Shattering All Their Fetters: Part XI

Perseverance let out the words for everyone below to hear...

"American Heritage Multiplied by Folklore: The Best of Strength + The Best of Speed + The Best Specialty... Hear all of our collective voices as you have been sentenced to death, forcefully consigned to a fate all too befitting of your crimes against EVERYONE!" 

Perseverance stares into Rothschild's eyes, only seeing the great gaze of fear and cowardice peering back at him. However, a Polish FA-50 rips past him, through the vestiges and frees Rothschild. With the Demon Lord atop the jet, its Pilot flips off Perseverance. 

"No America = A Better World." Says the Pilot ripping the jet over the open waters. 

However, the American Jets are all but preoccupied, Constitution can't stand, and no one else is fast enough to hit it. Stagolee and Chuck Yeager appear next to Perseverance. 

"You're an insane kind of mad! You don't know what that will do!?" Yelled Stagolee. 

"If I don't... They'll nuke the US. Besides..."

"If not you, if not us... Then who?" Cut in Chuck Yeager. "Kid, you gotta know... You're about to face a kind of G-Force that no human has ever felt... Ever. Survive this... and you'll have made a legacy for yourself."

"Thanks, Chuck... Now then.."

Perseverance uses the spirit voodoo chains to latch onto two buildings. The tension exerted on the building begins to shatter the foundations. As he powers up, he locks his neck bracing armor in place... "Combining the moves of Innovators of Speed with Liberty & Justice For All, then adding the moves of Torque Over and Second Declaration... this move... this kind of power... UNLEASH! VOYAGER 1-2 MANIFEST DESTINY!"

The hero's launch sets the sky ablaze with a nuclear orange hue. Venus puts on her goggles to watch him streak across the blue-colored atmosphere. All of his friends and family watched the heavens as several sonic booms broke the awed silence. The armored portions of the hero's costume begin to sheer away as he pushes past the fastest known speed of any Earthbound human. Combination X flooded his bloodstream, and the hero's mind combined with his willpower forced him to stay conscious and alert. 

He explodes past the FA-50 as it fires its only nuclear-capable missile toward the US. Rothschild watches this blurred hero grab the missile in a single hand and reangle it at the jet. As he lets go of it, Perseverance uses his remaining momentum to tackle the Demon Lord and fling the both of them back to European soil. The jet crumples and explodes from the impact g-force wave of the hero's relaunch. As the Hero and Demon Lord hurdled back towards Europe, Rothschild lost his nerve, furious at the outcome that had come to pass. 

"YOU UNGRATEFUL INSECT! I HELP YOUR MISERABLE PEOPLE! I BROUGHT YOUR KIND INTO THE FOLD! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TO CHALLENGE ME! I AM EVELYN ROTHSCHILD! OWNER OF YOUR ENTIRE EXISTENCE! WHY DO YOU..."

"THIS IS FOR LONESTAR! LIFE FORCE EXTRACTION: DEEPWATER HORIZON'S CREW AMPLIFIED!"

Rothschild's life force began to flow into the Perseverance. Rothschild's eyes were filled with horror. The Hero wasn't just taking years off of his life, rather he also was reclaiming the years the powerful tycoon and his entitled ancestors lived and walked the Earth. A decade gone, two, three, half a century, a full century gone. The Hero stole back the full lifespans of John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and his father as well. 

As the two could see the European Coastline, Perseverance spoke to the Rothschild, in a one of a kind, heart-to-heart chat that only he could give the tyrant. 

"Rothschild... my entire life... I've been called whitewashed, too black to be white, and too white to be black... I've watched my friends, family, and strangers struggle to climb and meet their dreams with smiles on their faces... I saw them cry, weep, and yell as they lost everything to you and yours... I watched the only woman in my life, who'd shown me real unconditional love, real heart, and the true strength of one's willpower. I'd done letting you walk all over them... and I'd done getting walked all over by you! You know not of our struggles nor do you care... So allow me to show you a mere glimpse of them..."

Venus and the others watch the two come back into their view. Rothschild's eyes filled with true, hopeless fear as Perseverance tossed him into the air just ahead of him. With the nuclear missile in hand, he cocks back his fist, he smiles at the Demon Lord.

