"I'm getting tired of asking, officer," Alias said in an almost sing-song tone as she again lowered the dirty cop into the oubliette, his arms the only thing visible as he dangled in the tiny room below the floor, too small to allow one to turn. "We're gonna leave you there until you decide that you're ready to speak," she said, moving away from the lever and limping towards Oscar.

"It's not torture, I'm not hurting him, so don't even say it," she said. "I just need a few more hours at most. You just need to wait a bit, Oscar."

Oscar quirked a brow under his mask at Shams. "I was just waiting for you to pull Bill out," he said, his tone carrying a hint of amusement. "Still. Not as, uh, bothered by the idea of torture as I was when we were partners. Sometimes it's the only way you can get information. So if we need to..."

Slowly, he tapped a foot on the oubliette's door. "This is a new addition. Guessing you put this in recently?"

Alias nodded. "I'm missing half an ear and I have a trench dug in my ribcage, Bill can wait until that's healed," she said, grabbing at her side immediately after mentioning it. "The oubliette is new, I dug it out myself. People would tip my chairs so I needed a way to keep them from getting anywhere. Next up is a water pump. That'll scare the shit out of people," she said, chuckling.

Alias hissed as she limped her way to a nearby table, resting herself on it and letting out a long breath. She looked at Question, her expression hidden in her mask. Her face lingered there for a long while before she exhaled with a "bah" noise and wandered over to a table covered with assorted tools.

"I'm depending on you, don't disappoint me like before," she said, pulling out a rag and thin brush to clean her pistol.

At that, Oscar scowled a bit. "Don't disappoint you, huh?" He walked over to the table, stopping just a few feet away from it. "Look, if you're talking about before... It was a transitional period. I'm better now. I'm being serious."

He could hardly remember those days if he had to be honest. Everything was a drug fueled haze as he slowly adjusted to the concoction, and to his new abilities. It wasn't easy, and by the time he had finally become something akin to the man he once was, she was already gone. It amazed him that she wasn't angry. Just "disappointed"... Knowing her, though, she was probably just using the word to mask how livid she was at him.

"I sure hope so," she muttered, holstering her gun and walking over to the oubliette lever. "No talking," she instructed Oscar as she lifted the hatch and pulled the man out of the pit, the loud noise of chain against chain echoing through the warehouse.

"You feeling talkative yet?"

"Yes! Yes! Just don't put me back in; the rats were biting at me and I couldn't do anything!"

Alias was amused. That was quick, maybe she needed to set up rat cages if they were so successful in getting information.

"Oh, well I'm glad, what do you have to say?

"He's... he's ready for you, he's planning to set up his partner, and he's using you as the gun. You and the Question. Then he's gonna kill you both in 'revenge'," the man confided with a weak voice.

"Hrm. No one ever said Fisher Brown was smart, I suppose." Oscar leaned down, his faceless visage just a few inches away from the officer's terrified face. "Anything else you want to tell us, or is that it? And for the record..." He pressed one of the buttons on his belt buckle, releasing a gas that appeared similar to the gas he so frequently used, though without any of the adhesive or hallucinogenic properties; this was merely a harmless vapor used for interrogation. "I know when you're lying."

"Yes, yes! That's everything I swear! I'm just a cop! He just wanted me to stay away! I'm not a part of it!"

"I don't think he's telling the truth Q, I think you should take a turn," she said almost giddily. This was one of the few times where she could calm down and just have some fun. Maybe she needed to calm down, but she could survive with just a few hours of leisure a week, and this served to get work done while also being fun, even if Oscar's presence made her mood a little... different.

Wordlessly, Oscar hauled the officer out of the oubliette by the collar. The vapor hung in the air, ominously, a few feet away from Oscar and the cop. "This gas is quite similar to the one that took my face. It will slowly melt your skin until it covers all your features. You'll be alive, however, very alive... You might think you're not able to breathe at first, but don't worry, you're still breathing. Your mouth is covered and all the noises you make will be muffled, but eventually you can speak again. You won't be able to see for a good, long time, but eventually you adjust to it. By that point, you've no hope of reversing the process. Your new face has settled."

Quickly, the Question brought the cop's face mere inches away from the gas. "Do you want to try it?"

"No please!" the cop screamed, pulling and kicking at the Question. His hands clawed at the masked man's wrists as he desperately tried to free himself. "They're waiting for you downtown, near the Colombo Building! Don't! I've told you everything! I swear! I swear to you!" the man wept, his voice cracking and going hoarse out of fear.

Alias was unsure. He seemed genuinely afraid, but afraid enough to tell the truth? Maybe, maybe not; she couldn't tell. She was impressed though, she didn't think Oscar had this in him. Usually he was rather flat-footed when it came to interrogation, perhaps he was dependent on her back then. Being alone had seemingly done him some good, and it made Alias wonder if he was thinking the same.

The fact that the cop was pissing himself right in front of her was all she needed to see to feel a little bit impressed with Oscar's progress. Maybe he was telling the truth. Of course she wouldn't bet on it.

"Alright, I think he's telling the truth, you can let him go, Q."

Question pulled the man away from the gas, dropping him to the floor. "There we go. Now we know you're not lying." He crouched down, looking down at the officer on the floor and noting the large wet spot on his pants. "Only a fool would keep secrets on the verge of disfiguration. Put a man in danger, you find out who he really is. And you? You're a low level thug who knows nothing." He grabbed the man and pulled him up, then stuck him into the gas.

"But you were never in any danger. As superstitous as you are cowardly. Taking everything you're told at face value. I'm sure your employer told you that you were going to make it with this, right? That this was going to be what put you in the big leagues. No more arresting small time rivals or getting rid of evidence, this'd make you the big dog, you were gonna be the next commissioner or hell, even the chief! ... But you were never going to be."

Question dropped the man again. "Take this word of advice: don't work for a crook in our city again. Be an honest cop. If I find out you're under another crook's payroll after this, then next time... Next time I might really take your face." With his little spiel done, Question kicked the cop in the head, knocking him out. He released a sigh...

Oscar turned back to Alias. "Did I do better than you expected?"

Alias let out a "hmmph", and said "I guess you have changed at least a bit. You got it done in half the time it would have taken me, so I suppose I have to be impressed.

"But," she interjected. "That's only half the job done, let's get moving, the day's nearly done."

She began limping towards the unconscious police officer, groaning loudly as she tossed him over her shoulder. Then she began to limp away, gesturing for Oscar to follow her.

3:01 A.M.
Aquarius Apartments, Bazar Quarter, Poseidonis

Karen wasn’t too surprised when the lights went out; it made sense to disable the power before they went in. She had already stashed the pill back into her purse, along with the scanner. The evidence was secure, and it was now dark—she would be able to sneak away from Ophelia and that girl to do her thing.

”You two stay here, alright? Don’t leave the bathroom, no matter what you hear!”

