Title: Something from Nothing
Show: Revolution
Summary: Somehow, I just can't picture the Butcher of Baltimore taking the execution of his best friend very well…
Spoilers: Through 2.6 Dead Man Walking
Pairings: none
Rating: T for violence
Disclaimer: Revolution and its characters are property NBC et al. My fanfic is purely for entertainment and I do not profit from it.
A/N: In my mind, I actually picture this as a graphic novel. Unfortunately, I can't draw for shit… so you get fanfic instead. It's a bit heavy on the action and light on the dialogue compared to my usual style. If anyone out there reading this can actually draw comic book style and would be interested in trying to put something together collaboratively just for funsies, send me a pm. I'm always down to try new ways of being creative for a fandom.
The bartender had been smart enough to just hand over the bottle before leaving the otherwise empty establishment to go take part in the festivities. Besides, what kind of trouble could local nobody, Stu Redman, really cause anyway?
And so Miles was able to drink himself into a stupor, unmolested. Though as hard as he tried, he just couldn't seem to drink enough to forget, to numb the pain that threatened to implode his chest. He wanted to be blackout drunk, unconscious, passed out in a pile of his own vomit... anything but aware that at any moment now he was about to lose the only brother he had left, the brother that had meant more to him than the one that he had truly been related to by blood. The pain weighed on him so heavily that it actually became difficult to draw in breath at one point.
And then the bell began to toll, signaling the arrival of a new day and the end of an era. Miles fought back the innate flicker of hope, the momentary lapse in rational thought that allowed him to imagine some way in which Bass escaped. He tried desperately to believe that at this moment, that wiley bastard had a sword in his hand and was making a mad, bloody dash out the back of the courthouse. His chest contracted as he waited to hear the sounds of swords clamoring and guards shouting of the prisoner's escape. But seconds ticked by, and all he could hear were the last few resounding clangs of the bell. His hope faded like a distant mirage.
All that was left was pain and regret. All the things that had always gone unsaid, all the things that he wished he had done differently, and all the things that might have been echoed through his mind. He wallowed in self-pity for what felt like hours, but as people began to straggle into the bar, he realized it had likely only been minutes.
Wishing to remain undisturbed, he grabbed his whiskey bottle, got up from the bar, and moved to the small table alone in the corner. He was there, drug further into the dark recesses of his mind and no closer to finding any kind of relief, when Charlie appeared.
"Hey." He barely felt the supportive hand on his shoulder. "I'm around, ok?" He only registered it as she started to draw it away and he instantly felt like he needed her touch, her compassion and understanding to keep him tethered to something, anything in that moment. He reached up and grabbed onto her, desperately. It was comforting, but the numbness that was threatening to overtake him returned, and he released her hand. He didn't have the heart to stop her as she turned away. He couldn't bring her down with him into this fresh hell he was plunging into.
He remembered the time a year and a half ago when she had found him and told him that Ben, his brother by birth, was dead. That expectant pleading look on her face had set everything, all of this, into motion. She had been so young, and so naïve. And now, there she went, obviously reeling from the same loss that threatened to break him. But this time, there is nothing optimistic in her eyes, just accepting. Accepting that this is the way the world is, that no power on Earth is strong enough to keep you from losing everyone that you cared about.
It was all for nothing. Bass had come to him to help defeat the Patriots, and all they had succeeded in doing was aligning them with the Rangers and getting Bass captured and killed. In the end, what had any of it been for? Nothing. He had accomplished nothing.
He and Bass had spent their entire adult lives fighting for something. Two tours in Iraq had taken their innocence, but it had seemed a small price to pay for defending America and their way of life. Turned out that when the going got tough and the lights went out, America returned the favor by disappearing to Cuba. With that thought, an emotion began to flicker through the blackness engulfing Miles's heart.
When the US government had fled after the blackout, it left men like Miles and Bass to attempt to clean up the destruction in their wake. They'd lost their souls in the process, but he and Bass had made some kind of order from the chaos. It was a flawed Republic, but it had started out as something much better than the alternative. That flickering light at the back of Miles's mind grew into an open flame as he thought of the charred rubble left where the great city of Philadelphia had once flourished.
