Thanks all for being followers of this epic fic. Should have been longer and more detailed, but guess it was concise and to the point. (We all would have wanted a private scene with Carmen and Mike, admit it). Hope you guys have enjoyed this voyage through my world. I'll be working on another fic soon and so keep your reading minds ready. I suck at writing action scenes. It's the longest chapter yet. Now, on to the story.
Chapter 12
"So, giant arms of sudden death." Zack said admiring the engineering. "and here I thought things would be easy after we got inside of this." He shrugged. "I need another one of your speeches Carmen, cause I just entered my I-don't-care-zone."
"Shut up, I'm thinking as hard as I can." Carmen whispered into the communication device. This was new to her and she certainly was feeling the adrenaline reach its peak in her body. Nothing in the plans and intel contained this information and it was crucial for the completion of the task. Minutes passed like hours, but in the mean time Zack was entertaining Chief. He had noticed Carmen's black out and though he could be useful to her at least once.
"You were saying dear Zack." Chief taunted Zack with his arms. "Aren't they a beauty?"
"Oh yes, I'll never need help scratching my back with a pair of those."
"Imbecile, this are sophisticated automated arms, they are made for combat."
"Woah, calm down old man, I haven't insulted you yet."
Chief slammed his arms near Zack making him fall and roll to avoid it. That action put Carmen's mind on track. 'This can't be that easy? Just like Chess? Guess Chief can't forget somethings.' She thought.
"To beat those we need to know what they are capable of." Carmen whispered.
"You mean we have to fight him a bit and see what kills us and what doesn't?" Zack answered.
"Yes, then we will find what it can't do and destroy it." Carmen jumped behind the western controls and started running to the front of the room. "Move it, NOW! What your waiting for."
"Wait, I'm new at this, I still can't read our mind." Zack jumped to the lower platform in the front of the lab.
"Ha, and you never will." Carmen taunted with a smile.
"You think you can trick me? You got another thing coming." Chief threw one of his arms at Carmen.
Carmen had to jump higher than she had ever jumped. She landed rough to the side and veered southward away from where Zack was running. Zack really didn't understand, so he did what he was good at, running and evading. He copied Carmen's moves in everyway except he did it in the opposite direction. They both kept evading and defending against Chief's attacks, but they never attacked themselves. Zack was getting a bit irritated at Carmen, 'Why doesn't she attack?' he thought.
At last she saw and understood it. She had analyzed every move and countermove the mechanical arms had done. She was now ready to start the attack. The arms could move in opposite directions but only to 180 degrees, then one of the arms had to move in the other direction in order to do a 360. They moved in a 90 degree angle vertically, meaning they couldn't get anything just below them when they were at 180 degrees apart. These little limitations proved gold to Carmen and she came up with a plan.
"Zack, I have a plan"
"Good, cause I'm getting tired of being handled. Hehe, get it?"
"Yes… I get it. Now knock it off and listen." Carmen explained the plan, with little detail, but surprisingly it was enough info for Zack. "Lastly… if I fall behind, please leave me behind."
"What? I could never do that, not now."
"Zack, trust me, I know what I'm getting into and I know how to get out. Just keep going without me." She looked at him stirringly from the other side of the room. Zack was frozen in place and didn't let emotions show.
"I gotta hand it to you Chief," Carmen said standing before him. This surprised Chief, how could she have been hiding so close to him without him noticing it. "You were actually better when you were good. This evil thing doesn't suit your systems well."
"Ha, don't tell me about good and evil. You were even better as a detective than as a thief. How dare you compare your measly human decisions with my computer programming? I once cried over your death, now I'll preserve your head for the rest of my existence at the top of my balcony in plain site. It'll rot and when only the bones are left I'll place it on a stand and let nature erode them till only your dust is blown through the land."
"How romantic, enough of this bullshit. You want me, try and catch me." Carmen sprang into action fallowed a few minutes by Zack.
The plan was easy. All of Carmen's plans where easy, it was how they could be done that where complicated. Ironic, Zack though. Near all of it relied on Carmen, he only needed to help out a bit and then get to work on Chief's system.