Feeling her way to the bathroom door, Karen slipped out into the hallway. She could hear the confused and frustrated murmurs of the various partygoers. There were a lot of innocent people here, but she knew Mal wouldn’t let them get hurt, just as she wouldn’t.

Drawing a breath, she prepared to light up the room for one brief moment. ”SHA—Huuhh?”

Her voice had...caught in her throat. That was weird. Oh well.

”SHAAA-HURNGH!!” Karen grunted, to the point where she started sputtering. What the hell was going on here? It was like something was keeping her from speaking the Word, like it was literally trying to force it back down her throat.

Shaking her head, she took a deep breath. ”SHAAAAZZZRUUUUM! SHAAAZZZEEEEEEM! SHAAAAA—CHEW!”

”Ugh,” said Karen, wiping her nose. What the fuck? Why the hell couldn’t she say it? Had somebody here cast some kind of weird spell on her? But no, who would’ve known to do that?

Placing her finger to her ear again, she whispered. ”Hey Pink-Eye, I’ve got a small problem...I can’t transform. Or at least, I can’t say the word to transform. It’s...not coming out. And no, I have no fucking clue why.”

That… gave Mal a bit of pause. Even as he was standing over the unconscious frame of a particularly well-dressed, particularly well-armed guard who’d had the misfortune of having his back turned to the balcony.

”Wait, what?” Mal harshly whispered over the comms, eyes peeling away from the rather, peculiar arcdriver pistol he’d lifted off the very bald and very out cold guy at his feet ”You’re kidding, right?”
Stowing this particular bit of magitech on his belt and getting to his feet, that supercomputer of a brain in Mal’s noggin was already doing the math on what to do with this particular setback… preferably without his favourite k-pop enthusiast coming into harm’s way.

Grinding his teeth, he finally spoke again as he dropped another guard via a hand over his mouth and a tazer in his neck.

”Alright, calm down. We can still work with this- transforming ain’t exactly the only trick you have up your sleeve.” The boy growled into his headset, trying at least to sound not at all disturbed with this new bit of information floating around his brain. ”You gonna be fine until I get there?”

Karen swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat, but nodded. ”Alright. You’re right...I’ll manage something. The important thing is that we take these guys down without anyone getting hurt.”

And she had a good idea on how to do that. She might not be super strong, tough, or fast, but she still had a few spells that would work well in this situation. Namely…

”Ypnos,” she said calmly, extending her hand towards one of the nearby Spaniards, who were now brandishing flashlights. Wavering slightly on his feet for a brief moment, Alejandro fell onto his back with an audible thud that startled the other two.

Her sleeping spell was simple, basic magic, but it was surprisingly useful against those who lacked a strong enough will to resist it.

”’Atta girl… just be careful.”

Orin was moving the second the lights went out, pushing through the crowds and feeling confident that he would still be unseen in the darkness. It was simple enough to spot the guards, they were already moving into positions. Stepping up to the closest pair, Orin reached out and grabbed at each of their lower jaws, his gloves expelling an inky gas which would send them to sleep until they could be dealt with. Shoving them to the side with a satisfying thud, Orin turned on the rest of the room. He was vaguely aware of the conversation in his earpiece and was pleased to hear that Mal was talking Karen through her current problem. They’d have to look into that when this was over.

Pushing his way through the loud crowds, Orin inked several more guards before an indicator light began flashing on his wrist. The synthesizer tank was out. They’d have to work on that capacity. Orin shrugged and pulled at the small tubes on his wrists, freeing the water from its course and using his magic to begin shaping it. Soon enough he was holding a pair of water-based blades, ready to advance on the next group.

Static, still underground, had been thrown away from the explosion of the generator. It wasn’t enough to cause any really damage to him or the sewer system, but it did take the young man a moment to rise. In that time, his eyes went wide at the voice of this other agent.

It couldn’t be.

It was Mal’s sister Karen, the voice couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else. Hearing her speak back to the armed Argonaut, as the angry one called themselves, Virgil noticed that his voice dropped and calmed a little from the fiery intensity that he used with Static himself. He couldn’t bring this up, not now. Maybe mal didn’t even know.

In any case, he could faintly hear the commotion going on up above. He shot up into the air and pushed the manhole cover aside once more. To anyone escaping the building, Static directed them safely away before throwing himself into danger. He couldn’t let the Argonauts take all the fun.

Though he could take the vertical route outside the building, Static decided to take the front door, throwing purple bolts of lightning this way and that at those who tried attacking him. It was still a small space and innocent people were still all around. He needed to be careful while he regrouped with the others. ”Taking care of the front door. How’s everything else looking?”

It took some careful work to be able to sling sparks with one hand and keep his other hand on comms without frying it, but Static managed. He just hoped that Karen wasn’t going to notice his voice like he did hers.

”You son of a bitch.” Mal snarled over the comm. As the lightshow began, somewhat subverting this whole ‘covert’ thing they’d been up to and instantly turning the confused, but otherwise docile crowd of partygoers into a panicked, frenzied mob. With the added bonus of his now Non-Wizardy sister caught in the middle. ”What fucking part of quietly did you not understand?”

Finishing the next guard on his hit-list a bit more harshly than necessary, by driving the side of his head into the edge of a doorframe while he was busy fumbling with the weapon in his shoulder holster and freaking out about how the front door had suddenly become a damned Tesla Coil, Mal continued.

”Fuckin’... Cuttlefish, we’regoing loud.”

”Don’t go loud.” Static was quick to interject. ”If eyes are on me, they won’t be on you. Keep it together.”

”My sister is in that panicked mob you just created you unbelievable asshole!”

”And that panicked mob is going to panic the fuck out of here!”

”Trampling over anything in the goddamn way, because some guy’s at the only normal entrance firing lightning bolts everywhere!”

”And where does that leave our druggies? In the back where you guys are.”

”Fuck you, Virgil.”

A door opened and a blond haired teenager wandered into the once-dark, but now sense-attackingly bright room. His eyes went wide as he noticed the masked men working their way through.

”Uh… hej,” he said meekly, offering a weak wave. ”I don’t know what’s going on here, but uh… I think I should do something other than watch maybe.”

He slowly shifted into a fighting posture with a worried frown on his face.

Karen had managed to successfully put several of the surfacers who had been handing out drugs earlier to sleep without drawing anyone’s notice, thanks in part to the cover of darkness. While initially apprehensive about doing this without her powers, she was slowly starting to feel more confident in her natural magic.

Raising her hand to target yet another of the drug pushers, it was in that moment that the room erupted in what can only be described as an electrical light show. What was once darkness became a nauseating strobe that had everyone—civilian and guard alike—frantically looking around them.

Her spell had been successful nonetheless, and the surfacer began to fall...but this time Karen had not gone unseen. In their frantic searching for the source of the painful flashing, one of the other guards had caught sight of her in the act.

