The Rise of the Fat Mogul (The Defenders Saga Book 2) (23 page)

Arthur raised his hands in the air as he responded.  “Look,” he said, “I'm unarmed.  I simply came out to welcome all of you in.  Would you care for some tea?”

“I don't think so,” Zero spoke, his body shimmering. 

“What the--” Buddy began, noticing his old sidekick was suddenly a blurred figure.

“Shut up, Buddy,” Zero yelled.  “I'm sick of listening to your stupid prattle.” Zero melted into a vague shape of himself before reforming and solidifying into the shape of Jeffrey Flores.

“Jeffrey!” Arthur exclaimed as he turned back toward the door and reached for the handle.

Jeff jumped forward and landed on top of Arthur, pinning him to the ground as he flashed a toothy grin.  “Surprised to see me, Dad?”

C
HAPTER 25

“What the hell's going on here?” Buddy asked.  “Where's Zero?”

“Get the hell out of here, Buddy,” Jeff yelled as he shot Buddy a snarling glance.  “You’ve served your purpose.  This is between me and my father.”

Oscar ran toward Jeff and tackled him to the ground, removing him from atop his father.  As he landed, he placed an elbow on Jeff's chest.  “I don't know what's going on here, but I'm certainly not going to let you just ambush Arthur like that, no matter what he's done.  What are you doing here?”

“I'm here,” Jeff said through labored breaths, “to take what is rightfully mine.  I'm here for my birthright!”

Arthur laughed as he returned to his feet.  “You stupid, stupid boy.  You have no birthright.  You have no place in this family.  And you are most definitely not owed anything.”

Jeff struggled against the weight of Oscar’s suit on top of him until Jeff’s form melted and grew into that of Arthur himself.  Once he became his father, his frame grew even larger, and larger, until Oscar was no longer capable of holding him back.  “You dare try to keep me from what I am owed,” Jeff snarled in the voice of Arthur.

Arthur cackled louder.  “Come on, boy, you think you can honestly take me on face to face?  You had your chance, you failed.  Now get out of my house before I am forced to do something drastic.”

Jeff, now over ten feet tall, his head touching the ceiling, batted Oscar to the side as though he were nothing.  He snorted as he stepped closer to his father.  Alexa moved toward Arthur to assist, but Buddy held her back. 

“What are you doing, Buddy?” Alexa yelled.  “Jeff’s going to kill Artie!”

“Sounds like this is more of a family squabble,” Buddy disagreed.  “Let’s see where it goes before we get involved.”

“You think I’m not worthy to run your damned business?” Jeff grunted as his form re-molded, becoming more beast than man, maniacally growling through the fangs that now protruded from his mouth.  “Yet you sit down here and allow the whole thing to go up in flames.  You’ve never understood what our business could be capable of, never truly knew what all we could do.  It’s time for a new generation to take over.  And unlike you, I'm not afraid to use force.”

“You wouldn't know how to use it if you tried.”  Jeff, now looking like something between a wolf and a man crossed with a bear, stood face to face with his father.  Arthur laughed at the monster that stood before him.  “Having power does not mean to use force at every opportunity.  One must delicately tread the road of diplomacy and terror.  You, the one who would pretend to be my son, only know terror.  And even that you do horribly.”

Jeff howled in anger as he swung at his father, sending the old man across the room.  “You damned fool!”

Arthur stood slowly, still laughing. 

“How dare you laugh at me?”

“Now?” Alexa asked, looking at Buddy in concern.

“Not yet.”

Arthur continued laughing as Jeff approached him once again.  His form morphed back into his normal shape, his face red with rage.  He spit as he yelled, “You think this is funny old man?  You think I won't hurt you?  I'll tear you apart!”

“Jeffrey,” Arthur continued his crazed laughter, “you couldn't hurt me if you tried.  I, on the other hand, as always, hold all the cards.”

Jeff lunged at his father, who disappeared at that precise moment, causing Jeff to fall to the ground.  Just as he hit the cement, four rods appeared from the ceiling and pierced through him to the ground.  As soon as they made contact, Jeff's body began convulsing, his shape shifting to something new with each shudder. 

