Demetrius had been sitting in the lobby for three hours now, patiently waiting for someone else to arrive. No one else is coming, he thought, it’s got to be a trap… He had come all this way for nothing; stuck his neck out for nothing. People died for this…
VIP Room of Club Odin, Amsterdam
It was two weeks ago they contacted him, one moment he was alone, the only superhuman alive. Then the notification on his smartphone came, someone had found his blacksite, a woman claiming to be from “The Ark” the place he was born. He wasn’t alone anymore, there were others! Better yet, they weren’t raised by Aegis, confirming his suspicion that the shadowy law enforcement agency hadn’t been the ones who made him. Or at least that was what this woman claimed. It was enough though: hope. Even if it was just an Aegis trap, Demetrius had to know for sure, and that meant disappearing again.
In the past five years, Demetrius had built a small criminal empire under the alias, The Emperor. He mostly dealt in hard drugs ranging from LSD and Ecstasy, to Heroin and Cocaine. For all in person dealings, he used a
mask to hide his face, lest it be recognized by any agencies and come to the attention of his former employer. While it lasted, it was a good life, just dangerous and challenging enough to keep him sharp and on his toes, while also affording him luxuries he never before even thought to obtain. But this was more important, there were others like him now, and they were in trouble, maybe even the whole world was too. It had been a good run, but now assets had to be liquidated, transportation secured, and old business resolved.
Everything had been going smoothly until a few of his men caught wind of the move. Demetrius’ plan was to have his second in command, Jack Hallibern take over as acting head of operations until he got back. That way, if the Ark turned out to be a real thing, Demetrius could just slide out of the picture, leaving a smooth transition of power from himself to Jack. It was a solid plan, until everything went to shit.
It was the night before The Emperor’s retirement; in the morning Demetrius was set to leave for Steelport. But tonight they partied hard. The VIP Room was on the third floor, separated from the rest of the club, where Demetrius and his closest friends could do whatever they wanted. The music was hot, and the girls were even hotter. There was booze everywhere, and Demetrius had a cigar case full of blunts on the table in front of him. A glass of cognac in his left hand, and a vaporizer in his right, plus his best friend
Dali sitting on his shoulder. Life couldn’t have been better when all of a sudden, six armed men came bursting through the door. “Everyone get the fuck out!” One of them yelled, as he proceeded to shoot out the speakers with his AK-47. People scrambled out the door, running for their lives, all except for Demetrius and Jack.
“What the hell are you doing, Russ, you god damn son of a bitch…” Demetrius demanded.
“Consider this a hostile takeover. You know every empire has to fall sooner or later.” As he finished speaking, Russ opened fire, spraying bullets across the room and hitting both Jack and Demetrius with a few rounds apiece. Jack was down for the count, but Demetrius swung into action, rising to his feet and hurling the table in front of him straight for his attackers, taking three men off their feet, including Russ. Next, two men with ‘45s started firing as Demetrius managed to dive behind a nearby couch just before the third man managed to squeeze off his Uzi.
“Holy shit, this dude is tough as fuck!” One of them shouted, as he reloaded his handgun. Running out from cover, Demetrius charged the Uzi carrying attacker and decked him straight in the face before grabbing him and swinging the man’s body like a weapon and bringing down a second attacker, leaving only one left standing. The man cried out in fear, initially so confident that six armed men could take down just one, and now realizing that he was all alone. “Just die!” He screamed, as he pulled his trigger again and again nearly point blank into Demetrius’ chest. The man emptied his clip and heaved a sigh of relief; thank god it was over he thought…
“What a waste…” Demetrius sighed, to the horror of his attacker. “Had you only known the truth: you never could have succeeded…” Grabbing him by the throat, Demetrius lifted the man off the ground and held him suspended in the air for a moment, looking into his eyes with a deep, regretful sorrow. “Rest now, you poor soul.” He said, before hurling the man headfirst into a wall, the force cracking his skull open and killing him instantly. Jack had taken a bullet in the heart and died during the fighting, so the rest were finished off with his gun, and The Emperor’s mask was placed on Jack’s face and his body laid out in the middle of the floor. The cops would be on their way and there could be no witnesses to his outburst of strength and bullet resistance. Thankfully, Demetrius didn’t have any fingerprints due to his skin, so that wouldn’t be a problem… No one would know how to explain the table and the cracked skull of course, but Demetrius didn’t really care, he’d be long gone before any Aegis bloodhounds could pick up his scent.
Suddenly however, Demetrius found himself pulled out of his musings when a man in a hoodie walked up to the desk. He was here for the “Job Interview” too. Soon after more followed suit, to the point where Demetrius was comfortable that whoever this was, it wasn’t an Aegis trap designed to grab him. If he was getting captured, now at least it would be with others like him. Approaching the front desk, he said the magic words and was ushered into the elevator, escorted by some silent attendant. When the reached the twenty-third floor, he was lead to a room with a fingerprint scanner, “I don’t ha-“ he began.
“Just put your finger on the scanner, sir.” The attendant interrupted.
“Whatever man.” Demetrius put his finger on the scanner and after a few moments the door clicked and opened up, revealing a small surveying room. “Oh, it’s the Paranoid-Bitch suite… You know, I’d really prefer the presidential if you don’t mind…” Demetrius’ humor thinly veiled his cold anger. Who the hell does this bitch think she is? Does she really think she’s the only one with enemies, or is it just that she thinks that she’s the only one that matters? If his years as a drug lord had taught him anything it’s that when two dangerous people meet for the first time, it’s only polite to make yourself as vulnerable as you’re asking your counterpart to be. Now he was positive that it wasn’t a trap. If Aegis or some other organization really wanted to capture him, they’d have made every effort to lull him into a false sense of security, not go out of their way to spook him.
The attendant just looked back at Demetrius, completely unamused, “Please enter the room, sir. Otherwise I’ll have to ask you to leave.” The man said. Just because it wasn’t a trap though, didn’t mean Demetrius felt any more inclined to enter the room, but he supposed it couldn’t be helped. Pulling out a bag of weed and his vaporizer from his jacket pocket, Demetrius began to pack the bowl. “ Excuse me sir, you can’t do that here…” The attendant protested.
“What you gonna do nigga? Shoot me?” Demetrius laughed, continuing with his work. The attendant just stuttered for a moment while Demetrius looked back at him with an eyebrow raised, waiting to see if the attendant had anything else he wanted to say. He didn’t, the man simply sighed and waved Demetrius inside the room. Leaving the infuriated man behind, he simply stepped inside and waited for it to be locked behind him. ‘Click’ Just as he expected, but it didn’t matter anyways, at least now he was alone. He leaned back and hit the wall before sliding down till he was sitting on the floor with his legs stretched out in front of him.
“State your full name please.” Came a woman’s voice through the intercom. Probably Sarah’s if anyone had to guess.
Demetrius took a long drag off the mouthpiece on his vape, holding the precious vapor in his lungs for a while. “Demetrius…” He said, blowing out a puff of vapor as he spoke, already bored by the whole process. “You know, you really suck at making friends.