Though she turned immediately to try and place him under the same spell, he was upon her far too quickly. Violently striking her hand down with such a force that it must have at least have sprained her wrist, he tackled her into the nearby wall. The resulting impact caused several pictures to fall to the ground as Karen felt something go pop that definitely shouldn’t have.

Raising her uninjure hand to once again try to cast the spell, she was instead reward with a hard punch across her face that split her lip and sent droplets of blood to the floor. It was in this moment that she realized just how hopelessly unsuited her human body was for combat against an opponent who truly wanted to kill you.

Another blow to her abdomen illustrated this perfectly.

It was in that moment, after all the myriad twists and turns his day had taken, all the stress, all the frustration, all the people trying their damndest to piss him off... that Mal registered that his Kare-Bear was on the ground. When he visibly registered the loud popping of her back through his vision. When he saw her bloodied and beaten and gasping for air…

...That something in Mal’s head finally snapped.

The timer on his reactive armour wound down and he seemingly just appeared in the middle of the fray, shoulders slack, hands open and eyes locked in the direction of his quarry, burning bright enough to be seen even through the smokey visor of his helmet.

”One one thousand… two one thousand…”

Suddenly he was moving forward, his gait steady yet unnatural, like some machine in the guise of a man. It didn’t take for a guard to take notice the sudden appearance of the armoured figure in the midst of all this chaos, and come rushing at him from the left, some form of arcane stun-baton in hand.

Without even looking at the man, the Argonaut grabbed his wrist and elbow as it came, twisting and snapping the former with all the effort it took most to breathe and pulling on the latter to help guide the weapon straight down the man’s throat as his armoured boot abruptly shot out at the side of the man’s knee and all but destroyed it with a sickening ‘CRUNCH!’.

”Five one thousand… six one thousand…”

The next one got off lucky, comparatively, as he hadn’t even gotten to raise his arcdriver before Mal had a hold of his arm, too. Firing the weapon into the man’s own thighs before taking it from his grasp and whipping him across the face with it with enough force to send a shower of blood and teeth flying into the panicked crowd before tossing the arcane murder implement aside like old garbage.

”Nine one thousand… ten one thousand…”

And finally, Mal was on his target, wasting no time in putting his boot into the back of the busy man’s knee, slamming it into the floor as his fists rose up under his arms as he fell. Separating the joints of both his shoulders with surgical precision that left any veins or arteries untouched as he ripped them out again, grabbed the now shrieking man by his face, lifted his chin and quickly moved his clawed fist to his throat to finish the job.

”Thirteen one thousand… fourteen one thousand…”

It had taken Karen several moments to regain her senses after the pummeling she had received, but as her vision gradually cleared and she stared up at the carnage taking place right in front of her, she could only gasp in horror.

Scrambling to her knees as best she could with her injuries, she reached out for Mal with her good hand, shouting at the top of her lungs so that he would hear her over the surrounding chaos and whatever blinding rage had consumed his mind. ”MAL! STOP! YOU’RE GOING TO KILL HIM!”

At her touch, Mal’s head instantly snapped up towards Karen… and not in a friendly way.

Almost like a war machine from some sci-fi horror story identifying it’s next target, in fact.

But stop he did, staring at his pseudo-sister in dead silence for a few seconds before the twin orange orbs glowing behind his visor faded away and his body relaxed some, the claws in his gauntlets sheathing away.

...Well, not before he rose his retreating fist and brought it back down on the side of the man’s skull, mind you. But progress was being made.

”...Right.” Mal stated, standing upright as that cold professionalism snaked it’s way back into his voice, almost not even acknowledging what he’d been about to do as he offered out his hand. ”Let’s get you out of here.”

3:06 A.M.
Aquarius Apartments, Bazar Quarter, Poseidonis

Orin stared blankly at the scene of unfolding chaos in front of him, mentally facepalming as the crowd devolved into panic. Well, if Malcolm wanted to go loud, Cuttlefish could get very very loud.

Slipping a new disk into his palm, Orin took a second to deactivate the cloaking field on his suit, leaving him perfectly visible in the armored plating and the twisted tentacle mask. He threw the disk to the floor which erupted in a show of bright and conflicting colors, catching the attention of every terrified party-goer in the area.

”EVERYBODY FREEZE, ATLANTEAN ARGONAUTS. STAND DOWN, THIS IS A SPECIAL FORCES OPERATION. DROP ANY WEAPONS, RAISE YOUR HANDS, AND GET ON THE GROUND.”

The gambit seemed to work… For a moment. The stunned crowd was beginning to slow, some of the nearer guests were holding their hands up and squinting through the invasive lightshow, it was going better than expected to be honest. Then the remaining guards in the room charged, knocking people to the ground and sparking the panic again. Orin leapt into action, meeting them halfway with his magically enhanced aqua-blades. This would be no trouble at all, even discounting Orin’s own magically enhanced abilities.

The regent of Atlantis had spent many of his formative years learning multiple fighting styles and strategies, and these were mostly mooks. Though some of them showed startlingly competent training, most of them fell without incident. The few smart ones had managed to pull their pistols out and had begun firing before Orin could close the distance, but between the plated armor and his own naturally resilient skin, the magically-enhanced bullets were leaving little more than welts.

During the commotion, it almost seemed quieter without the unwelcome assistance of a third party member. In the scuffle and shuffle, Static had moved out with some of the fleeing guests. The earpiece had been friend to bits and left on the floor. Three words told him all he needed to know about one of the Argonauts, and Malcolm was completely right. He didn’t feel like leaving was a bad idea. They had things under control without him, and they’d wrap things up in the same way.

Though it wasn’t perfect, Virgil did put effort into masking his energy output as he left the building. He was a distraction, and obstacle, an idiot, and an asshole. It was the same mistake in a new environment.

Nothing had changed.

Orin remained focused on the fighting happening around him. He and Malcolm had worked together quite closely in the aftermath of the Atlantean Civil War, close enough that the king trusted the young man’s judgement and skill in situations like this. He could focus on this seemingly endless onslaught of roided out bodyguards, and they would sort through all of them later to find out who knew what.

Lashing out with unnatural speed, Cuttlefish gripped one of the nearby enemies by the shoulder and shoved him backwards. Orin’s enhanced strength sent the man flying into his compatriots behind him, clearing a path through them for just long enough that the armored king caught a glimpse of a shady figure lurking in the corners of the room, snaking towards the exit. An Atlantean obviously, most likely Tritonian judging by his dress. That would make sense considering the weaponry this group had. If anybody was in charge here, it was that man.

Keying on his earpiece again, Orin spoke surprisingly clearly, the battle having heightened his senses. ”Mako, I have eyes on what I believe is the leader. Taking snapshots now and sending them to your headset. Moving in to intercept. Are you and our little wizard still with me?”

A low snarl escaped the armoured boy in question, already caught between checking Karen over and keeping an eye out for any more armed goons coming their way… well, now that he’d been snapped back to reality that is.