Oscar stood from where he had fallen earlier and looked at the man now screaming in pain.  “We have to do something,” he yelled as he ran to the door.  “D.A.W.N.!”

Buddy, Ryan, Alexa, and Talmadge followed quickly behind.

“Donna worry.  I’ll soon free your friend here,” Salachar said as they disappeared inside the complex.

Oscar was already on the other side of the foyer when the rest of the crew entered.  “Oscar!” Buddy's voice echoed off the walls as he ran after his friend. 

Oscar turned as he pressed the button to the elevator.  “This ends now, Buddy,” he said as his helmet's mask slid down over his face.

Alexa appeared at Oscar's side.  “Dad,” she said softly.  “What are you doing?  You're in no shape to be fighting against Artie.  Especially not with him as crazy as he is right now.”

“I started all this, Lexi.  I have to finish it.”

“Not alone you don't,” Ryan said as the rest of them made it to his side.  “You're a Defender, Dad.  Defenders fight as a team.”

“You don't understand, son.  I had the chance to stop him.  Stop him before he had the chance to do any of this.”

“What do you mean?” Alexa asked, her eyes hazy with tears.

“Where the hell's this damned elevator,” Oscar yelled, attempting to change the subject.  He pounded on the button rapidly.

Buddy grabbed Oscar's hand and turned his old friend to face him.  “What are you talking about, Oscar?  What could you have stopped?”

“Everything,” Oscar said, his head drooped.  “The meta-human army, the mafia thing.  The,” he paused, “the Great Redaction... Dominion.”

“I'm sorry, guys,” Talmadge joined in, “but I really have no clue what you're talking about.”

“What are you talking about, Dad?” Alexa burst out.  “You could have stopped The Mind Wipe?  How?”

“How?” Oscar laughed.  “How?  Because I knew what was happening.  I saw this darkness growing within Arthur.  This anger.  He became so discouraged by everything, by how much work we did as these protectors of the city, and how little we actually got in return for it.  We fought many times about how to use the little bit of money we did get from the city.  He saw it as something we were owed, and he saw it as being nowhere near enough.  It was him who convinced me to make The Bunker so damned extravagant.  At first, I thought we shouldn't have even accepted the money, but he convinced me, just like he convinces everyone.  And then suddenly we were building this giant monstrosity.  But at least it served a purpose.  Then he started getting weird.”

“In a world of super-heroes, aliens, and monsters, I have a hard time envisioning what you would consider weird,” Buddy laughed.

“This isn't funny, Buddy,” Oscar reprimanded.

“Sorry, go on.”

“Arthur wanted more. He saw how much power we had, how much the city relied on us.  He talked about how we should charge for our services; how we should ensure that we continue to get an income.  I understood where he was coming from and, although I wasn't really completely behind the idea, he talked me into it.  But as soon as I started backing him, he would take it one step further.  He always takes it one step further.  He took it upon himself to start creating problems that only we could solve.  That's when I should have stepped in and done something, but it seemed so harmless at first.  He'd get little kids who had special powers to accidentally flare up in situations that could be incredibly dangerous, like kids with fire abilities sparking up on a hayride. 

“There was never any chance of anyone getting hurt, I made sure of that.  And invariably we would get some sort of reward from the city for swooping in and saving the day.  But it was never enough.  We had successfully managed to clear the city of all major crime and, well, we were little more than watchdogs, waiting for something to happen that never would.

“I started seeing my research money dry up and decided to dedicate my efforts to other things.  But I never told anyone that Arthur had been responsible for all of this, never tried to stop him from continuing, either.  It must have been then that he got his great idea.”

“You don't mean?” Buddy asked, remembering the memories he had taken from Damon.

“Yes, I do.  You see, we were only receiving funds from Sun City back then.  Arthur had bigger plans.  Global plans.”

“Dad,” Alexa said slowly, “you didn't...”

“Look, we were young, we needed money.  It's not like these gadgets I was inventing were cheap to produce, not to mention how expensive it was to develop D.A.W.N. and everything else I put into The Bunker.  And it seemed like we were constantly embroiled in legal matters.  Oh, and do you have any clue how much bad press we got whenever we got involved in foreign affairs?  The world was in bad shape and we were helpless to do anything against it. 

