Prologue: The Final Response
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Earth, 'A' Country, Time: 5:30 pm.

A black stretch-limousine was cruising down the highway amidst a light drizzle. The clouds had covered the setting sun, seemingly bringing a premature end to the evening and plunging the area in twilight darkness.

A clean shaven and grey haired middle-aged man was reclining in the eight-passenger seat all alone. He was engrossed in watching the latest news on his smartphone with his left hand, while sipping the red wine once in a while from the wine glass in his right hand. He was known as Earl Brown, an influential figure in the Congress, and a billionaire who inherited his father's company which specialised in making arms.

A light frown marred his face as he looked over the latest news concerning his case in the Supreme court he won today. While he won the case, he lost the heart of common people and the support of his party.

The news were full with various analysis of how he won the case by using a loophole in the law, while many conspiratorial news outlets even went so far as to state the existence of various eyewitnesses that he had killed to prevent himself from getting the highest punishment present within the federal system of the country- death by lethal injection.

The controversial news weren't far from the truth. He had to dye his hands crimson due to the surfacing of his traitorous deeds of selling blueprints of latest weapon machinary to various terrorist outfits. The outright act of betrayal towards his country would have sent him down the abyss without the help of his 'friends'.

The complex web of benefit and power in the modern times had made it hard for a sole person to rule over any 'grand endeavour' which lead to the formation of various groups of power, the greatest con of which being that any group would have to bear the brunt for the fall of any individual amongst them.

Hence, Earl Brown was safe as long as he provided various benefits to his 'group of friends' for their help, all the while looking out for any devious means from them to prevent himself from turning into their scapegoat. He had already made many countermeasures for the eventual exposure of his dirty closet, so he was sure to get away from being punished by the law.

In fact, he had already planned out his escape from the country and fake identity credentials for spending his remaining life with the wealth he had accrued as the final fallback option.

As Earl Brown continued reading the various spiel delivered by politicians of his opposite party with regards to him, the frown became more intense. His heart was filled with flames of fury as he recalled the person responsible for his adversity.

Suddenly, his smartphone started ringing as an unknown number flashed on its screen. Taking the call, he asked "Hello, Mr.019?".

" Hello Mr. Brown, the deed is done. He won't survive to see the sunrise tomorrow.", the caller spoke with a harsh and robotic voice. Clearly, the voice was stimulated artificially to prevent anyone from recognising it. It was a normal procedure for a professional hitman. As a person that was familiar with the shadowy parts of the society, it was not a surprise for Earl Brown to know some hitmen.

" Great! I will pay the balance as soon as I hear about his death. Goodbye Mr.019.", he replied, and cut the call. His frown vanished as a light smile appeared on his face. At last, the one bearing highest responsibility for his plight would end up dead.

Earl Brown, being born in a billionaire family, started showing a high degree of intelligence from an early stage of his life. Any endeavour he took, he succeeded in it, be it education, business, sports etc. Succeeding his father's business at an of 29, he took the company to greatest height it had ever reached and doubled its stock rate within a decade.

He then entered politics at an age of 40 to satisfy his craving of megalomania. He charmed the gullible public with his noble bearing and extravagant orator skills. " Send them arms, and let them fight amongst themselves while taking their money for ourselves." was what he had said to convince his 'group of friends' to help him start illegal smuggling of weaponry to various terrorist outfits.

They reaped large amount of profits in terms of both money and leverage power that they had in terrorist ridden countries. Indulging in the greed and satisfaction of their dark cravings, they began to expand their operations. That's when FIA struck. And it struck like lightning.

FIA or Federal Investigation Agency was responsible for keeping an eye to any activity that might harm the interests of the country. Specializing in intelligence and surveillance, the agency had, for a long time, been aware of the black deals made by Earl Brown and his group. However, they had no choice but to let the things go as they were due to two major reasons.

First, the group involved kept the operations distant from themselves such that FIA had no valid evidence for their suspicion. Second, the procedures that underpinned the operations of FIA got in their way. The second statement seemed paradoxical, however, it was the most important reason refraining them from action.

