[ CW ] TropeDay Prompt : Team Rocket Wins !

The laser hovered inches away from Crichton's head, primed to slice the second Dr. Wilde pulled the lever. 
 
 `` Any last words, Mr. Crichton? Perhaps a eulogy for the country you failed to save? Or an apology to the dead woman in the antechamber? I do hope she released you before we did her.'' 
 
 Crichton grimaced. Then he shouted, `` I know about Project Medusa.'' 
 
 Dr. Wilde said, `` I know you do,'' and with that, he pulled the lever. The blue-hot laser split Crichton's head clean in two, right between the lips and nose. The edges seared, and the top half plopped to the ground. On impact, the brain slid out and landed with a thick squish. 
 
 Dr. Wilde looked at the brain, the brain of Crichton, the most damn-bastard brilliant agent who ever pursued his schemes of capitalist conquests. He looked, and he walked backwards. 
 
 The room spinned. He felt light-headed, the way he felt after sitting up too quickly, or after one of his hard orgasms with Vya Aural - the former woman now collapsed and silent in the antechamber. Dr. Wilde extended his arms, feeling for a chair, a support, anything. 
 
 Failing, he fell on his large ass, and it was n't until a full minute later that he realized the only sound in the room was his ragged, cholesterol-addled breathing. 
 
 He'd won. 
 
 The thought landed on him like a mortar. He'd won. Crichton followed him every step of the way. The hand-off in Hong Kong. The plane crossing the Kazakh border. The shoot-out on the border of Moldova that cost Crichton his right-hand man, Emil `` The Python'' Veidt. Every step of the way. Except the last step. 
 
 Project Medusa was a smokescreen. The eponymous satellite was never built. The goal, all along, was simply to trap and kill Crichton. 
 
 And now it was done. 
 
 Dr. Wilde sobbed. Emotions raged in him, a tornado of guilt and righteous joy and fury and frustration... and loss. In all his years, Wilde never met a man as genius as himself. Crichton came closest. And there was that one moment, just before the plane boarded in Kazakhstan, when he spied on Crichton through the slates of the cargo box. He'd seen how Crichton regarded the poor outside the gates. No compassion, no frustration, just utter indifference. That was when he thought Crichton might finally understand the futility of absurd concepts like `` morality'' and `` nationalism'' and `` loyalty.'' How trite they were in such a world. 
 
 He sobbed. There were no guards to see him. He'd evacuated them to minimize human error. 
 
 Tears fell. There were no cameras. He'd wanted the moment to be personal. 
 
 He wiped his nose with his arm sleeve, and snot congealed on the fabric. For an hour - maybe more, maybe less, time grew faint - Dr. Wilde sat, alternating between crying and calming himself and staring at the remains of Crichton and crying again, turmoil renewed. 
 
 A knock came from the solitary door at the far side of the room. Tinny and female. One of the scientists who developed the laser. She opened the door and poked her head in. 
 
 `` Sir?'' 
 
 `` *Fuck off! *'' Dr. Wilde bellowed, and he heard footsteps clang on the grated floor outside. 
 
 He stood and walked back to Crichton's corpse. He pulled the brains off the floor and stuck them into the top half of Crichton's head. He placed the skullcap tenderly on top of the bottom half of Crichton's head. He looked at the face, which - barring the thick stripe of black edges across the face - looked like his old enemy. 
 
 `` Crichton? Wakey-wakey,'' Dr. Wilde said, and another sob escaped. `` Wake up. I need to tell you about Project Medusa.'' 
 
 He stepped back, and when he squinted, it almost looked like Crichton was trying to ignore him. Staring at the ceiling, eyes open. That was his old insouciant foe. Dry to the last. Dr. Wilde wiped his eyes dry with the flat of his hand. 
 
 `` It's quite possibly the most advanced satellite ever devised.'' 
 
 The insane man talked to the dead man. His voice echoed through the hard rock walls of the underground lair.
