A/N: Hey everyone. I'm sorry for the delay. I got sidetracked, distracted, etc and I will admit I suffered from a slight case of writer's block. I know I said that I would get you chapters every Saturday, but I also promised to get you three chapters a month. While I failed to get you three chapters for three Saturdays, I am going to make sure you all get your three chapters for the month. Double update after this chapter.
November 23rd, 2055
Hospital
Rolling the next patient into the hospital bed, an aging old lady quickly tucks him into bed before patting him on the head and wishing him a good night's sleep. Turning her watch over, she checks the time. Almost eleven o'clock at night; time for lunch. Or dinner.
Heading to the break room, the aging old nurse sits by herself while the other nurses converse with each other in the corner of the room.
The aging old lady has long gray hair that comes down to her mid back, which hunches over every few seconds. Her eyes which used to be brown are now a light gray color; not even she is aware of the reason as to why. She wears a nurse's skirt but in all honestly, she wasn't officially a nurse and was someone who came here to get a paycheck and to ease morale for all the patients here. After all, most of these patients were terminally ill and knew they had days, months, or (if they're lucky) years to live.
This aging old lady with baggy eyes, wrinkles, and red lipstick goes by only one name. Lady Inda.
When people ask what she is a lady of, she gives one reply: "A lady of art." And she was an artist.
Pulling out her Polaroid, she looks over the photo of the terminally ill patient she tucked into bed a few minutes ago. It was taken before her leading him to his room but it was enough for her. She was getting paid a lot for this and would follow through.
This patient was going to die in a few days and he wanted a picture, a perfect picture of him, made for his funeral. Not just a picture but a painting so perfect, it could be passed as a photograph.
Yes, Lady Inda will deliver.
Finishing her tuna sandwich, she pulls out a sketchbook from her bag and lays it flat on the table. She sets the photo down and to the side of the sketchbook. Taking out a pen and a pencil sharpener (for comfort), she gets to drawing her customer.
Ninety seconds later, she finishes, and it brings a smile to her face.
"Ninety seconds," she mutters under her breath. "In my prime, I could finish a drawing of someone in sixty seconds."
"Man, she misses being twenty again. She remembers when she was a little girl, she was always off in her world, drawing. When everyone was busy playing with each other (or beating the living crap out of each other), she was in her room, isolating herself from dreadful humanity, drawing whoever she could.
Lady Inda misses hand-drawn art. Nowadays, with AI dominating the world, people turn to AI to make art, write stories, perform other jobs, etc, etc. The peak of using AI for creative purposes slowly rose around the 2020s and then peaked in 2029. The use of AI quickly fell out of use when Kira sprang back into action around 2030 and has been dominating the world for the last twenty-five years. For all its hard work, AI has been downgraded ever since because the people who design AI were pulled in to upgrade cybercrimes.
AI was outdated for the last twenty-five years and Lady Inda was happy. No, she is happy because now, people are going back to using their own creative minds to write and do artwork.
Fuck AI, Lady Inda thinks to herself. Fuck robots.
She holds up her finished sketch and rolls her eyes over it one more time, just to be sure she catches every little detail taken in the photo. After years of sketching people from a Polaroid camera, she can distinguish the difference between the genuine subject in the photo and any slight oddities caused by the camera, like black spots or blurry parts.
She checks her phone to make sure that the pounds come through. Smiling after seeing how many pounds were in her account, she quickly invested the currency in another category before tucking her phone away.
Grabbing her sketch, she heads back to her quarters. Rent has gone up since her landlord was killed by Kira a few days and the new landlord was a miser son of a bitch. If she didn't get more people to pay for the arts of their dying figures, then she would be off in the streets.
She hasn't been on the streets since she was a toddler.
As she heads back to her room, she stops to see seven Royal Marines stepping through the hallway, checking the rooms for the next terminally ill patient for them to take away. Lady Inda looks over her shoulder and sees the Marines head into a room.
As Lady Inda was about to open her door to settle in for the night, she paused. A gurney rolls forward and a pregnant woman has an oxygen mask on, her eyes lazily drifting through the halls as doctors and nurses quickly work their way to any unoccupied rooms.
Lady Inda's eyes land on the woman's stomach, her hand caressing the nine-month pregnant bump.
Lady Inda gasps and looks away, her own hand drifting to her stomach.
I never did have the time to have children. I'm sixty-one and I'm all alone. She pauses. Then again, my paintings have been my children. After all, children are nothing but legacies left behind for adults. If these paintings are all I have left to leave a legacy, then these paintings are my children.