FIA was the most important agency of A country. Employing extremely skilled intelligence officers and experienced field agents, there was no case they couldn't solve and there was no threat they couldn't uncover and remove if they put their all to it. However, the power they leveraged came with heavy restrictions. There were certain procedures that were to be followed to measure the threat level of any case that they caught or suspected.

In case the threat level did not cross a particular line that harmed the country and its citizens, they were not allowed to act upon them, and they had to pass these cases towards other concerned authorities. No agency was above the procedures and laws, for they worked for the country and not for themselves. Hence, they had to overlook Earl Brown and pass his intelligence to other concerned authority. This was the difference between a government agency and a group of thugs with no regards for rules and regulations.

Clearly, the concerned authority took its time as they played a game of hide and seek with Earl Brown and his goons. Earl Brown, in his arrogance over fooling the authorities of the country, finally crossed the line when he made a deal with a particular terrorist outfit, which involved classified blueprints of weapon manufacturing machinary of the country.

Like hounds that smelt meat, the FIA, which had been keeping a close eye on Earl Brown, jumped into action. The heads of FIA, who were previously angered for not being able to take any action against him, sent the best field agents against him. Raiding the numerous illegal weapon manufacturing units in various third world countries which were under heavy influence of various terrorist organisations, the FIA finally accumulated enough evidence to pin down Earl Brown for his crime.

Even though Earl Brown got away in the court, he knew his problems were far from over. FIA couldn't get him through legal methods, so they were bound to use certain hard methods to make him dissappear. Remembering various rumours privy to the higher ups of the society about FIA, he couldn't help but feel a chill down his spine. He had to get out of the country as soon as possible.

Bemoaning his plight, he couldn't help but curse under his breath, " Damn those Thugs of FIA."

'The Thugs of FIA', which was the term coined by higher ups of the society that were antagonistic towards the FIA, were a particular group of field agents whose sole mission was raiding and destruction. They were known to brute force their way through any problem they faced during their operations.

A ninety-five percent success rate of their field operations coupled with a headache inducing mess of destruction that they left during their operations made the group become the final trump card of FIA. The agency never turned to the group as long as it had any alternative, because cleaning up the mess made by that group gave them nightmares.

The group began to be called as 'The Final Response of FIA' after someone amongst them coined up the term based on the initials of group leader's code- FR-01. Due to the term being a perfect address for the group, all the higher ups of FIA gradually started addressing the group in the same way. It was this particular group that was responsible for infiltrating Earl Brown's main base in M country and demolishing it while looking for any evidence present in the base.

Just remembering the things he watched in various secretive images of the demolished base captured by his goons, a fire lit up in his heart as Earl Brown once again started cursing under his breath. Unfortunately, he didn't know anything about FR-01, or he would have done anything to get rid of that bastard.

Looking out of his black tinted window, he realised that the car had stopped at an intersection that was very close to his destination, a secretive farmhouse where he kept his fake documents and credentials. He had already planned to keep them near him now that the situation was dire, as he never knew when he would have to flee at a moment's notice. He was ready to open the door when he heard a loud honking noise.

He turned around only to see that a black painted eighteen wheeler truck was rushing towards his limousine about 80 kmph. He was bewildered as he remembered that the speed limit for normal trucks were about 60 kmph. As the truck magnified in his eyes, he realised something, and started rushing to open the door. Alas, the truck was too close.

*BANG*

The limousine was blasted apart by the collision due to overwhelming momentum from the truck. The truck slowly came to a stop, and started to move in reverse, stopping near the limousine, or what was left of it. A black haired youth wearing a black mask that covered most of his face and about 1.7m tall got down from the driver's position and checked for any survivors. After making sure that no one survived, he again got back to the driver's seat, closed the door, and started driving the truck away from the scene of accident.

