say I hacked the mainframe. Hopefully ENCOM can forgive the aheh, little intrusion."
The dulcet tones of Frank Sinatra pipe over the intercom.
You are too tired to ask how.
"Well done Ms. Peña. Knew you had it in ya. Smiles all around!"
"You gonna go back in your robot thing?" Lizzy asks.
"Ah, no. That old suit's a bit… fried. Cryin' shame, I'll miss it. Was sorta hoping it wouldn't come to this, but there's worse ways to live, I suppose."
"Then why are you here?" She asks, and again you are too tired to stop her.
"Well. The show must go on. And I did say I had my own original composition to provide. Not gonna let this little mishap get in the way. Was hoping to play it live, but this'll have to do."
The last living intercom crackles once again as you walk out of the room and into the dim light of the moon. There's a glaze in your eye as the trumpets begin, and a limp in your step as the saxophones play their first chord. You feel like garbage. But…
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22vbhTi1ieI
This was a triumph
I'm making a note here; "Huge success"
It's hard to overstate
My satisfaction
Olympia Science:
I do what I must
Because I can
For the good of all of us
Except the ones who are dead-
Evelyn begins to stir, slightly, only for a horde of national guard to descend on her with riot grenades. She screeches in fury as Sinatron launches into another verse, even as she's overtaken by orbs of sticky black goo that you know for a fact were provided to the state by Kronos. You stumble slightly, and try not to think on it.
-Now, these points of data
Make a beautiful line
And we're out of beta
We're releasing on time
So I don't mind the shock
Because you're not gonna walk-
With the people who are
Still alive-
A hovercraft moving significantly faster than it ought to practically crashes itself into the ground. An extremely incensed Shego leaps out of it, only to find her brother standing in front of her, a neutral expression on his face.
A few months ago, he might have asked her if he'd proved it yet.
Now he doesn't need to.
-And believe me I am still alive,
I feel fantastic and I'm still alive,
I'm plat'num charting and I'm still alive
Still Alive
Still Aliivvvvve!
"I'm still alive, baby!" Sinatron crows.
And with a final spark, the speaker's cord snaps, and it smashes onto the floor.
===
Quest: The Best is Yet to Come complete!
Mirage's Intrigue has increased by 1! Mirage's Stewardship has increased by 2!
Marco's Martial has increased by 2! Marco has sustained several injuries and a sick new scar!
Lizzy's Diplomacy has increased by 1! Lizzy's Learning has increased by 2!
Mezmerella's Intrigue has increased by 2!
Winston's Diplomacy has increased by 4.
Hego's stats have increased across the board.
Judge Doom's Diplomacy has increased by… 1.
Glomgold's Stewardship has increased by 1!
Thanks to Glomgold's actions, Gilbert Huph will not be sleeping tonight!
Reach an Agreement with ENCOM Diplomacy option unlocked!
Glomgold has proposed a collaboration! When both Large Carnivore and Large Herbivore Exhibits are completed, Glomgold will offer a collaboration option to expand Dinosaur Parks to the international stage. Officially, this is a casual offer, but this is nonetheless a rare opportunity. Ignoring Glomgold for too long will result in his offer being retracted.
Sycorax is interested in a collaboration on military matters!
Judge Doom is interested in burying the hatchet!
Marco, Lizzy and Mezmerella lose -5 Loyalty (working with Mirage)!
Olympia has become Allied! Allied factions are extremely receptive to diplomacy and collaborations, and are less likely to stab you in the back given an incentive to do so.
First Allied faction established! Faction Opinion meter unlocked permanently!
Self-rival reports unlocked! Olympia corp will now let you know what you look like from the outside!
Thanks to your actions, the affected Supers did not deal nearly as much damage as they could have! Several people still died, but nobody you
knew.
Thanks to your actions, Edna Mode views you in an extremely negative light! While she wasn't privy to your full confession, she has declared her intent to do some snooping on her own time…
Thanks to your actions in this quest, a certain ship has been finally and irreparably sunk.