Probably not a good idea to dwell on that. He didn’t particularly have the time.

This was just not his day.

”Image received. Just gimme a second, Our Little Wizard is in a bit of rough shape.” Mal replied with a little grunt as a little chime sounded off in his ear, a translucent image of a man he’d spied Karen and Ophelia talking to earlier coming into existence in the top left corner of his visor ”Static, you’re still at the exit, right?”

Silence followed that.

Followed by a violent churning of something in his gut.

”Static?”

Again, nothing.

Malcolm could almost hear his blood pressure rising as his head snapped back to the suddenly quiet (or rather, what he suddenly noticed was quiet) doorway to the penthouse… and the fried, trampled upon remains of a communicator laying on the floor… and the statically charged furniture and scattered objects his eyes registered forming a path down the stairwell and generally away from all the mayhem they had found themselves in with it’s source a retreating, but faded humanoid shape that was still well within the five mile range of his vision.

Even for Mal’s computer-like brain, that took a hot minute to process.

Virgil had bailed.

Virgil had bailed.

Virgil had caused all this shit and then bailed.

To the sometimes Argonaut’s credit, the primal scream that built in his throat only came out as a little ‘hiss’ that visibly shook his whole frame as he turned back to his sister, a slight flicker of light making itself known from beneath his visor again as he spoke in a… surprisingly quiet, almost hesitant tone.

”Karen, I need to know- Can you handle yourself right now?”

Karen had placed her hand on the wall, working to regain her sense of balance. Her head was still spinning a bit from the right hook she’d taken from the drug pusher. Her back and neck were killing her. Still, that wasn’t what she was focused on right now. No, her eyes remained squarely on her little brother.

”Can you handle yourself right now?” she asked pointedly. ”If I leave this to you, will you be able to control yourself? You nearly killed that man.”

It didn’t help that she knew he had did so for her sake; that made her feel at least partially responsible for what happened.

”Answer the damned question, Karen!” Mal shot back quickly. Perhaps a bit harsher than he’d intended.

She frowned back at him, but did her best to straighten up—this elicited a few additional pops from her back, and quite a few jolts of pain to accompany them. Nevertheless, she maintained her posture.

”I’m not going to die, no,” she finally replied. ”So yes. I’ll be fine.”

For a few seconds, Mal just stared at the blonde in silence. Caught somewhere between the anger at the situation they now found themselves in, the necessary harshness his years of experience and training had all but programmed into his brain to deal with these situations and, quietly, a profound tinge of shame for his lapse in self-control that he really didn’t have time to deal with right now.

He also didn’t like yelling at Karen.

Despite how often he’d done so today.

”Alright.” The boy finally affirmed with a quick nod, handily burying whatever was going on in his head and getting back to the task at hand, head snapping back to the action and scanning over the room for a few seconds before finally locking onto the familiar shape. ”He’s headed for the doors, got anything left that’d make that difficult for ‘im?”

Karen traced Mal’s gaze to the retreating image of Herod, the man that had greeted her at the entrance when she and Ophelia had first arrived. What did she have that could stop him in his tracks? He was an Atlantean, and probably the leader of this whole operation. She doubted that her sleeping spell would be able to overcome his will. Still, there were other things she could try.

Extending her hand in the direction of Herod’s feet, she muttered quietly, “Pleko….”

The laces of his shoes immediately untied themselves, and then intertwined with each other to bind his feet together. With a startled gasp, the man fell forward onto his hands, his eyes staring in confusion at his footwear’s spontaneous rebellion. It took him only a moment to use his superior strength to rip said laces free, but it had bought them a few precious seconds.

”Well, that’ll do it…” Mal stated with a half shrug and something approaching humour, before keying in his communicator and addressing the King of the Ocean in that same harsh, militaristic tone as before ”Big Boss, Tango’s on the ground. Let’s grab him.”

Cuttlefish began moving as soon as he got confirmation from Mal, shoving another pair of bodyguards into a nearby wall and descending on the struggling Tritonian like a leopard seal on an injured crab. ”Cover our backs Mako. I’m hoping grabbing this one will take the fight out of the others, but we may need to cover our retreat.” Orin said before planting a boot on the well-dressed Atlanteans chest, kicking him back to the ground before bending over and grabbing him by the collar of his well-fitted suit and hauling him upright, pinning him against the doorframe.

”Everyone stand down!” the Argonaut said, deliberately speaking in English. Orin had a sneaking suspicion there were ties to Tritonian extremists at play here, and bridging the gap between Atlantis and the surface would only help Orin’s cause. ”You are under arrest by the Atlantean Argonaut Civil Forces for possession and distribution of magically-enhanced narcotics. This apartment will be seized by Atlantean authorities and searched thoroughly. Everyone here will be questioned and the innocent among you will be released quickly. Any further resistance will be met with the same.”

---

Those who had escaped the chaos that Static created were on the ground at this point, rushing and fleeing the scene before the police showed up and started cuffing people. Static, being apart of the group on the way down, hung his head low and stayed in the back. He didn’t utter a word until he was outside.

Many of the college students who were scrambled all over the entrance of the building seemed lost and turned around. Static could easily understand why. After everything that happened, their minds were in a tizzy. The least he could do before heading off the grid was to guide them back home safely.

”Hey.” He tapped one fearful student on the shoulder and pointed towards the university. ”Head down that way, University ain’t that far from here.”

“Yeah, thanks.” The young adult nodded nervously and took a friend by the shoulders, leading them away from the scene.

Static made sure to let as many people as he could know how to get back to the university. His instructions weren’t perfectly detailed since he did fly, but they were just enough to help people get back safely. Others caught on to his conversations, listening in and following the groups. There weren’t many left after he was done talking to people, which, if he could do anything right tonight, it would have been the one thing where he wasn’t actually doing much of anything.

Turning around, his eyes moved skywards to the penthouse. With a silent curse under his breath, he closed up his open jacket, took off his hat, gloves, and goggles, and headed away. He couldn’t bear to think about what he had done tonight, he couldn’t even face Mal. Maybe the next time he went AWOL, nobody would actually find him.

He let out a hollow chuckle at the thought. Someone always found him, whether he wanted it or not. Richie, Mal, Grim that one time, he really couldn’t escape people. But if anything about this night told him something, it was that maybe the hero life wasn’t for him.

---

To Orin’s credit, namedropping the goddamn Tagmata Argonávtis for a second time in ten minutes seemed to drive home the point that keeping up the fight against them was probably not going to end well.

The splayed piles of limp, unconscious men lying about the place only served to enforce this notion.

As did the fact that it took only two (maybe three) of them to do it.

For his part, Mal remained mostly silent as he went about the room, zip-tying together the wrists and ankles of all the unconscious people who’d been trying to kill him, his ‘sister’ and the King of the Goddamned Ocean in cosplay naught but a few moments earlier so that they wouldn’t make a go for round two when they woke up. All the while trying his level best not to look in Karen’s direction.