“In fact, every time we did go overseas to deal with terrorists or dictators or whatever, we ran the risk of creating an even larger global catastrophe as everyone was ready to leap down each other’s throats.  And, of course, we couldn’t even consider actually picking a side in any actual official war.  In the face of these much larger threats than just carjackers and muggers, we were finding ourselves becoming irrelevant and Arthur got scared. 

“So he developed a plan to create a menace that only we could resolve.  That's when he gained access to the documents on people who seemed to have inert meta-human abilities, people who were probably completely unaware of their powers altogether.  That's when he found a man who could be manipulated in just the right ways to become a severe threat.  A threat that only we could remove.”

“Dominion,” Ryan concluded.

“Yep,” Oscar replied.  “I didn't know it at the time and if I did, I would have stopped things right then and there.  I would have let everyone know what Arthur was up to before he even talked to Damon the first time.  I didn't find out until it was way too late, until after we had shipped Dominion and Zero off to the middle of the galaxy.  And when I did, I immediately went to let everyone know.  Little did I know that Arthur had already accounted for this possibility, always having a Plan B. 

“He had already planted the seed for The Great Redaction.  As soon as he knew I was going to out him, he put that plan into action.  I barely had time to get my family safe.  And then that was it.  Arthur took over his part of the world, found himself a perfect little situation here in Sun City, and I couldn't do anything about it, without risking being tossed into the MHDT's detention cells for the rest of my life.  I could have stopped everything; instead I've had to sit helplessly watching for years as this man has ruined everything he touches, everything that I--that we, worked so hard to build up.”

“But Oscar,” Buddy consoled, “there was no way you could have known what Arthur was really up to.  Plus, even if you had done something, that crafty bastard would have just found some other way around it, wouldn't he?”

“That's what I'm afraid of, Buddy,” Oscar continued.  “Don't you think it's odd that Arthur called for you the second he thinks Damon is back?  He created Dominion, surely he could have gotten rid of him, right?  Arthur could never have been content to just sit and run a local police force, that’s nothing like the Arthur I know, the Arthur who created Dominion.  I think his Plan B is still in action, not yet complete.  The only question I still have is, what is his end game?  And why the hell does his son seem so hell-bent on killing him? 

“I had allowed myself to feel confident that I had stopped this huge threat by forcing Arthur’s hand with The Great Redaction, but maybe all I really did was give him the time he needed to build up his forces once again, to enact his final measure.  I mean, he did have my very own daughter working as his second-in-command, right?”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Alexa asked indignantly.

“I'm sorry, honey, but I find it very hard to believe that Arthur wasn't just using you to feed me misinformation, to make me think that everything he was up to down there was relatively harmless, considering the alternative option.”

“But I hadn't even talked to you for ages, how could you--” Alexa cut herself off as she realized what had been happening.  “Ryan! You've been helping Dad keep tabs on me?”

“Of course I have, sis.  He was worried about you.  Well, at least that's what I thought at the time.”

“I was worried about you, sweetheart.  But even more than that, I was worried about Arthur, and what he might have been up to down here.  How could I have been so stupid?”

“But that still doesn't really answer the question of what's going on here, does it?” Talmadge asked.  “Arthur doesn’t look sane enough right now to be in control of anything.  Dominion is out in space, right?  Arthur Flores seems more like Howard Hughes right now than Adolf Hitler.”

“Maybe,” Oscar replied slowly, “but don’t you find it odd that he was prepared for our arrival?”

“We can talk about this all day,” Buddy jumped in, “or we can just go find Arthur and figure it out for ourselves.”

“That's precisely what I intended to do before you all stopped me,” Oscar replied.

“Hey, we didn't stop you,” Ryan joined, “we just wanted to come along.”

The group looked at the elevator questioningly, realizing that it still had not opened.

“D.A.W.N.!” Alexa yelled.

Ryan and Oscar ran to the desk in the middle of the foyer and looked at the screens situated behind it.  The rest of the group followed shortly behind.  The screens burst to life just as they all arrived.

“So you're finally ready to know the truth,” Arthur laughed as his face appeared on each of the seven screens.  “Finally ready to know what it's all about, what this has all been for?”