The thought of the bombs only reminded Miles of the other crushing loss that night in the Tower. They had actually done it. He and his ragtag group of misfits had actually turned the power back on. They had given the world back its best chance at returning to normal. Then Randall and the Patriots obliterated that permanently. The thought only stoked the fire burning in him.
And now, it was the final vindictive slap in the face. Hiding behind a curtain they called justice, the Patriots had just killed Miles's best friend for the crimes that they had actually committed. The flame of rage spread through Miles like a wildfire through dry timber.
Miles put the whiskey down and slowly walked out of the bar. Bass had come to help him start a war, and so it was a war they were going to get. Bass's death was going to mean something, damn it. He couldn't rebuild the Monroe Republic from the ash of Philadelphia. He couldn't turn the power back on. He couldn't bring his friend back from the dead. But he could make the Patriots pay.
…..
Miles was at his apartment before he even registered that he was walking there. Once inside, he collected every weapon he had. His sword was strapped to his left hip, and a machete was on his right. Throwing and hunting knives were tucked into his belt and boots. An AK 47 was draped over his shoulder on a strap, and ammo was tucked into his jacket pocket. A .45 caliber was strapped to his right thigh, and a shotgun was in his left hand. He was just one man, but he was going to make one hell of a stand. He sarcastically thought that the only thing he needed to make his one-man-revolution complete was some type of flag to fly in their faces. As he walked toward the door he spotted a marker on the desk, and a smile crossed his lips. They would remember his cause, alright.
Miles had just entered the alley behind his apartment when he came across two Patriot soldiers on their way back to the barracks. He plunged a knife into the first one's throat and snapped the other one's neck while the first bled out over the cobblestones. He took the bullet proof vest off the larger one and collected the extra magazines from their assault rifles. He left the bodies where they fell.
The next road over, he found a group of four soldiers milling about and laughing drunkenly. His sword eliminated the first three in two swings. The last man managed to pull a knife and jabbed in Miles's direction. Miles easily dodged the blow, grabbed his arm, and disarmed the soldier. He plunged the man's own knife home into his chest.
He moved on until he found a group of seven or eight in a small green space in the middle of town. Miles took cover behind a tree, readied the rifle, took aim, and eliminated four before the others even realized what was going on. They started to scatter and panic, but Miles stayed focused and picked off each of them as they fled. He then watched the doors to the nearby houses and taverns, and as each new Patriot emerged, bullets took flight. When the rifle was out of ammo, he slung the shot gun over his shoulder and continued taking aim. He'd taken out over twenty of them before his location became too compromised to continue making his stand there. The gunshots had alerted the authorities to the unfolding drama, and soldiers had begun appearing from every direction.
He fired the shotgun into a group of them, clearing a path for him to run for better cover. Bullets were flying, but he managed to initially stay out of their way. From his new spot within a recessed doorway he fired the shotgun at the advancing soldiers until it too, was empty. He was nearly to the old bank building now. He didn't have a plan beyond killing as many of these Patriots as he could, until he saw Ed Truman stick his weasely little head out the door to evaluate the situation. Now Miles had a target.
With his sword drawn in his still splinted right hand, and the pistol gripped in his left. Miles stepped out of the doorway and began to pointedly pace straight toward the bank. He fired and slashed his way through the fray. Numerous bullets impacted the kevlar vest, causing him to flinch, but not dissuading him from his course.
The two men guarding the door went down quickly. Once inside, most of the men hiding there were bureaucrats, not soldiers, and they started to flee out the back. A few made a valiant stand with pistols, and one even managed to get off a shot that grazed his right shoulder. Miles still dispatched them with ease, leaving his target for last. Truman stood behind his desk and raised his arms. Maybe it was the rage, or the alcohol, or both, but the words coming from Truman's mouth didn't register with Miles in the slightest. He thought he heard the words "mercy" and "reasonable" in the gibberish. Neither particularly appealed to him at the moment.