Opening the door to her quarters, she closes the door, locking herself in a small room filled from head to toe with portraits of paintings of terminally ill patients. On the right side of the wall, paintings adorn on the wall consist of terminally ill patients who passed away, naturally or supernaturally. The ones on the left feature those who have yet to cross the threshold between life and death. The two category paintings intercept in the middle of the north wall, separated by a pair of twins, one dead, the other alive, both having green dyed hair.
One thing that all the paintings share is that the people in the paintings are in their best suits with smiles on their faces, genuine smiles as if they were happy with the life they left behind.
Lady Inda drops on her bed after setting her sketchbook down on the dresser and slumps under the cover. As turns on her back and looks up at the painting on the ceiling, the one directly above her, the one of Mary herself, Jesus Christ's mother.
She says a quick prayer to the mother of Jesus before closing her eyes and letting sleep take her.
Military Base
Stepping through the crowd, the newcomer heads to a cubicle left blank for him to decorate for the day. The man is an aging man with mismatched eyes, one blue and the other brown. His name is Ethan Hunter, a 44-year-old man with terminal brain cancer. If surviving testicular cancer wasn't enough, now he had to go and get brain cancer and helplessly wait for his brain to slowly but surely degrade over time.
He took out a can of Chef Boyardee and tried using a can opener but his hands failed him. Damn arthritis. That's when someone walks by him. He reconigzes him; Hydra.
Hydra quickly helps him open the can before sitting on his desk like it was his chair.
"Ahh, Mr. Hunter, so glad to see that you have joined us." He removes a paper from his jacket pocket and unfolds it. "I take it you have read the terms of your contract and you're familiar with the procedures the Marines spoke to you about, right?"
Hunter nods. "I am, why?"
"I just want to make sure before you get involved." Hydra removes his mask, revealing a smiling towhead behind the rubber mask. "Hydra is a symbol, a walking target, one that Kira would kill to kill. By putting on this mask, you are agreeing to adhere to a code, a legacy, a rule."
"I'm already dying," Hunter points out, "I'm sure nothing can be worse than a heart attack. Have you ever had brain cancer?"
The former Hydra smiles. "No, but I do have terminal malaria. It's pretty nasty when I feel the effects but it's something I've lived with and something I'm already expected to die from. The guy previous to me, the Hydra before me was a man with a tumor growing in his head with each passing second. We're all on the same boat; a hying boat. But we're all going to make it work so we can take down Kira. After all, if we focus our attention on taking down Kira, we can prevent World War 3 from happening sooner rather than later."
Hunter flinches. "World War 3 is on the verge of breaking out?"
The former Hydra smiles. "Oh, if only you knew the things I've been told. I can't discuss everything but World War 3 was on the verge of breaking out. Nukes are being geared up as we speak; it's inevitable."
"Kira's killing ability is far more deadly than any new can be."
"The power to kill anyone with just a name and a face." He smiles. "Perfect weapon for anything but that's where we come in. Kira has kept our primal urges suppressed for far too long and we need a release. Humans are violent creatures by nature and we need to release some of that violence so the world stays clean. If we wage war with Kira, we focus on a different target than those parts of NATO and Interpol. All of this is to prevent war."
"But if Kira is gone, then what will happen? If Kira is gone, there will be a power vacuum and worldwide chaos."
"You're right, there will be chaos on a global scale but it helps in our favor. Because everything has been suppressed for so long, once everything returns to normal and chaos breaks out, all the militaries in the world will have their hands full trying to contain everything. We will suffer but we will be able to focus our primal violent urges on criminals instead of other nations' militaries.
"So that is what this is all about, preventing war."
The former Hydra nods. "Exactly. But know that - as stated in your contract - you can't discuss this with anyone outside the Royal Marines or anyone other than a former Hydra or a successor Hydra. The time for you to adopt the mantle of Hydra and keep this world from plunging into chaos all falls on your hands."
"Jeez, no pressure."
"Exactly, no pressure at all." He hands Hunter the mask. "Put it on, try it on for a size."
Hunter takes the mask and looks into its eyes for a brief second. He narrows his eyes, thinking back to his time as a child when he would pay for his own Halloween masks instead of having his mother buy them. They cost a lot of pounds but he was happy and content to have bought a mask with the hard-earned pounds from cleaning up the house and doing a bunch of exhausting chores... like raking the leaves.
He tries it on and pulls at the edges and sides, making sure it fits comfortably around his face. Coughing a little, he looks through the eyeholes and his eyes land on the former Hydra.
"Bassel," the former Hydra says suddenly. "My real name is Theodore Bassel."
"Hello, Bassel, my name is Hydra."
Bassel smiles. "Good." He takes out a pill bottle and pops a single white pill. "Well then, get ready; you got to go to court."
"Why?"