"I HEREBY RELIEVE YOU OF POWER AND COMMAND!... WITH ALL THE BESTS IN AND OF AMERICA, CHARLIE'S LIMIT BREAKER, AND MY WILL-POWERED MIGHT! I SEND YOU BACK TO HELL!..."

Perseverance smiled as he thought to himself in those moments. Recalling every single one of their struggles, each of their fallen comrades... "I finally have my fire back..." He thought as he yelled with every ounce of his might. Charlie's Torque Overload Limit Breaker amplified the hero's willpower, while Stagolee's Voodoo-Steam Transfer converted that willpower into pure unfiltered strength. Lemuel's Red Tail Centrifugal-Torque Power and John's Steel-Driven Strength drove Perseverance's body into overdrive. 

"The kid's gonna do it..." Said the Vestiges of Doris Miller and Babe Ruth. 

"No," Started the Vestige of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, "Open your eyes and hearts more. See it as it truly is and has become."

Frederick Douglass's vestige nodded his head. "He's finishing that which we all started. Our March of Progress is now his Rallying Cry To Victory."

"With all of our strengths, weaknesses, hopes, and dreams on the line..." Started the 332nd Red Tails and the Hidden Figures. 

"We'll get to see the dawn of a new age. Finished Chuck Yeager and Jackie Robinson. 

As Perseverance's move lit up the sky, the vast legion of vestiges that had been empowering this young, mixed-race, Midwestern American Hero, all joined him, adding their power to his own. "YOUNG MAN... SHOW THE WORLD! SHOW THEM THE POWER OF BROKEN SHACKLES! SHOW THEM... THAT AMERICA IS FREE, THAT WE ARE FREED!... VESTIGES POWER RELEASE... TEN-THOUSAND FOLD! All the Vestiges cried out as his willpower's light outshined the sun, breaking the shackles of both new and old slavery that Rothschild and his ancestors had perpetuated for generations. 

"American Heritage & Folklore: My Willpower + The Sacrifices and Bravery of the Past... GOODBYE... ROTHSCHILD!... STAR-SPANGLED SPIRIT!"

As his words echoed through the sky, throughout the TV screens, radios, and ears of all those watching him, that nuclear missile had become reconfigured into some kind of long-rodded spike. The blade looked like pieces of wooden/steel propellers, legal documents, books and letters, train parts, sledgehammers, handbags, boxing gloves, a corncob pipe, and rocket parts. It glowed with a star-spangled aura and as the hero used his left hand to hold it steady on the Demon Lord's skull, he fired off the knockout punch heard around the globe. 

Rothschild screamed in unimaginable pain for the last time as the spike split open his skull. He'd used up his regeneration elixir thanks to Constitution and the combined time he'd wasted on fighting off the other heroes. In a blinding explosion of light, Rothschild was gone, obliterated from history and the world without a single trace left behind. 

With the tyrannical Demon Lord's demise, Americans and Europeans cheered and rejoiced with a feeling stronger than just hope. Those who'd been injured were cheering for the hero as well as his feet touched the ground. He was immediately tackled by friends and strangers, who were laughing, cheering, or crying at his triumphant victory. As they helped him up, Perseverance quieted everyone around him. Camera teams and reporters pointed and looked at him. 

"Today..." He paused for a moment fighting the pain his body was in back down. "Today marks the dawn of a new era! Let us all..." Perseverance staggered, only barely catching himself. Venus and Morganna rushed to his side, but he stopped them. Instead, he put his right hand on Keith and transferred the years back to him that Rothschild had stolen. His dizzy mind calmed down after that. He nodded to himself, pointed to the recording camera, and thrust his right arm into the air. A single report standing near him said it best as her eyes welled up with happy tears.

"PERSEVERANCE...WINS! VICTORY! The "Better Atlas" has carried out hopes and cries of defiance! Rothschild is gone! The Demon Lord is dead! The American Hero has done the impossible!" 

Across America, people cried tears of joy, yelled out victorious screams, and cracked open liquor and beers. The war for their very existence was over, all due to the efforts of everyone that day.