Carmen ran to the north and Zack to the south, the arms reached out to them but clanked at their peak. They had just one chance at this. Zack used his EMP pole to try and sting the arm and immobilize it for a min while Carmen pulled the other one out of the way. The EMP did its job fine and Zack was free to roll down and start on the dismantlement of Chief's software systems.
Carmen tightened a rope around the movable arm and made it swung around to the immobilized one. Back and forth she went until the immobilizing effect was over and the other arm started to move. The arms got tangled in the mess of EMP ropes and their electric systems malfunctioned a little.
"Ha, that silly trick won't work on me." Chief tried with all its might to break free, but the EMP's were disrupting his functions, the ropes worked like an antenna and their energy was incremented by it.
"Zack!"
"Working on it!"
At that point Chief remembered Zack. Zack was already invading his system, deleting corrupted files and creating new ones within his programming. His holographic image wouldn't stop him, he needed to get rid of Carmen and Zack would soon fallow suit.
"He won't be able to delete me in time to save you."
He freed his arm and went straight for Carmen. She already knew the outcome and she was prepared for his assault. She waited patiently for the arms to reach her. They were about to strike her when she pulled one her EMP poles perpendicularly to her body. It penetrated the mechanical arm till it reached Carmen's hand at that point Chief slammed Carmen hard against the wall, knocking her out.
"CARMEN!" Zack forgot his mission and lifted his hands off the keyboard. He started to run towards her but remembered what she told him. 'Leave me behind.' He steeled himself and went back to work faster than ever.
"Ha! Worthless bitch. I'll have your body swinging in the breeze in no time. Lucky for you no birds fly this high, so your eyes will still be intact day after day after day, looking emptily at the horizon." Chief turned to Zack. "And you are still at it? You have changed from your early pathetic days as a detective. Is it that thievery makes you gutless? Any how, you will keep her company. I'll watch as your dead body drains of blood and fluids over my balcony." Chief's movable arm went to him when he felt a zap of electricity flowing through the arm Carmen had damaged.
"I never… let you win… at Chess!" Carmen immobilized completely Chief's left arm.
"No, it can't be. I slammed her against that wall." Chief threw his right arm in Carmen's direction. She did exactly the same thing, EMP pole perpendicular and get slammed to the wall. This time, however she was conscious.
"Check Mate." Carmen switched on both poles and they created an arc of electro magnetic pulse inside the mechanical arms. The mechanism at the ceiling exploded and started to burn.
"NO, NO!" Chief abandoned the use of the arms and materialized a laser from his holographic energy. It was his last barrier of defense; use his own holographic energy to induce a high voltage laser that killed humans.
ZAP! The energy made a hole in the wall where Carmen was. She continued to avoid objects and Chief's laser. Zack heard Carmen's commotion and continued to work. Flying debris from the laser kept hitting him hard on his back but he continued. He checked system by system, deleted files, created files, changed files addresses, codes in seconds.
He couldn't loose, now not at this far end of the journey. Chief's system error defense protocols weren't helping either. Impending the opening of codes and files over and over, but Zack wasn't just a techie, he was the master of the system. He remembered his training on the Chief's AI systems from his academy days and ever since that day Zack had updated and reprogrammed the system. He knew the hidden passwords that not even Chief was allowed to know the shortcuts and dump files.
Typing and typing, he continued until he could insert the decompression bomb disk. He inserted the disk and implemented the program into it. Sara was an amazing code writer and this decom was truly a masterpiece. The moment he inserted the disk he knew he wouldn't be saving Chief, it was not possible without a trace of the old programming code and the decom would destroy it.
He emptied the disk and started the timer. Typing code after code to get all the systems down at once, and finally the decom went off. In the last few seconds he discovered a file in one of the dump files and explored it. Uncorrupted files, he kept exploring the last of Chief's secrets, because as strange as it still seemed, he had hope.
"ZACK!" Carmen shouted to able to hold off much longer. The arms exploded with the accumulated vapor. Carmen was thrown off to the side, but she managed to get up and run to Zack. It was over. It had to be done now.
