I got to enjoy oblivion. Everything was pure heat, light, and force and my mind was completely gone. It lasted a moment and an eternity. I’m not sure if I died and regenerated or if my body absorbed the energy around me. All I know is that I didn’t exist for a moment, then suddenly, I did again.

I was on all fours, naked. It was bright all around me, almost blinding. I looked beneath me, hoping that somehow I’d see Deux, but he wasn’t there. I clawed at the earth where he would’ve been. Where he should have been, and all that came away was ash. Glowing tears fell from my face. I took the ash that was in my hands and I rubbed it across my face. I realized then that the brightness that was casting light all around, was coming from me.

I was shining more brightly than I ever had before, and far brighter than even the first had. I also felt…good, at least physically. Strong, full, clear, and focused in a way I never had been before. I could feel radiation and power flooding every cell in my body. It didn’t matter though. Pott’s was destroyed and Deux was dead.

I took another handful of ash and drew it across the rest of my head, then my chest, then my legs, covering myself in my failure. My skin was so hot, it burned away most of it, causing acrid smoke to rise from my body. Once I was covered, I stood up.

Around me was a perfectly flat and smooth circle where Pott’s used to be. The entire area was flooded with radiation, and glowing nearly as brightly as I was. I took a moment to orient myself, and started walking to the edge of the crater. Once I was there, I crouched and launched myself with more force than a jump pack up and over the side.

I clenched my fists, rolled my neck, and stretched, aiming myself toward Fort Matthews. Then I started running. The wastes flew by like a blur as I ran faster than even Betty had ever taken me. I could smell thousands of deadmen nearby, evacuees who were likely still trying to process everything that had happened, but I ignored them. Leah had told me the truth about the attack on Pott’s. That meant that she had probably told the truth about Masters having another superweapon in play.

…

When I got within a few miles of Fort Matthews, I could see smoke, and smell death hanging heavily in the air. I moved toward where the smoke and scent were the thickest. It didn’t take long for me to start seeing the devastation. I began passing wrecked cars with massive holes blasted through them, piles of ash and silhouettes of humans and deadmen that had been evaporated, and even the crushed forms of a half dozen kaijin, smashed almost beyond recognition. I wasn’t sure of what type of weapon could cause such total and diverse devastation, then I saw it.

At first I wasn’t entirely sure of what I was looking at. It looked bipedal, and metallic, with the sunlight reflecting off of a red, white, and blue paint job. Its arms were in the shape of cannons, each of them lighting with the occasional blinding flash. What gave me the most pause, was when I noticed that an object moving near its feet, reaching nearly half the size of the foot. It was a truck, and I watched as it was crushed beneath the massive machine as it lifted up a single foot and brought it down.

I’d never seen anything like it. I’d read about similar constructs in books, but never expected such a monstrous weapon was possible. I ran straight toward it. As I moved the picture of what was occurring in the battle became more clear. I could see hundreds of shapes scattered all around, running directly away from the machine as it fired its massive cannons, evaporating everything it could hit. Cars, trucks, and bikes were moving in to attempt to distract or destroy it, but it was clearly futile, as everything in its path was destroyed.

Next to the machine were dozens of squads of power armored men and women acting as support, firing their lasguns at small targets, and overall seeming to enjoy themselves. I aimed myself like a missile for the nearest group of them.

I wanted to mark them as under arrest and mass freeze them, but neither ability worked. I pulled up the R.A.S. and found it to be a jumble of random characters and error messages. That was okay, I didn’t need the help anymore.

The first group I hit didn’t even know what happened. I didn’t slow down as I hit the first one, slamming my fist clear through his power armored helmet. The second, had the first thrown at him with such force that it crushed him. The third found themselves falling as I lifted him and threw him straight into the air, sending him more than a hundred feet. I drove my fist through the chest of the fourth, then tore the fifth in half, superheating my fingers to cut through his armor like butter. I caught the third as she landed and broke her spin across my knee. Once I was done, I ran straight for the next group.

It took four squads before they were fully able to react to me. Finally noticing the glowing figure moving through them. It didn’t matter. They blasted me with lasfire or tried to smash me with their power hammers, but it wasn’t enough. I was moving too quickly for them to get clear hits or shots in. When they did, I barely felt it, I was healing so quickly that any wounds I suffered were sealed completely before I felt more than a flicker of discomfort. Even the heavy impact of what few hammers were able to hit me didn’t register, melting when they came into contact with my skin for more than just a moment. Even the blood I was covered in evaporated before it could settle.

When I got closer to the Remnant’s superweapon, I started to hear noise emanating from it. It was playing the national anthem, interspersed with messages spoken in both Adam’s and Master’s voices.

“America will not be lost to the savage, the communist, the mutant. It will instead RISE UP from the ashes of the false inheritors and once again take its place as the rightful leader of the world!” There was a brief pause and Adam’s voice shifted to Master’s. “I will pilot Freedoms Cry, deep into the nest of vipers that besiege us true patriots, and stomp them out!”