Miles dragged the man from behind his desk and shoved him against the wall. He pinned Truman's throat with his left forearm as he lifted the sword to his chest with the right. He made sure that Truman got a good view of his arm before he drove the sword home through the great vessels in his chest. The Patriot leader took his last breaths, and he began to sputter blood from his mouth. As his eyes faded and closed for the last time, a small amount of blood ran from his mouth and trickled into Miles's arm. It ran in a rivulet over the fresh area of black ink crudely etched into the skin of the inner part of Miles's forearm just below his elbow. Miles removed his arm from the man's neck and let his lifeless body slump to the floor. Then he used his other sleeve to wipe the trail of blood from his new, hastily self-inked tattoo. Once the encircled "M" was clearly visible again he walked to the back door of the bank and peered out. There was quite the crowd of soldiers already present. He pulled the machete out in his left hand and hastily wiped the blood off of his sword on his pant leg. Then he kicked open the door and charged at the waiting soldiers.
A blade in each hand, he cut an impressive path through the sea of khaki uniforms. The men were so use to relying on their guns, that they had little experience with the swordplay and hand to hand combat that had become the mainstay of militia battles over the last decade. They failed to realize that in close quarters, their rifles were next to useless. He spun and sliced and ducked and stabbed all over and over again. Men went down around him on all sides, and the good town-folk of Willoughby were treated to the finest display of how the Butcher of Baltimore earned his moniker.
He took on each new attacker as they came at him, but he was slowly starting to tire. The men were beginning to grasp the situation and had started to step back, placing more room between themselves and the lethal blades. It bought them time as more and more soldiers arrived.
As good as he was with a sword, Miles knew that there was no way he could overcome these kind of numbers. His was already tiring, and his best hope was to keep at it and take out as many more as he could before exhaustion made him sloppy and someone would get in a lucky strike. The crowd surged back in around him and he wildly hacked and chopped through another dozen bodies before he knew that he'd made a mistake. He left his back unguarded for a split second, and he felt a body slam back up against it. As he spun in a vain attempt to avoid the penetrating wound he knew was about to come, he realized that the person at his back, that he had assumed to be another attacker, actually had their back to him. The sounds of clanging swords registered behind him, just as he noticed the sensation of long hair whipping at the back of his neck.
Realizing that the crazed former General now had reinforcements, the crowd backed off again, forming a circle around them.
"Charlie?" Miles asked over his shoulder.
"Hey Miles." He could hear her smiling between panted breaths. "Like your new tat."
"Seemed appropriate." He huffed back as he used the lull in fighting to attempt to catch his breath. "What are you doing here?"
"Made a promise to a friend." Her voice was almost wistful before she abruptly switched to sarcasm. "So you got a plan, or was this just a really drawn out suicide attempt?" She asked.
They stayed back to back, blades drawn and in a defensive position. They slowly circled around together, moving like a single entity, evaluating the mass of soldiers surrounding them.
"There's a plan." Miles smiled menacingly. "Kill them all."
"Works for me." Charlie answered.
At that they both simultaneously stepped forward and engaged the nearest soldiers. Patriot blood spilled like water from a hose and all those nearby broke ranks to joint in the fighting.
…..
Aaron was just getting into bed when he heard the first shot ring out. Cynthia, who was already under the covers looked to him. There was a scared expression on her face. "What was that? What's happening?"
As the sounds of gun fire repeated in increasing volleys in the distance Aaron sighed. "If I had to guess, I'd say that's the sound of one or more Mathesons trying to single-handedly destroy the most powerful army on the continent." He sat on the edge on the bed instead of lying down.
"What does that mean?" Cynthia was a little surprised by his calloused tone.
"Must be Wednesday?" Aaron shrugged. "If they're at it again, I'm surprised I haven't already..." He broke off as his head shot back and his eyes rolled up into his skull.
The view was fuzzy, like he was watching a monitor of a security camera that had something smudged on the lens. Slowly things came into a better focus and he could see Miles fighting inside the bank. Then his point of view seemed to switch and suddenly it was like he was seeing through Miles's eyes. He saw blood pouring from Truman's mouth and dripping onto the new tattoo on Miles's arm.