And then he saw it, a system error. System Error: Friends. Zack knew, he knew he had to get the disk out, he couldn't leave it there to be destroyed. In just a few seconds the arm mechanism came tumbling down upon them and Chiefs last energy barrier got ready to zap them with volts of electricity.
"You guys are finished!" Chief screamed as he pointed the laser to Carmen. Zack wrote the commands faster than he had ever had. He felt Carmen's grip on his right arm as he pressed the enter key. The disk flew out and Zack grabbed it.
At that moment a bolt of electricity jumped from the Hard Drive and zapped the track mechanism of Chief's mobile station. His screen started to break apart and the massive computers started to fume. Fire engulfed the high part and the arm mechanism finally gave in and crashed on the floor almost killing them. The entire floor was rigged with circuits that fumed, exploded, melted and caught fire.
The top part of the Pillar imploded with Zack and Carmen inside. The roar of the explosion was hear for miles away and the shock wave of the blast was felt at the base of the Pillar. The people in the Ret Camp where thrown to the ground by its power. They all watched as the Pillar lost its high pinnacle. There was no escape.
SCENE 2
The room broke into tiny pieces and started to fall into the internal abyss of the Pillar. Zack felt as his feet were held by noting and he too started to fall. A disk that held his friend in his left hand, on the other, the hand of his family. Carmen slipped past the beams that held the floor and looked up at Zack, he was falling just beside her. 'This looks like a good thing to see before we die.' They both thought this. They were together, everyone else was safe, and that is what matters.
Zack pulled Carmen up and they both held each other close as they fell down at increasing speed. They both were looking straight ahead, neither dared to look up nor down. They wanted to die with their heads up high. A thief and a cop, case closed.
Carmen dared to close her eyes and Zack noticed it. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and she smiled and ruffled his hair. She was concentrating in trying to hear anything other than the rumbling of concrete and metal that was falling beside them. She still believed, she still knew she could get out of this, could get them both out of this. There was something that would, she knew it; she had planned and set in motion so many things in her life, she often forgot when, where and what she had implemented in the first place.
Zack wasn't afraid anymore, he was happy. He had finished and saved everyone. He didn't let anyone down, he was a hero. He was looking happily at the horizon stills from the windows as they both speeded down when he felt Carmen tighten her grip on him. He was baffled but he did what the master thief though him, fallowed suit on her trail, like always and tighten his grip on her too. As he was doing this he felt another set of arms tightening around him. He didn't get scared, he was letting things go with the tide.
He felt his fall slow a bit and then a yank that left him breathless. His body swung backwards and as if in slow motion, all the concrete passed him by. Bits and pieces hit them both but not the huge chucks that kept crashing and tumbling down. His body hit the wall hard, but not enough to let go of Carmen or feel that much pain.
He saw as the floor bits disappeared below him and wondered what in the world had happened. Unknowingly he though of Carmen and when he looked at her she was smiling.
"Well Zack, you aren't really my type, but this one here is the kind of fallen angel I love." Mike's voice came out from behind Carmen's hair and his face showed up later as he planted kiss on Carmen's ear that made her laugh a bit.
"Yeah Zack, when are you going to be responsible enough to save yourself from the messes you get into." Ivy's voice came behind him. As he turned his head around he found out that it was his sister's hands he was being held in. He let go on of the hands that was holding on to Carmen and placed them on his sister's head, he wanted this to be real, and it was. Tears started flowing in his eyes as well as in Ivy's.
"Sigh, and I though this tower could held both of us together Mike." Carmen said looking upwards to the open space.
"We are just to awesome together."
"Get a room." Zack said finally laughing and screaming Victory inside the Pillar.
EPILOGUE
Fife years had passed since the Fall of the Pillar, as the war was named after. The human groups that had joined for the war had reestablished and formed farms and rebuild cities. Some had gone to populate, live and tell the tales of the war to the four corners of the world.
In the Italian/French border, the new castle had been erected at the base of the Pillar. The Regina Carmen and the King Mike, ruled the lands there and provided structure and governed the people. It was time for humans to regain their lives and start forming the social structures and rules that made their society great.