Still, with everything that had transpired tonight, he did need to let off some steam now that no one was trying to kill them.

”<Ya know what, Boss?>” The younger Argonaut addressed the elder with something that sounded like a particularly exhausted mind attempting humour. Making a point to speak in Atlantean, so Karen’s non-Shazam’d ears wouldn’t understand it ”<Is it just me and my chaffing armour, or was this a lot easier a year ago?>”

Oh my god she knows my name

Don't freak out

Just act natural

"Well, really, I prefer rooftops less for the edgy atmosphere and more for the high-ground advantage. But yeah, the view's nice too."

Arsenal goes and sits on the edge of the roof as well, a pretty respectable distance away from the legendary hero, facing the other direction with his back to the streets.

"As for what I've been up to, just the usual. Streaming. Fighting bad guys. I'm actually on a cross-country tour right now! Decided to stop by and see if I could catch a glimpse of one of the greats!"

Leo facepalms internally.

Obviously.

He readjusts his harness out of nervousness.

"Of course, I manage to end the stream right as some crime happens, and right as you show up... Not to say crime is good, or that I didn't want you to show up! It's just... Like...
I mean... Y'know."

Just
Just stop talking

When Frederick steps out onto the stage after Adam Porter calls out his name, he's blinded by the stage lights and deafened by the cheering and applause. The Dilustel Shell's inner workings adjust his sight and hearing so that he can make out what's happening, and he sees a full house waiting for him. There are people snapping photos or taking videos all throughout the crowd. He waves and grins, stepping over to Adam's desk and taking a seat in the armchair next to it. He's not in the Shell's true form, instead using a small device disguised as a watch which allows him to take on his regular appearance.

"So, uh, Frederick is it? Or do you prefer Quantum?" Adam asks, the crowd chuckling.

"I don't really have a preference, Adam. Just go with whatever floats your boat."

"Think I'll stick with Fred... So, Fred, let's cut to the chase. You're the government's own bonafide superhero."

"Something like that."

"How'd you manage to get that job?"

"I won't bore you with details. I was in an accident where the majority of my body was destroyed. But my brain, heart, organs, the like, managed to be salvaged. The government managed to give me a new robotic body with abilities akin to that of a metahuman, and offered me the position of being their own hero who will potentially become a member of the Justice League as their government sponsor. I agreed."

"Just what are these abilities?"

"You were provided with a video demonstration, Adam. I think now would be the time to play it?"

"Of course." The talk show host signals to the crew. The lights dim and a large flat screen monitor lowers behind the two men. After a moment, a video starts to play, with Captain Quantum standing in a large open desert. Behind him are several tanks.

The Quantum in the video begins to speak. "Greetings, civilians. I'm Captain Quantum, and today I'll be demonstrating my abilities to you." He begins to fly up into the air slowly, the camera panning upward to catch his ascent. "Using anti-gravity technology built into my body, I'm able to fly." He flies around for a moment, before crashing down onto one of the tanks. Dust and debris flies everywhere, and when it clears he stands unscathed.

"And I'm quite strong. Strong enough to destroy this tank and remain unscathed. Even stronger still! My strength can be used to harm, as seen there..." He walks over to another tank, lifting it up with one hand and holding it over his head. "... Or to help! With my strength, I could hold up collapsing buildings to allow people to escape, or clear rubble with ease to help the people trapped underneath. You need to be able to help with the aftermath of a battle as much as the battle itself!"

He sets the tank down, then grins. "And I've got more tricks up my sleeves than that..." He begins to charge up a blast, putting on a look of concentration while doing so. After a moment, he opens his eyes, points a hand forward, and obliterates the tank he just lifted with a blast of pure quantum energy. There's nothing left of it, save mist. "Using a particle accelerator built into my suit, I'm able to fire pure blasts of quantum energy at will. Be they charged up blasts like that, or a flurry of them." To demonstrate once more he begins to fire off orb after orb of energy at the third and final tank, obliterating it in a matter of seconds.

To end the video, Quantum turns back towards the camera and puts on another grin. "I hope this video has proven to you my potential to be more than just a government shill trying to encroach on the Justice League's territory. I don't look to be a replacement to them, I look to be an ally to them, and a hero to all of you. Thank you for allowing me this demonstration. This is Captain Quantum, wishing you all a wonderful day."

The video ends, the audience giving a round of applause. "That was quite a demo there, eh Fred?"

"That it was Adam."

"That part at the end. As you said earlier, you're looking to join the Justice League?"

"My handlers are looking to get in contact with the Justice League, in order to put me on the team, yes."

"What would you bring to America's own super team, Fred?"

"I'd hope to bring a greater sense of diplomacy to the team, Adam. The Justice League are usually up in there Watchtower, watching on but forever silent. Every once in a while, there's an interview, but the people need confirmation that they're still there. I'd hope to be that voice shouting out to say that we are still there, protecting all of you." Frederick's statement gets some cheers and claps from the audience.

"Well said, Fred... One last thing. You look a bit different in that video, don't you?"

"Heh, yeah, yeah I do."

"Mind showing us your heroic appearance in the flesh?"

"Why the hell not." With those words, Frederick stands. He presses a button on his "watch", and slowly his flesh turns red, revealing the Dilustel Shell's true form for all to see. He raises his hands up wide as the audience cheers, and smiles to himself.

'Good job, Freddie.'

It hurts. A searing pain on his shoulder. The burning in his nostrils, in his lungs.

There’s so much weight on his chest, it makes it hard to breathe. A grotesquely sweet aroma pierces into his senses from every which way. It makes him want to gag.

Why can’t he move?

Why is it so dark?

So quiet?

He’s scared. He can’t help it. He’s only a kid.

So he does what any kid would do-

“Dad!”

And begins to scream.

…

...Nothing.

“Dad!”

Louder this time.

More nothing.

He struggles, shifting and churning with all the might his tiny frame can muster, but to no avail. Whatever great weight is above him, it appears to have it’s arms wrapped around him as well. Hugging and pinning him to the ground.

This revelation only makes him struggle harder, fueled by some primeval terror he desperately resists against his bonds, growling and snarling in both anger and fear as he thrashes like a caged animal until finally… something moves.

Like a dead weight, something hits the ground where he now registers as outside.

Light pours in, blinding the boy who already thought himself as such as something cold and wet and horrible slides down onto his cheek.

He eyes burn even more now, but he doesn’t care. He’s too busy sucking in all this new oxygen he can like it’s the last he’d ever have.

When his eyes begin to come back to their senses the first thing they see is… cloth.

Olive drab.

A nametag.

‘Talhaiarn’.

On queue, the panicked haze that hung over his mind begins to retreat. Something wet is still pressed into his cheek.