Great. Miles has joined the Dark Side. Aaron thought, still witnessing the events surrounding Miles. Wait. What? How am I? Thoughts continued to pour through Aaron's mind as his view point switched from first person Miles to the slightly distanced third person view it had started as. A stray thought crossed his mind at the change. This is like one of those old first person shooter video games. Doom or Resident Evil. And how am I thinking this? Am I unconscious, or what? He was still watching as Miles dove out the door at the back of the bank. If I can... does that mean I'm starting to be able to control this? Aaron focused on Miles and suddenly his view zoomed in as if he was seeing through Miles's eyes again. He mentally tried to pull back and found that his vantage point did as well.
I'll be damned. Aaron thought, somewhat scared and mostly excited. What else can I... He thought about Charlie, sure that if Miles was starting a ruckus, she wouldn't be far behind. Suddenly the view panned out even more, shifted, and focused in on Charlie swashbuckling her way through a crowd of unsuspecting Patriots towards Miles about fifty yards away from her. Miles and his niece both seemed to be holding their own, so he wanted to try one more thing.
He thought about Rachel and tried focusing on her. Again the scene panned out, but this time it seemed to scan around for a while before zooming in towards the blonde woman standing alone in a small clearing shoveling dirt. Rachel? What the hell are you doing? He thought to himself. Aaron felt a wave of shock ripple through himself as Rachel suddenly lifted her head and looked around, as if she had heard something. Then he swore he saw her mouth his name questioningly. Tentatively he asked in his mind, Rachel? Can you hear me?
"Aaron?" He saw her lips move and this time he heard the sound of her voice. It was muffled, like she was yelling through water, but he heard her.
Rachel! Aaron thought excitedly. What are you doing? Miles and Charlie have started a war in town. They're going to need help.
He watched her speaking to the empty field and realized that her voice got clearer the more he concentrated on listening to her. "How is this happening? Is it the nanites again?"
I think so, but that's not important now. We need to help Miles and Charlie.
"What I'm doing will help them. Trust me."
Yeah, not if they get shot first. And what are you doing?
"Aaron, I'm a little busy right now, and you can light people on fire with your mind. How much more help do they need?"
Right. Good point.
Aaron shifted his focus back to Charlie and Miles just in time to see them get overrun by the soldiers.
…..
Just as Miles and Charlie knew they were about to be taken down, they heard a gunshot overhead and a strange voice yelled out, "Take them alive!"
They both took a few rifle butts to the head and some kicks to the back of their legs. As she and Miles both fell to their knees, patriots held their rifles trained on them and grabbed the weapons from their hands. They were roughly spun in the dirt so that they were looking up over the crowd at a ghoulish little man standing on the flat bed of a wagon and staring at them eagerly.
"It would appear that some introductions are in order. My name is Doctor Calvin Horn, and since you have recently murdered the remainder of our command unit, that means that I'm the one in charge of this little town now."
Charlie glared and spit in the dirt. Miles just looked nonplused about the whole situation.
Horn continued, "Oh but don't worry. I already know exactly who you are, Miles and Charlotte Matheson."
Charlie looked over to Miles, "Uh oh Miles. He knows our names. We're done for now." It was dripping with sarcasm.
Miles chuckled.
"All this carnage…" Horn motioned out over the town square that was now littered with Patriot bodies. "And for what? Because we executed a war criminal? You must understand that we are here to help and restore order." The last part had been meant rhetorically, so he seemed a little surprised when Charlie stood defiantly and shot back an answer.
"We're doing this because everything you've said has been a lie." Charlie yelled. "Because your version of justice is more than a little fucked up. And most importantly..." She pulled back her sleeve and proudly raised her right wrist into the air. "...because we are the Monroe Militia."
Miles could sense the agitation building in the crowd as Charlie spoke. It made him want to laugh in the worst way. If only Bass could see them now. Two Mathesons brandishing that mark and proclaiming their allegiance to the Monroe Militia as they slaughtered an army. Good God, he would get off on that...