"Remember how Hydra was being investigated for the death of the Prime Minister of Japan? Well, you're the one going to court. Don't worry, you'll be able to wear your mask as almost everyone in court will and your lawyer will be doing most of the talking. Also, plausible deniability will work for you because you will be genuinely confused about everything going on around you."
Hydra stands up. "If you say so. Also, what you said about nukes, is it true?"
Bassel nods. "Absolutely. Countries are arming up, and preparing for global nuclear war. Finding Kira, killing him, and causing worldwide chaos so the military will have their hands full with regaining order is the only way to prevent this."
"A scapegoat."
"Exactly, Hydra, a scapegoat. The world wants a scapegoat and we will deliver. You will help us deliver. The sooner we take Hydra down, the better."
"Is England armed with nukes?"
"Absolutely. We have like ten thousand nukes at the ready."
"Who has the most?"
"America and Russia; they both have like sixty thousand nukes on hand and they're gearing up, ready to strike at a moment's notice."
"When will the nukes be launched?" Hydra trembles.
"Soon but since we're working with the Royal Marines, we will be the first to know... Brigadier Hydra." Bassel smiles. "Don't worry, no nukes will be going off soon."
Japan
Turning on the news, Rain watches the news with an intense stare, taking in every detail of the trial before her. In the Great Kingdom of Great Britain, Hydra was on trial for the assassination of the Prime Minister of Japan. He sits in a large courtroom where everyone wears a mask, even the witnesses and civilians. Rain scoffs. "He's wearing a mask; how can they be sure that's the same Hydra."
Just then, Archer and Angel step into the living room. "What's going on?" the twins ask in unison.
"Hydra is on trial." Rain steps closer to the TV, getting a closer look at the Hydra on screen.
"So, which Hydra is that?" Angel asks.
"Who knows," Gintik Hagmay answers as he materializes before them. "But does it really matter considering that they change their identities like they change their shirts?"
"No, it does matter," Rain says. "It matters." She steps closer to the TV, especially when they show a close-up of Hydra's masked face. She narrows her eyes and gets closer, focusing intensely on the eyeholes. She steps back, folding her arms over her chest. "I think I know who that one is."
"Why, because you saw him in your dreams?" Archer snarks. "Don't tell me, sis, you've gotten tired of Sei and decided to dream up another man and you're projecting."
Rain ignores him. "Maybe." She turns to her siblings after muting the TV. "The Hydra right there has a mismatched set of eyes, one blue and one brown."
"So?"
"This is a big detail that can help us in figuring out where these Hydra guys are getting their replacements. Heterochromia affects a very small portion of the world's population. Suppose we can find a terminally ill patient in a hospital near the British Royal Marines base. In that case, we'll know exactly where the Hydra replacements are coming from."
"And what about the stalkers trailing us?"
"We'll get to them later but we'll figure something out. Right now, we need to focus on Hydra. I don't know how long this guy will be Hydra for so we need to act fast."
"What is your plan?"
Rain looks over to her brothers. "Do you think you can handle what I'm about to say?"
"Yes," the twins answer in unison once more.
"Archer, you may like this plan but Angel, oh sweet baby Angel, you won't like this plan."
Angel flinches but keeps his eyes on his sister. "What is the plan, sister?"
Rain holds her head up. "It is going to be a bloodbath." She makes a fist. "We're going to send one of our followers or we're going to coerce someone at the hospital to take pictures of every patient and then send them to a third party, who then puts their pictures up on the internet. Once we have confirmation that the mismatched color eye guy is there, then we'll know where the Hydra replacements are coming from."
"And then what?" he hesitantly asks, suddenly aware of how expressive Rain is with her speech. It's not overt and outgoing but there was a tone she spoke with that Angel had never seen or heard before.
"We're going to put those terminally ill people out of their misery."
Angel gasps, stepping back. "We're going to kill them."
"Yes, we're going to kill them all."
She smiles. She fucking smiles!
"We can't do that, they're innocent people, not criminals."
"But they're helping our enemy and that makes them enemies." The smile on her face vanishes but the tone remains in her voice. "Besides, they're already dying so what difference does it make? Besides, we're not going to kill all of them, just 99% of them."
"Not all of them are guilty. What if they really need help?"
"If Hydra cared so much about these people, then they would've recruited these people. Remember, this is only a theory. If the hospitals show no sign this heterochromia guy is there, I'll spare the hospital and then I'll look to see other places for these replacements. But I'm hoping the hospital is the key; it would make my life easier."
Angel steps forward. "I won't let you kill-"
SMACK!
Angel gasps, clutching his red cheek as he stares at his older sister in horror, who looks at him with that perpetual blank look on her face.
"You smacked me," Angel whispers.
Rain cracks her knuckles. "I didn't even tell you the rest of the plan."