232. The Lovers Part II

A mysterious old man farms in the grasslands of Greece.

"Hey, Prometheus!" yelled a young Hercules, walking up to the old man.

"Herc!" laughed old man Prometheus. "Did you fish enough for the week?"

"Yeah!" laughed Hercules.

Hercules look at the sun and smiled sweetly, allowing the sunlight to touch his face.

Later...

Hercules and Prometheus ate silently at the table.

"What's wrong, Herc?"

"Nothing, dad..." Hercules sighed. "It's just that... I think that there could be more, right? More to just being... this..."

Prometheus sighs.

"Yeah...more than just this..."

A light shimmers from outside their stone home...

"Look, Miguel..." Dark squinted his eyes. "Disney villains are awesome, okay!? They're just way too awesome to be brushed over! They have just... this sense of justice in them, right!? They all have their motivations and pizzazz!"

"For the last time, Dark. I don't disagree with you."

"So, you do agree with me!"

"I don't agree with you either."

"What!?"

"Well... After you've been traumatized countless times, I don't think it's psychologically possible for that person to agree with the same people who traumatized him."

"Oh! Sure! Mother Gothel!?"

"Overbearing parent."

"Ursula!?"

"Ex-Girlfriend..."

"Hans!?"

"Corrupt scum politician I used to beat every night... Until I killed him after turns out he molested little girls..."

"JAFAR!?"

"I don't like snake charmers. They have those eyes..."

"Tamatoa!?"

*Psy-Crab Flashbacks*

"Tighten from Megamind!?"

*MASSIVE STEFAN FLASHBACKS*

"I don't like the protagonists! They're just unrealistic all-good do-gooders!"

"No..."

"How so!?"

"Because the difference between Stefan and I is that he broke and gave up on being good. I didn't. Call him the stronger one for all I care. I'm the one who's unbreakable."

Dark stares at Miguel with choir music in the background.

The pair look at Yuki.

"Sorry!" smiled Yuki, listening to Church music on the Smart TV.

"Yeah... Heroes are dumb, Miguel."

"Pfft..." sighed Miguel.

"You were an assassin, too!"

"Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, Dark."

Meanwhile...

Oh, Goddamnit.

"What?" asked Prometheus.

I'm realizing right now that every protagonist I've ever written is an anti-hero.

"Oh... HA!!!"

Except probably Josuke...? Yeah... Everyone.

"Lol."

Am I... creatively bankrupt!?

"No, don't worry. Not yet. Chill."

OH MY GOD!!! OH, GOD!!! I COULD JUST CANCEL THESE BOOKS!!!

"WHOA WHOA WHOA!!! CHILL!!! CHILL!!! WE DO NOT WANT THAT!!!"

Oh... God... I'm ALSO an anti-hero... No... I'm practically a neutral antagonist!

"NO, YOU'RE NOT!!! SHUSH!!! KEEP WRITING, YOU ANTI-SOCIAL PSYCHOPATH!!! The sun is setting! THE SUN IS SETTING!!!"

Okay... Phew... Wow... I mean... Wow... I could've just killed you right then and there, huh? AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

"Hahaha... Y-Y-Y-Yeah..."

Don't worry, Pro... I was just fuckin' with ya.

Prometheus sobs silently in the corner.

I then pat Prometheus' hair.

"You're a fucking monster..."

Fuck yeah, I am...

Now...

Miguel, Yuki, and Dark look left and right.

"Something was watching us just now..." said Miguel.

"Probably just the wind," said Yuki.

So is that what I'm called now? The Wind? Screw these guys, man.

"Shush... I heard it again," Dark said, listening intently.

SOY BOY!!!

"Nah... Yuki's right. Probably just the wind."

Fuck.

Meanwhile...

Hercules backs away from Dan Steel.

"Look... Dan..." said Hercules.

Dan stabs himself in the neck as Hercules howls in pain.

"Dan..." Hercules wheezes. "Don't-..."

"I'm trying to help people like me... Who received injustices in their pasts for being who they are..."

"My father... Prometheus... One time when we were eating dinner around 3000 years ago... I was called upon by my true father... Zeus...I was sent into multiple missions in the Multiverse... I fought an intergalactic monster called the Hydra... A god-like nigh-invulnerable Lion... I dug cosmic rivers into the galaxy and cleaned a giant Celestial head that was a stable for flesh-eating Space Horses... Capture an intergalactic space hound... Capture an intergalactic pig... Slay Qus... Capture the Bull Gods of Space Crete... Stole the mares of Diomedes... Gained Hypolita of Prime-Earth's Girdle... Obtained the tribodied space giant's cattle... Steal three apples from the Old God Hesperides... and I captured the God-like Space Dog Cerberus... who swam in the rivers of the Edge of Everything...I did everything for the Old Gods... But I wasn't treated as one of them. I was treated as an object of the 4th Dimensional Gods of Olympus-D4C-Grimm...I was the most powerful variant of Hercules... Yet I was treated terribly because I was a man."

"And what did you do?"

"I settled on Earth-D4C-Grimm... And stayed with my beloved until she died... She died three years ago... 84-years-old..." sighed Hercules.

"You're a coward."

"I'm not a coward. I chose peace. I chose to live not in anger and hatred... Not living on the edge and not living in hatred... But living in love, humility, and respect for life."

"You could go back to Zeus and kill him..."

"All the Zeuses were killed by every Darkseid..."

"I believe that those who live by the code of vengeance are never happy... I don't hate you... though... I pity you... I actually have a couple of friends who live by the code of vengeance..."

"You may be happy, but are you satisfied."

"Very," smiled Hercules.

Dan prepares the knife one more time. "This piece of shit country is what it is... shit... Its code of freedom and liberty is a quack... I wasn't given what I deserved because what happened to me was in the past..."