As it spoke I noticed another truck approaching the feet of Freedom’s Cry, and recognized the smell of those driving. It was Nico and Mercy, being driven by the Khan himself.

I started running toward them as they closed in with the mechanical monster that still had not yet taken notice of me in spite of the devastation I’d wrought.

As I got closer I saw that while the Khan was driving, Mercy and Nico were manning a massive cannon in the back. I saw Mercy load some kind of payload into it, and Nico aimed it, calmly and carefully lining up a shot even as their vehicle was barrelling toward the massive mech.

Freedom’s Cry noticed them and aimed their cannons, firing. I felt my heart sink for a moment, before I noticed that the Khan had dodged that attack, whirling the truck through both blasts with unmatched talent and grace. He repeated the feat two more times as he closed in to give Nico a good shot.

Nico was steady, and impressive, as always. The moment she was ready, the cannon fired, and I watched the payload fly through the air in what was a surprisingly slow arc that I realized must’ve been intentional to avoid whatever force fields protecting the machine from blocking it, just as my bracelet would. The mech wasn’t able to dodge it, and when it impacted I found myself blinded momentarily by the ferocious blast of flame that engulfed it. For a moment, I wondered if my own intervention in the battle was going to be needed. Then a single foot stepped out from the flame, and the mech emerged from the blast completely unharmed.

I sped up and launched myself at the machine just as it raised its arms to bring down another blast onto the Khan, Nico, and Mercy. I somehow hit it with enough force to slightly tilt the guns, but that was all that was needed for its attack to miss them. I landed and rolled, finding myself close to the truck.

“Donovan!?” yelled Nico.

I turned to answer her, and in the moment the mecha fired its lasers at me.

I heard a heartrending cry from Nico before the dust cleared, showing that I was fine. I turned to the truck. “I’ve got him. Get out of here.”

“But.”

“They killed Deux.” I managed to say, glowing tears evaporating on my face. “I can’t lose you too. GO!”

Nico started to move toward me, not heeding what I said, but the Khan swiveled the truck around and gunned it in the opposite direction, not giving her the chance to jump out.

Mercy lifted her eyepatch and grabbed the explosive she always kept in her eye socket, tossing it onto the ground. It gave off a cloud of smoke, covering their retreat.

I was hit by another blast, and thrown backward as most of my body was evaporated, but landed on re-grown feet.

“YOU!?” The mecha began moving toward me. “I see Leah failed her country yet again!!” He pivoted toward me, aiming his lasers at me again.

This time I ran, using my newfound speed to dodge a half dozen salvos he sent at me in quick succession. I moved to turn him around toward Fort Matthews and was gratified when he didn’t hesitate to do so.

“You INSECT!” Roared the machine with Master’s voice. “You aren’t a general, or a leader, or a king. You’re just a tool that refuses to recognize when it was cast aside.”

I moved closer and closer to the Fort, the Freedom’s Cry moving closely behind, its massive stride allowing it to nearly keep up with the enhanced speed I was moving with. The first few layers of the Forts defenses had already been broken, likely by the fighting that had occurred before they’d unleashed their superweapon. As I moved, Masters kept firing, evaporating several of his own people in the process.

“You and your filthy Deadmen should’ve just moved aside and died in peace. Instead you challenged ME, challenged the UNITED STATES!”

I made it to the main wall, and dodged out of the way as he blasted a hole in it before making my way inside. Even though I was within his base, he kept firing on me, blind to the damage he was causing.

“You would deny me my BIRTHRIGHT! My MANIFEST DESTINY!”

I found the tallest building and started climbing it, leaping up flights, killing whatever troops were in my way and dodging the continuous laser blasts that Masters sent in my direction. Eventually I reached the top, just as the mech took its first step into the Fort.

I leapt, throwing my body with full force at the mechanical monster, superheating my body as I did so. The building I leapt off of collapsed, and I slammed into the mech’s chest. I drove my superheated arms into it and began tearing through the metal of it.

“We were meant to be done with this piddling part of Louisiana by now. We’d have reclaimed everything through to DC had it not been for you and the rest of these mistakes that have taken root in our absence!”

The Mech began twisting and firing wildly, trying to dislodge me from it, but there was nothing that could stop me. The Fort was being destroyed even as metal chunks fell from the Freedom’s Cry in red-hot heaps onto the ground.

Eventually I got through it completely, and revealed the cockpit. Masters was attached to it, a spike of metal through the back of his head, madness in his eyes as he stared at me with a kind of hatred beyond even what I had ever seen before.

“You can’t kill me!” He cried. “You can’t kill America!” He lifted a pistol and fired a series of lasbolts at me the size of a fist, but I just walked through the blasts as if they were nothing.

I grabbed his head on either side, feeling the fragility of his skull, and remembered Deux. Remembered what it had felt like as his ashes and those of Pott’s Field had evaporated from my flesh.

“America is already dead.” I whispered, and released all the energy inside me at once.