He finally recognizes the smell of burning meat.

A new terror wells inside of him, more visceral and destructive than the last as tiny whimper, a pathetic impersonation of a proper sound escapes his now trembling frame.

“D… Dad?”

He hears nothing.

So he does what any kid would do-

And begins to scream.

---

Very suddenly, Mal was up. Well, not really; more crooked or sideways than anything, if you were to stop and think about the dynamics of falling asleep at your goddamned desk.

”Whuddafuggin… wha?” Came his… very sophisticated response to the world that came crashing back into existence around him in that moment- punting aside… that and replacing it with what he’d been told was a dark room in the back of Persephone’s gym, but still looked like the same hodge-podge of fiery translucent shapes he saw everything else as. ”What in the goddamn…?”

His eyes blearily trailed over his desk until they fell upon his clock, an old thing with a display made of nixie tubes he’d made in the Grotto a few years back, when such a thing was much easier on his eyes than a digital display would be. In that he didn’t have to squint nearly as much just to see the numbers.

What he saw didn’t exactly fill the lad with cheer. And only had a little to do with him being unsure as to whether waking up at such a time meant he’d slept in or stayed up late.

”Aw, fer fucks’ sake…” The scarred boy grumbled and groaned as he got to his feet, an action met by just a little more pops and cracks in his joints than usual due to the awkward sleeping arrangement. ”...That’s pleasant.”

He’d guess he had it coming, though; sleeping hadn’t exactly been on his mind since the raid; after he’d moved out of the dorm and started shacking up here, he’d been hunched over his desk, disassembling and examining all that peculiar weaponry he’d pulled off some of the suspects at Aquarius Apartments. And had being on and off the comm. Throughout the day comparing notes on that pill Karen had analyzed with one of his old contacts in Atlantean Intelligence, ‘Moray’.

Not that Persephone hadn’t left him a bed mind you. An extremely plush and comfy bed with blankets her mother knitted just for him. He just… kept forgetting to use the damned thing.

A small snort escaped him at that.

He was Zoey’s boy, after all.

Groaning to himself, the still sleepy sometimes-dog-sometimes-shark-themed vigilante half-walked, half-staggered over to the mini-fridge past his twin duffel bags to find something cold to guzzle down his Sahara-dry throat.

”Welp… at least it’s quiet in here…”

---

Argos Gymnasium
February 10th, 2:49 P.M.

Karen would be lying if she claimed to be in top form right now. Her wrist was in a brace after being struck by that thug during the raid, her back hurt arguably worse than the night it had been injured (she hadn’t bothered to go see a doctor yet), and on occasion she would still get dizzy spells.

All in all, she felt like shit.

Nevertheless, the thing she was worried about the most was Mal. She hadn’t seen him since that night—that very, very worrisome night. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out where he likely was, since that seemed to be his fortress of solitude in Atlantis, but she had decided to give him a couple of days to himself before she went after him. After all, everybody needed to be alone with their thoughts at times.

She had caught Ophelia up to speed on everything that had transpired that night, while making sure to omit everyone’s true identities. She had never expected Orin or Virgil to show up there that night, and unless it was merely a hallucination brought on by her head trauma, she thought she had even seen Bjorn of all people.

The fact that Virgil had apparently been a metahuman wasn’t such a big deal, given the number of them attending Uni with her. What was more surprising was the fact that he had botched their raid. She could tell her little brother was livid; she knew his anger well.

Still, she knew leaving him alone for too long wouldn’t be good, either, and so she had decided to check up on him. For better or worse.

”MAL!” she called out, leaning slightly against the boxing ring in the center of the gym. ”I know you’re here somewhere, so come out.”

---

”Oh, fer fuck’s sake…”

Mal knew that voice. It was literally impossible for him to forget it thanks to that infuriatingly powerful brain of his, but some part of him hoped in that moment that that he was wrong. That this was some kinda ploy by someone trying to kill him.

A quick glance over his shoulder from his position in front of the mini-fridge confirmed that that was, sadly, not the case.

He’d been dreading this encounter- and he knew it was coming- for a few days now. It was part of the reason he’d been such a hermit as of late. But he knew for a fact there’d be no escaping now.

There weren’t exactly any windows in this room after all.

Arm still reaching into the fridge, his hand subconsciously and oh-so-briefly hovered over a bottle of Poseidonian Brandy Persephone had gotten him for his birthday. But after a moment’s pause, drifted over and grabbed a can of cold coffee instead, quickly pulling it out and then grabbing a second after just a moment’s hesitation before shutting the door. Standing upright again and turning towards the door with a grimace.

Well at least it was a local holiday, so the gym was empty.

Small blessings and all that.

With uncharacteristic dread, he let out a little sigh and then opened it, stepping through with a purposefully neutral expression and clearing his throat.

”Karen.”

”Mal!”

Karen smiled, immediately jogging over to her little brother and pulling him into an embrace. She had been worried about him. Worried that he might have been dealing with his stress by fighting criminals again. He really was similar to Zoey like that.

”Are you doing okay? You really stink, haven’t you been bathing?”

”Yeah… yeah, I’m fine.”

The boy in question stated, hesitating for a few seconds before returning the hug, half because he had been so sure she had come here to aggressively mine his brain about what had happened in the Penthouse that night, and half because Karen’s particular anatomy these days literally prevented his ribs from expanding when she was hugging him like this and made it almost impossible to breathe. Before gently pushing her back and gesturing towards a nearby bench as he handed her one of his cans of coffee.

...Seriously, how the hell did she function with those things attached to her chest?

”And sorry about the smell- I’ve been pulling a ‘My Mom’ and burning the midnight oil the past few days- Going over the evidence, doing research... all that fun stuff.” The younger teen continued, popping open his own can and taking a seat. ”...How’s the noggin?”

A stupid question, perhaps, seeing as both of them knew he could see for himself, but it made for half-decent shop talk all the same.

”Been better,” Karen admitted, reaching up to feel the still-sore place where she had been struck. It, too, had hurt worse the next day. It was a persistent theme with all of her injuries.

Rolling her shoulders a few times as if to illustrate her condition, she smiled when they crackled and popped with the motion. ”I’ll manage, though. How’s your noggin been?”

She tried to not sound accusatory this time, wanting to keep the mood fairly light. Even so, she wasn’t going to pretend that night hadn’t happened. She had learned that running away from and ignoring your problems probably wasn’t the best solution—particularly now that she was starting to realize just how mean she had been to people during that period.

”Throbbing. Maybe a little groggy.” Mal answered, tacitly evading the obvious question just as casually as the Kare-bear had put it forward. ”Though that’s probably just the famous Kasimir insomnia… or napping with my head on a steel desk. One or the other.”

With a dash of self-deprecation thrown in just for good measure, it seemed.

He took a sip of his drink, trying to wake himself up.