Zack and Tatyanna had married on the end of the war celebration. They had volunteered to drive an expedition to the ocean and back securing people's travel to those places. Ivy and Joshua did the same to the people to the east. They all promised to come back in two years and live their lives together in the Regina's lair.
Zack and Tatyanna were received with flower petals and music as they strolled up the castle road. They were happy together bringing news that all Metalhumans were defeated.
They entered the inner castle courtyard that had been decorated with red and yellow flags, very Carmen-like. A celebration was well underway as people were building stages and putting food to cook on big iron grills.
"This is going to be great, from now on we will live with our family." Zack said as he helped Tatyanna off the horse.
"Yes, we are." Tayanna kissed him passionately.
"UNCLE!" the voice pertained to a little boy that was trying to run to him. He stumbled a bit here and there and fell a couple of times but he continued until he reached Zack and hugged his legs.
"Do I know you little guy?"
"What a mean thing to say Zack." Ivy was standing in front of him and gave him a hug.
"Woa," Zack looked from the boy with reddish hair to Ivy and back. "Hahaha, I'm an uncle. This is my nephew? Awesome!" Zack picked up his nephew and gave him a twirls and danced with him. The boy was happy in Zack's arms and screamed with delight. Josha came to the courtyard and saluted Zack. Zack gave him a friendly punch in the arm and both men started to talk and play with the boy.
"Congratulations, so many things to tell." Tatyanna hugged Ivy. "We didn't knew, why didn't' you send a message, we could have come sooner.'
"Nonesense, you two must have had a good time around the world."
"Oh, yes we did" They both laughed when they heard a little girl scream and laugh. She came running out of the front door of the castle to the courtyard with a pair of cookies in her hands. She went running towards Ivy and hide behind her legs. Tatyanna and Ivy both looked at the door when Carmen appeared. She was dressed in a more normal manner than the dirty clothes she had been wearing, in fact everyone didn't wore dirty clothes anymore.
"Where is that little thief?" She looked around when she spotted Zack and Tatyanna. Her anger disappeared and she went to greet them.
They greeted and congratulated each other. Zack and Tatyanna started to talk about their voyage and Ivy, Josha and Carmen about how was life in the new Regina City. They all continued to talk until they heard small laughter beside them.
Carmen crossed her hands and looked at her daughter Lina. Carmen couldn't believe she had been outsmarted by her and smiled a bit. She tapped her feet and looked with a calm face towards Lina. (if you don't' get this reference your not a true fan, rofl)
Lina had given one of her cookies to Charlie (yet again another reference) and they were both munching happily at them. Lina noticed her mother looking at her and hid her cookie on her back, Charlie noticed this but he gobbled up his cookie and faced Carmen with a full mouth.
"She looks exactly like you, doesn't she?" Mike appeared beside Carmen.
"I can't believe you tough her how to open up the device." Carmen said.
"I can't believe you tough her how to dodge people. Now we are both in the wrong."
They all laughed and Carmen hugged her daughter, there was really nothing she could do at this point.
"Looks like you guys have been busy while we were gone." Zack said. "But enough of that, anything has happened with him?"
Ivy, Josha, Mike and Carmen all looked at each other. Scratched their heads and then smiled back at both of them. Zack and Tatyanna got scared for a moment, but then they hear it.
"What, only five dozen sugar free buns? Are you trying to starve people? Hey, hey, you over there that flag is one inch too low, move it up. Oh, no, horses to the back. Jeez people, I can't be everywhere." Chief's lovable voice was heard in the other side of the courtyard. Chief's pink screen came around the corner and he spotted Zack and Tatyanna. Chief froze in his travel and looked deeply at both of them.
"Sara maybe a crack head, but she is wonderful when I'm storming her place." Carmen said in Zack's ears.
Zack started to walk towards Chief, while Chief started to cry electronic ears of joy.
"It's so good to see you old pal." Zack said to his pink screened old boss.
"Thank you for being my friend." Chief said while smiling.
Tonight was a night of just pure celebration. They all enjoyed life and lived every moment of their experiences for the rest of their lives. Proving once more that living it all night, don't stopping was worth it.
The End.
Hope you have liked it. It was a very hard ending to write. =D