The driver lifted his mask and kept it on the seat next to him, revealing a young and handsome face devoid of any facial hair. Humming a tune of his favourite music, he started the radio, seemingly in a good mood. Hearing the familiar news that was the talk of the town right now, he smirked as he muttered under his breath, " How can I let you get away, you damn traitor? I would be too ashamed to show my face to other teams as the head of Final Response if you run away under my watch."

The youth that just perpetrated the accident of Earl Brown was none other than Freddie Richardson, mainly known by higher ups of the FIA as FR-01, the head of the Final Response group. No one would believe that this handsome and comely youth who seemed in his early twenties had killed nearly thousand men during his service. The information circulating about him among the higher ups of the society was little to none with the exception of his code name. Less than thirty people around the globe were aware of his existence, ten of which were his teammates. He had no family that he knew of, except for the deputy head of the FIA, Frank Richardson, who was a loner that had dedicated his entire life towards his country.

As an important person from FIA, Freddie had enough leverage to pull some strings that allowed him to remove the limiter present in his truck and modify it such that it transformed into a state-of-the-art house on the wheels. If he was in a rush, the truck could run as fast as 140kmph. He liked to spend most of the time that he was offline by moving around the country, enjoying various sceneries and tasting various delicacies. He had a hobby to enjoy the local food of any place he visited.

Frank Richardson, who also used to be a field agent, had found him as an infant barely six months old during his mission to crack down on an experiment lab funded by many crazed scientists and major criminal organizations. The lab was meant for experimentation on infants less than a year old, with the aim being to explore the secrets and true potential of human body. By the time he and his team reached the base took down all the members of the lab, there was only one infant that was left alive out of numerous other infants, with all the documents about all experiments destroyed by the head scientist as he shot himself to prevent himself from being captured alive.

As the sole survivor of the incident, the infant was taken to a secretive hospital belonging to FIA where his body was checked for any abnormalities due to experimentation. The body of the infant was found to be completely normal, not showing any weird data for any part of his body.

Frank Richardson, who had never been involved with any woman, and spent most of his life alone after joining FIA, took a liking to the cute looking infant, and decided to take the responsibility of being the infant's guardian by adopting him and naming him Freddie Richardson.

Freddie Richardson was like a shining beacon who lighted up his father's monotonous life. Frank had decided to resign himself as a field agent and took a behind-the-desk job within FIA as a higher up in the intelligence department when Freddie was old enough to go to kindergarten.

Life went on for the both of them without any major ups and downs for many years, when Frank received a call from the school his son Freddie attended. He got the shock of his life as heard that his son, who was ten years old at that time, had beaten up eight teenagers about sixteen years old that had been bullying one of his classmate. Frank put down all the work and rushed towards the school without thinking about anything else

When he arrived at the scene and saw the beaten up teenagers with each and everyone sporting at least one fractured bone, he shouted himself hoarse at his son, scolding him for the first time in his life. After calming down, he finally realised the absurdity of the situation, and once again rushed, with his son this time around, to FIA based hospital.

On the way to the hospital, he called some people and pulled some strings so that the teenagers would be punished for bullying and sent to juvenile jails. He considered his son as the apple of his eye, and did not allow anyone to upset him! Normally amiable and mild in nature, Frank Richardson was famous amongst his friends for being violently aggressive whenever the well being of his son was threatened. He could not bear his son suffering from even the slightest grievance.

Reaching the hospital and after a series of lengthy tests which included about every part of his body, he got the second major shock of his life as he read the reports. Freddie Richardson, ten years of age, had a body filled with strength of about five common people, and his neural activity in regards to his muscles was off the charts. This meant that he was a humanoid machine highly suitable for combat. A masterpiece that FIA solely needed.

After going through the test results, Frank was overjoyed and immediately sent these details to his higher ups in the FIA, who immediately came to a conclusion to classify the details of the test as confidential. Freddie Richardson was admitted in the FIA as the youngest field agent ever.