Maybe it was that the boy hadn’t quite forgiven Karen for her conduct as of late. Maybe it was from some measure of shame that someone like him, whose entire life damn near revolved around harsh discipline and self control, had absolutely lost it when he had had a job to do, or some measure of guilt that he hadn’t been there fast enough to keep the blonde out of harm’s way.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he had never exactly enjoyed these ad-hoc therapy talks when he was a kid and didn’t imagine he was about to start now.

One thing was made abundantly clear, though-

Mal had no intention of making this easy for the young Wizard.

Karen had expected as much—Mal always had a tendency to be evasive when something was bothering him. If there was one thing about her little brother that frustrated her more than anything, it was his tendency to retreat into his shell when things got rough. But hey, who was she to talk about that right now?

”And here we thought going to college would be a chance to relax,” said Karen, grinning. ”But it seems that, for the moment at least, Lady Arcana is out of my life, whether I want her to be or not.”

Despite her many, many attempts to do so in various locations, Karen had been utterly incapable of transforming back into her Wizard form. It was a distressing development, after having spent so much time in that state. Worse, it wasn’t like before, when she was “severed” from the Rock. She could still feel her connection, her powers were all technically still with her.

She was just unable to speak the word to summon them. It was like constantly having an idea on the tip of your tongue, but never being able to spit it out.

At that, Mal cast a sidelong glance at the girl and raised that Kasimir brow of his over his can of caffeinated dairy he probably didn’t want to know the manufacturing process of.

”That’s probably the first time I’ve ever heard someone actually say they went to University specifically to relax.” The boy remarked with a little shrug and snort ”Buuuut, I can sorta see your point; It didn’t take long for all of that to go to shit right quick, didn’t it?”

Thinking on her second point, however, his glowing eyes locked in on her neck and jaw. Pupils dilating and shifting in size back and forth as his vision began filtering away the haze of all the background noise to solely focus in on the nerves, musculature and connective tissue therein.

”But yeah, about that; that night you were saying… you ‘Couldn’t say The Word’...?” Mal inquired after a few seconds of silent examination ”What exactly did’ja mean by that? Like, are you under one of those silencing hexes you’ve told me about, or do the words just not come out right?”

Karen frowned and shook her head. ”Whatever this is, it’s not a silencing hex. Those have a very specific ‘feel’ to them. They can either steal your entire voice, or just target a specific word or series of words. Should you try to speak them, you’ll feel as if you have a hand on your throat, preventing you from doing it.”

But that wasn’t at all what this felt like. She had felt silencing hexes many times before, and this was more like….

”It’s like I won’t let myself say it, if that makes sense. Like, sometimes my lungs refuse to pump the air I need to say the word. Other times my vocal chords shift too high or low, or I’ll sneeze. It’s literally like my body is fighting against me whenever I try.”

And that was what made it so truly frightening for her. It felt like she didn’t have full control over her actions anymore. LIke there was a puppet master pulling her figurative strings from the inside.

”I’ve honestly never heard of a spell like this.”

At this Mal just pursed his lip, idly rotating the can in his hand in thought as he scratched his chin (which it took him until now to realize had started to grow a bit of stubble).

”So would I be right in assuming this means you have no access to the rock right now?”

Karen nodded. ”Pretty much, yeah. If I could make it to the Rock, I might be able to try something, but...”

”-It’s a magic rock floating somewhere in space very, very far away.” Malcolm finished for her with his usual flat snark. ”Yeah, that kinda figures…”

Leaning back and shifting his neck from side to side to work some of the usual kinks out of it, the boy paused for a moment, racking his brain for an answer he knew he didn’t have.

Ad-hoc Doc he was when the situation called for it, Wizard Apothecary he was decidedly not.

”Welp… if there were any good places to come down with Wizard Problems, Poseidonis is probably it.” Mal started finally, enunciating with his hands ”I mean, we are sitting in the capital of the oldest civilization on the face of the planet; Shot in the dark- maybe there’s a book about what you’re going through somewhere in the Royal Archives.”

Taking a final swig of his drink, and deftly tossing the empty can in the garbage can across the room behind them, he continued.

”In the meantime, we’re probably actually going to have to start taking your PT seriously.”

Karen cupped her chin at his suggestion. It wasn’t a bad thought—checking the libraries around the city for any information. It couldn’t hurt, at least. She was unlikely to come up with any answers on her own.

PT, on the other hand, was another matter entirely.

”Will that really be beneficial to me?” she asked him. ”I don’t think my body is built for combat, and it can’t gain muscle or really change in any significant way.”

”PT includes sparring, Karen. You don’t need to be the damned Wizard to avoid getting knocked on yer ass in a fight.” Mal replied abruptly and with a little snort. ”I mean, shit, I managed well enough when I was eleven years old, ninety pounds soaking wet and powered by food out of a dumpster. I’m sure between the two of us, we can figure something out.”

Karen paused for a long moment, but ultimately smiled. She still wasn’t certain it would make much of a difference for her in this state, but...at the very least she would enjoy spending time with Mal again.

”Alright, alright,” said Karen. ”I’ll do my best to learn how to better defend myself without superspeed.”

She then shot him a pointed look. ”And don’t think you’ve avoided talking about the other night! I just decided to give you a little more time, since things have clearly been rough on you.”

At that, whatever smile had been on Mal’s face abruptly wilted slightly.

He’d honestly forgotten about that the second he started talking shop again, ever his mother’s boy. He wasn’t entirely sure whether he should impressed or annoyed at the constant one-track state of his brain.

’Welp, nothing for it…’

Shifting slightly and calmly pulling his feet up to sit cross-legged on the bench, facing the woman now, the younger of the pseudo-siblings calmly rested his cheek on his fist and fixed the blonde with that same practiced neutral expression as before.

”You’re right. I haven’t… not that I was trying, mind you.” He said finally, after a moment’s staring down. His tone losing that semi-jovial edge it had before with each passing word. ”And I imagine me explaining my own deep-seated awareness at my own failings isn’t going to do anything to dissuade you from giving me the lecturing we both know is coming, so we might as well get this over with now rather than later when we’ll probably actually have shit to do.”

And again, his brain somehow managed to find some way to tie this to work.

It was almost frightening how much Zoey there was in the lad.

Karen shook her head slowly at his words, releasing a heavy sigh. ”I’m not going to lecture you, Mal. I was just hoping you could explain what went down that night—why it happened, and how we can maybe prevent it from happening again. We’re not little kids anymore...so instead of shaming you or making you apologize, I just want to find a way to help you.”

”Just like you want to help me with my own problems.”

That’s what family was for, after all, right? That was the sort of family she had always wanted: one that looked out for one another.

Mal slowly felt his face slide into his palm at Karen’s words; it would’ve actually been easier if she had been about to lecture him.

Then he could just be angry. Instead of… whatever the hell he was feeling right now.

