Persevering Redemption: Part X
"LISTEN! CAN YOU HEAR ME!?" Yelled out Cheryl to Perseverance.
The Tetra Demon Lord grabbed the hero's head and lifted it. "Look, boy. Your mother is here to call you a failure yet again. Let's listen in, shall we?"
Cheryl froze up, unable to speak. However, that's when the voice of Constitution rang out to both of them. "HELP... FRIEND... CHERYL..."
Perseverance's eyes trembled as he watched his mother swallow her pride and she screamed at the top of her lungs for everyone to hear. "I'M SORRY! I WAS WRONG!"
Four little words that had been said before. However, those words now had actual meaning behind them, backed by real tears running down her cheeks. As the Tetra Demon Lord was about to laugh hysterically, Perseverance got a single knee underneath himself and gripped the Demon Lord's arm. With a resolute war cry, he threw the Demon Lord over his shoulder. As he looked at her, those copper eyes of his showed no hate, not love, but something closer to acceptance. He nodded at her and then refocused on the Demon Lord.
"How about we wrap up this fight, eh vestiges?"
John Henry and the other three origin vestiges appear beside him. "We thought you'd never ask. EVERYONE! READY!"
Perseverance channeled the vestiges' power through his body and cracked his left wrist back into its socket. The Tetra Demon Lord watched as this hero, whom he'd been pummeling not more than a few moments ago, stood up and leaped at him.
"WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN DEFEAT ME NOW! I'VE HAD YOU ON THE ROPES!" The Demon Lord yelled out to the hero.
"THAT'S BECAUSE I WASN'T FIGHT WITH MY WHOLE SPIRIT!... INNOVATORS OF SPEED!" In a break-neck ninety-degree turn, Perseverance and the Demon Lord shot into the sky. "STEEL-DRIVEN TORQUE ANGELS!... FINAL INNINGS' GRAND SLAM!"
As they climbed ever higher, the hero unleashed a fury of moves and punches that propelled them farther and further from the ground far beneath the two of them. In the eyes of the Demon Lord, Perseverance was a blur of a force of nature. Each punch felt as if the very life was being beaten out of the four of them collectively. He seemed to be unable to stop and unable to catch his breath for even a moment. This hero for a small, midwestern city that had been forgotten by every big wig in their circles, had become the greatest threat to all of them.
"Be a good sport will ya?" Started Perseverance, "Once this hit lands, do me a favor and send Rothschild out here so I can kick his ass too." The four tyrannical tycoons watched as Perseverance powered himself up to a height they'd never reach without Rothschild.
"Folklore with American Heritage: John Henry + Lemuel Curtis and Charlie Wiggins + Badman Stagolee... LEGACY AMERICAN POWER!"
As the hero's punch landed, it was followed by a downward-aimed roundhouse kick to the head. The Demon Lord shot to the ground faster than a rocket breaking free of Earth's gravity. The sonic booms from the Demon Lord's fall and impact were deafeningly skull-splitting and awe-inspiring. As the Demon Lord slammed into the European dirt, the Tetrad of tyrannical tycoons lost their consciousness and vanished allowing Rothschild to return to being in control of his body and actions.
"What? How did I..."
"Hypersonic Antitrust Impact!" Yelled the hero as he planted his fist into Rothschild's gut once more. This time, the Demon Lord Rothschild vomited blood like he was supposed to the first time Perseverance used this move.
"Welcome back, Rothschild. The only thing you really missed was me kicking your ancestors' asses. Now GET UP! LET'S FINISH THIS!..." Perseverance appeared to shift a spirit transfer case into a four-by-four high position, all the while he had a grin plastered across his face.
"Combination Superior: all the Specialty vestiges + all the Strength Vestiges + All the Speed Vestiges... LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!"
The immense amount of power, motion, and courage generated and flowing throughout Perseverance's body spiked ever exponentially. As he cocked his fist back like a pinball rammer, he fired it at the Tyrannical Demon Lord. Rothschild watched as the energy-enhanced punch blacked out everything around him. The hero seemed to be shouldering the strengths, hopes, dreams, and war cries of every red-blooded American citizen and soldier in the power of his fist. As the punch landed, the Tyrant's body was used to blow apart the British Parliament Building, Big Ben, and Buckingham Palace.
"There's nothing like the power of 1776 flowing through my veins on British soil. How full circle of me." Chuckled Perseverance as he levitated over the ruins of Buckingham Palace. Rothschild emerged from the debris and rubble to find the hero above him.
"Badman Stagolee and the best of Specialty! Bind him in place with voodoo and begin what we planned! J. Henry, the other Steeldrivers, and those best of Strength! Spike down those Voodoo Tethers and hold him in place!! Lemuel Curtis the 332nd, and those best of speed! Encircle him with several rings of Red-Tailed P-51 Mustangs, trains, planes, and fucking rockets! Charlie Wiggins, Doris Miller, Jesse Owens, Martin Luther King Jr., Mammy and Frederick Douglass! Hold his slippery ass still. I want him to see this fucking happen. I want him to know it was all of us who ended this reign of tyranny!"
As Rothschild is tethered down, tortured for a moment, locked in place, encircled by all sorts of innovations of flight, and forced to have his head facing Perseverance, with two voodoo dolls holding his eyes open on each side, Perseverance speaks to him... one final time...
"You could've avoided this ending by simply surrendering when I made the offer to you and your ridiculous New World Order. Instead, you seal your fate, Clinton's fate, Rockefeller's fate, Soros' fate, the fates of your ancestors, the fates of your soldiers, and your own fate... because I'm not taking any fucking eugenics user soldiers as prisoners."
The American Symbol of Enduring Willpower, Perseverance, took a deep breath and then spoke the final words the New World Order Symbol of Dominating Tyranny, the Demon Lord Rothschild would ever hear...