The events that followed were just like the emergence of a myth. Showing extremely high learning rate in terms of combat capabilities, weapon mastery and various things required of an expert field agent, Freddie Richardson, who started working behind the enemy lines at a mere age of seventeen, was like a beast released by the FIA as he left behind destruction and death wherever he strode as a field agent.

The funny thing about Freddie Richardson was that he was extremely poor at using soft methods to overcome any hurdle in his way. He couldn't even convince an eight year kid to give him his/her candy, let alone infiltrating any organisation and mixing amongst its higher ups while befuddling them to accomplish his goal.

It didn't mean that he was a hard brained combat maniac, as no muscle headed person could survive five whole years of being a field agent. It was just that all the intelligence and cunning that he possessed was in the area of violence, brute force and destruction. He would rather kidnap any criminal and torture a confession out of them rather than fooling them into doing the same.

Just like the case with Earl Brown, he would rather end him brutally than play mind games with him. The most that would happen would be a long session of scolding from his father and then he would get away scot free. It was a privilege of being the sharpest sword of FIA.

Of course, he wouldn't cross some lines or he would be put down. There were many cases that he knew of that were aptly described by the saying ' the rabid hounds are always put down by their masters'. However, occasionally toeing the line was fine as long as he remained an asset.

Difference in use of intelligence can be described by the example of difference between a successful businessman and a great scientist. Both possess high level of intelligence, but excel in only particular areas. It is nigh impossible for any normal human to excel in whatever endeavour he undertakes. While it may be possible to succeed in two or three fields of excellence at a time, excelling in everything is a pipe dream.

Clearly, Freddie Richardson was a normal human in regards to the intelligence department. While his brain sported a high I.Q, it was not as exaggerated as his superhuman musculoskeletal structure.

The truck drove through the thin veil of the drizzling rain as the darkness gradually covered the sky. Roughly an hour later, Freddie received a call on his phone. He picked the phone and put it on speaker as he said, " Hello."

" Hey! 04 here!", said the caller. Clearly, he was a fellow member of Freddie's team.

" Yo Marky, the line's safe", replied Freddie.

" You were right on about your prediction this time as well, Fred. Some idiotic hitman tried to snipe your father and fell right into the trap. Sigh, he has been too high profile recently. Are you sure you want to give your credit to him this time? You should know that this will be very risky.", Mark said with a nervous voice.

Freddie sneered as he answered, " Humph! Of course I was right! Bastards that don't retaliate are never termed as bastards! I expected that Browny fella to do something. And you don't need to worry about my father, just follow the plan. This is a golden opportunity. Old head is about to retire soon, and I wish my father to succeed him! Browny and his dog friends are the best sacrificial offerings for his ascension."

Not only Mark became calm, he became more nervous as he said, " Don't go apeshit on me this time! There is a hell out there right now. Don't mess it up anymore."

Clearly, a field agent understood his fellow partner the best. Mark was worried that Freddie would take things in his hand. Afterall, his track record wasn't clean. Freddie replied " Oh come on! You know me. I always follow the rules and respect the law. Oh yeah, ask 06 to ready the garage. I had an accident today. I want my truck to be as good as new by the weekend."

" Yeah right! You are as pure as an angel. I hope this accident isn't what I think it is." Mark replied angrily.

" Blah blah blah! I am cutting off the phone!" Freddie replied.

" Wait a sec Fred! You aren't hanging up on me until you ans-"*Beep*

Freddie cut the phone as muttered, "Unfortunately, I don't swing that way, or Mark is a perfect wife material with all his nagging. Finding a girlfriend by the end of the year? How am I even supposed to do that? Damn old man, you are single in your old age, yet you put such strict demands on your son!"

Suddenly, the sky became bright as the temperature rose quickly. Looking towards the sky, he saw a meteor rapidly approaching! With a voice full of despair, Freddie screamed, "Shit! I wish I had time to kill each and every member of MASA! Damn those inept guys for not being able to predict the arrival of a meteor!".

That was his last sentence on Earth, as moments later, the truck was blasted apart and everything in front of his eyes went black.

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