"Then move on... I'm telling you this from one old man to another. Move on."

"No..."

Hercules' eyes glowed white as his hands' veins became golden bright. "Then... you will die..." his voice boomed.

"So be it... I doubt I'll die... I'm already dead anyway..."

Dan Steel kept on stabbing his abdomen. Hercules' heart beat faster. He sweated more. His lips trembled and he drooled out of the pain.

Hercules' heart began to slow down.

"Huh... Interesting..." said Hercules, squinting his eyes.

" said Hercules, squinting his eyes"What?" Dan shivered.

"You're hurt..." said Hercules.

Dan's lips seem to be drooling blood. "That doesn't mean anything."

Hercules takes out Golden Sun. "You did something to me... Did something that hurts me... but that hurts you as well. What is it? Is it the sweat? The quivering eyes? My body temperature raising?"

Hercules' heart beats faster.

Dan sighs in relief as he prepares to stab himself once more.

"Something... Just something that acts as a wall between what you can do and what you can't... A barrier... What is it? I have to risk something..."

Hercules holds his breath as Hercules punches Dan in the face.

*SPLAT*

A punch is blasted into Hercules' face as he backs a few inches away.

"It wasn't that... What is it?"

"Stop trying to strategize, you big buffoon!"

"You underestimate my brainy brain," said Hercules.

Dan points the knife in his stomach.

*STAB*

*SPLAT*

"Wait... You're avoiding something..." Hercules squints his eyes.

"Stop trying to think!"

Dan tries to stab his eyeball as Hercules' Golden Sun stops Dan's arm.

The damage reflects back at Hercules as the grips on his arms tighten.

Hercules pants as the knife touch Dan's head.

A small hole on Hercules' forehead appears.

Hercules breathes heavier as his heart beats faster.

"I know... what to do!" yelled Hercules. "GOLDEN SUN!!! POINT AT HIS HEART!!!"

*CLANG*

Dan's heart stops, and therefore Hercules' heart stops.

The Lovers, who are revealed to be in Hercules' heart, begin to retract back to Dan as Hercules' heart stops beating.

Hercules' eyes begin to quiver as he drooled blood.

"I knew it..." Hercules trembled. "Your Stand is in my heart... and your Stand only functions at a beating heart... and only damages living people..."

Hercules trembled even more.

"I see now... that your Stand is a parasitic long-ranged type, huh?"

Dan backs away.

"You'll die before your fists reach me!"

"Let's test that theory, shall we?"

Golden Sun blasts its fists into Dan over and over again. "KRAKATOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

*BOOM BOOM BOOM POW POW POW POW POW*

Dan is beaten to a pulp as blood gushes all over his body. He backs away, slowly. "I had a dream..."

"Injustice..." the man sang Martin Luther King Jr.'s words. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere..."

Hercules retorted with something else that Martin Luther King Jr. said... "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that." Hercules sighed. "Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

"Hm..." smiled Dan Steel. "Promise me... that you'll remember me..." he sobbed. "Just one person... to remember me... please..." Dan fell on Hercules' arms, desperately trying to keep himself alive. "Please... I don't want to be forgotten... No... I don't want to be remembered as the village idiot... the man who everyone turns away from... Not because you should care... but as a form of human decency..."

Hercules' eyes went teary and he nods. "I promise that there will be people who will remember what you did for this country."

Dan Steel sobbed and looked into Hercules' serious eyes. "May you please save the others... who were seduced into the darkness... of Salvi's Order..."

"We will free them... I promise..."

"Thank... you..."

Dan died in Hercules' arms from all those fractures in his body.

Later...

"A statue?" asked Miguel. "Of who!?"

"Dan Steel..." said Hercules. "Think about it... If you agree with Trumpet to build a statue for someone who received injustices in the war..."

"I don't care about that," said Miguel. "I will never help Trumpet unless he'll join me."

"Oh..."

Miguel's eyes quivered.

"But I will help this Dan Steel..." sighed Miguel, as he pinched the bridge between his eyes, closing them and having a headache. "I know what it feels like to not be remembered by anyone... Even though this man is our enemy... is someone that I think is scum, for murdering innocent people over his selfish needs... I still think he's a decent person... A man who was forgotten in the cruel jaws of time was gnawed to the point of rust..."

Later...

"Fine..." sighed Trumpet, signing a paper. "This is a start of a possible alliance."

"No..." said Miguel. "I didn't do it to ally with you."

"You did it for this man who you pitied?"

"I saw myself in him."

Doughnut sighs. "I understand... Miguel... That is why I respect you. You're a decent man, Miguel JoJo."

"So are you... for doing this," smiled Miguel.

A week later... a statue was built for Dan Steel in Central Park...

Hercules stares at the statue. "Now, you have received your justice, Mr. Dan," smiled Hercules.

*ACHOO*

Dark blows his nose into some tissue.

Hercules facepalms. "Dark? You kinda ruined the moment..."

"What!? I have hay fever!" yelled Dark. "Stupid Americans and their climate. I have a conspiracy theory that they teamed up with the penguins to create global warming!"

"Okay, buddy..." sighed Hercules as he walked away.

"Okay! Next thing to do! Let's go kick some Russian Mafioso's asses for good measure!?"

"Maybe tomorrow..."

"Oh, come on! I'm trying to better myself, man! It's the only way of redemption!"

"Vigilantism?"

"Uh... No doy!?"

"Fine, Dark... Fine..."

"Aw, yeah!"

"Did you turn off the oven like I told you? Yuki is out shopping and Miguel and the others are back on Earth-D4C-Prince."

Dark pauses for a while. "We have an oven?"