The crowd still seemed to be looking at Miles, so he couldn't help but add, his voice slightly slurred by the alcohol he'd drank before starting this little venture, "I was just going to say that it was because you're all a bunch of dicks, but I think what she said works better." As he tensed for the retribution that he knew would come after his sarcastic quip, he noticed a single firefly land on the bandage covering his right hand. It began to glow a bright green. He snickered and thought, Oh, these Patriots ain't seen nothin' yet.
Just then, the ground encircling Charlie and Miles began to smolder. Miles smiled broadly as he stood and raised a hand to wave a quick goodbye to Dr. Horn. Then the entire platoon of patriots surrounding them burst into fire. Charlie and Miles stood motionless in the eye of a hurricane of flames that roared around them. Towns-people on the outside of the ring of fire gasped and screamed and ran for shelter.
When the flames died down, it was just the two of them standing in the center of the empty commons surrounded by hundreds of slashed and burnt Patriot bodies. As they looked around, their eyes settled on a wagon slowly approaching the grizzly scene. Sitting on the driver's bench were Rachel and a groggy but still very much alive Sebastian Monroe.
When the wagon pulled to a stop, Monroe sloppily climbed to the ground, eyes nearly unable to take in the scene before him. Miles and Charlie darted toward them, stepping and hopping over the bodies in their way.
"Bass?" Miles asked questioningly, coming to a halt just shy of his friend.
Charlie, on the other hand, made no attempt to stop and careened into Monroe, arms open and pulling him into an embrace before he had a chance to answer Miles. Miles ultimately gave up any pretense and joined in wrapping his arms around his friend. After a long moment, they both released him and stepped back.
"You guys did all this… for me?" Monroe seemed equal parts honored and horrified.
"How else do you honor the memory of you sociopathic power mongering dictator of a best friend?" Miles asked with a look that conveyed all due seriousness, then he began to giggle.
"Is he drunk?" Monroe asked.
"Plastered." Charlie answered. "We're glad to have you back, but how?" Then Charlie looked up at her mom, still sitting on the wagon. "Why?"
"You were right, we need him. And because as much as I hate him, I still love you more."
"Mom… I don't know what to say…" Tears of gratitude began to well up in Charlie's eyes.
"We'll talk later." Rachel smiled down at her daughter. "Right now I think I should go check on Aaron."
Charlie nodded and her mom urged the horses on toward Aaron and Cynthia's house.
As the three of them slowly made their way around the destruction in the square and toward Rachel's father's farmhouse, Miles couldn't help but mention, "Looks like the Monroe Militia is back on active duty." He stopped momentarily in front of the large flag pole in front of the court house, pulled a sword from the hand of a dead soldier on the ground and swung at the flag pole. It severed the lines securing the flag, and the ostentatiously large banner of stars and stripes slowly fluttered to the ground.
…..
A class bell rang overhead, and an elderly Aaron Pittman closed the textbook sitting on his lap. He was at the front of a classroom in a two story building lit by fluorescent overhead light bulbs and cooled by central air conditioning. "And that was the story of the formation of the Second Monroe Militia and the battle to end the occupation of Willoughby. For tomorrow I want you to read through chapter seventeen and Captain Tom Neville's siege of Washington DC."
The classroom full of teenagers closed their books and shuffled papers and tablet computers into backpacks before filing out the classroom door. One girl, probably about sixteen years old stopped at the teacher's desk as the rest of her classmates poured out of the room.
"That's a great story Mr. P., but come on… We've all heard it before and nobody believes it. My mom says that all that stuff about General Monroe coming back from the dead and a guy that could read minds and light people on fire using the nanotech was just propaganda spread by the early pro-Matheson regime to keep the populace subdued and complacent."
Aaron laughed. "Well, that's the thing about history, Carly. The winners are the ones that get to write the textbooks. It's up to us to determine what we really want to believe."
"I guess." The girl sighed and walked out the door.
Aaron smiled and looked out the window as cars zipped down the nearby street, people walked along talking on their smartphones, and a single firefly sat on the window sill emitting a bright green glow.
THE END