”’Prevention’...? You mean keeping my head in check, right?” He finally said, resting his chin on his fist once more, eyes looking everywhere but at Karen in, funnily enough, almost exactly the same way they always had whenever the two of them ever had these talks when they children. ”Truth be told, until that night, I’d honestly thought I’d had that pretty well locked down -For me, it’s kind of a necessity- but, well... I was clearly mistaken.”

His mouth opened and closed a few times, clearly waiting for that powerful brain of his to catch up, whenever it got around to finding the correct words.

Wetting his suddenly very dry lips and finding another object either in the room or beyond to focus in on, he continued.

”My… gift... or whatever ya wanna call it… is basically a non-stop barrage of information. It runs day and night, whether I’m sleeping or not; Soundwaves. Electromagnetic currents. Ultraviolet and Infrared band radiation. Constantly replaying memories of every little thing I’ve ever seen or heard in the past six years and a whole bunch of other shit I’m not even sure about… so pretty well every second of every day, I’m basically multi-tasking between trying to make sense of it all and actually functioning like a human being.” The boy explained in a rare moment of openness. ”Hell- even just to talk to you right now, I not only have to think of, rehearse and repeat every single word in my head over and over again just so I can be absolutely sure my mind doesn’t outrun my mouth, but also clamp down on my own eidetic memory so I can actually see and hear you now over the memories of everything I’ve ever seen, heard or even remotely associated with you in the entire time I’ve known you. You just can’t really tell because my brain processes it all that quickly.”

A profoundly uncomfortable exhale followed this, but he continued all the same.

”But then there are… moments of clarity. Where that fucking mass of neurons and weird in my skull starts working together in a way that actually makes sense. And all that messy shit just suddenly snaps together in a perfect picture.” The boy said, releasing his hand from his chin, whereupon it found itself something to do by rapping it’s knuckles on the side of the bench. ”The sensation is… well… kinda like suddenly waking up after a long sleep. Like dunking my head in a bucket of icy water. All that haze and background noise just… gone.”

The boy’s glowing eyes finally made their way towards his elder sister, as if trying to measure her reaction to what he’d say next.

Talking honestly about himself never really came easy to the lad.

”Seeing you laying on the ground like that, hurt and bleeding and under someone trying to kill you was one of those moments and, well... like I said; I remember everything. Reliving it over and over like it’s still happening... I mean...” Yet another nervous exhale as he felt his hands fold neatly into his lap. Fidgeting slightly. ”I already have enough dead family living inside my head, I didn’t want to have any more.”

Now that she thought about it, Mal had never really talked about himself much in the nearly six years they had known one another. Oh, he had talked about plenty of other things with her, but the subject of his powers and what it was like to be him had never really come up before. Granted, she hadn’t exactly been forthright with her own negative experiences; everyone had enough shit to deal with without her adding onto it.

Still, perhaps she should have opened up to him more, like she had with Zoey. Told him about her own experiences as Lady Arcana, and how it had changed her life forever. After all, for two people who had spent so much time together, they didn’t really know all that much about one another’s pasts.

”That sounds...overwhelming, Mal,” said Karen, taking a seat beside him on the bench. Reaching behind him to pull her little brother into a half-hug, she frowned. ”I’m sorry you have to deal with something so awful; I can’t even imagine what it must be like.”

She really couldn’t—while Mnemosyne granted Lady Arcana an eidetic memory as well, her godly mind allowed her to utilize it without any of the detrimental effects that Mal had mentioned. It felt almost like his powers were a double-edged sword in comparison.

”How long have you had those abilities? I’m guessing six years or so, yeah?”

”Exactly six years, nine days, eight hours and about fifteen minutes or so.” The boy in question responded with his usual dry demeanour, gently bracing his hand onto Karen’s shoulder to half-escape from her half-embrace, letting out a sort of morbid chuckle as he did so. ”And I wouldn’t go so far as to call it ‘Awful’, so much as it’s just a constant pain in my ass.”

Well, that’s what he’d refer to it anyhow.

Karen had enough shit on her plate to deal with without worrying about his baggage, too. Hell, everyone did. So that opinion on his own state would be sufficient enough.

Something he just said had just given Karen the distinct feeling like she was forgetting or overlooking something. What was it? Was there something significant that happened a little over a week ago, besides all of them arriving on campus—oh shit!

”Your birthday!” Karen gasped, smacking herself in the head—an action she quickly regretted. Her ears rang slightly and she felt that wave of dizziness briefly wash over her, as it had more than once over the past couple of days. ”Ugh...stupid head.”

But that didn’t matter right now. She’d just remembered something important. ”Damn it, because I was still shaking off my isolation, I forgot to get you a proper birthday present!”

”Stop hitting your head while you have a concussion and we’ll call it even.” Mal couldn’t help but quip at that, a little smirk working it’s way across his face at the (much welcomed) little respite from the topic at hand. ”...Of course your doctor already told you about that, right?”

Karen winced at the mention of her doctor. ”Y-yeah...I’ll be fine though, don’t worry.”

She really wasn’t too concerned about it, in truth. It was only a minor concussion; it should heal up in a week or two, surely. No, a realization had now bored its way into her brain, and she wasn’t about to let it escape her. ”Anyway, you were really upset on your birthday, you know, and now that I think about it, you always have been. Why is that?”

Mal remained silent for a moment, eyes slowly raising to meet his sister’s as an unreadable expression made itself known on his face. But after a solid half-minute or two, he answered.

”My brain also functions as a sort of internal clock. I’m not entirely sure how that works, but on certain times of the year, some memories are louder than others. Harder to ignore.” He stated plainly, now shifting back and fully escaping the sort of half-hug Karen had wrapped him in earlier. ”So I have good days, and I have bad days. Some moreso than others.”

But pointedly failed to elaborate.

”...But why would your birthday of all days be one of those ‘bad days’?” asked Karen, raising her brow.

A small exhale escaped the boy at that- through his nose, as his lips were thoroughly pursed in an expression of hesitance- as his fingers found themselves wrapping on the bench again. It also occurred to him that he’d probably also remember all of the stupid faces he’d made in the past fifteen or so minutes of this conversation, but he put that thought on the backburner in favour of the dilemma he now faced.

This was some deeply personal shit the blonde was asking about. The kind he’d never even told Zoey about.

And he had more than a few reasons for doing so.

Still, it didn’t feel quite right to just brush his sister off like his subconscious was screaming at him to, especially not in the state she was in.

His glowing eyes lingered on her for a moment at that last thought.

…

’...Fuckdammit.’

”If I tell you, you sit down, shaddup and let me work on that compressed spine of yours before you’re both concussed and crippled.” He finally growled more than said or offered, still clearly uncomfortable with the topic at hand. ”Deal?”

A grin slowly worked its way onto Karen’s face at this. ”Deal!”

A small part of him had hoped the quick shower would’ve helped him come up with some way of even trying to broach this particular topic. A smaller, but louder part of him wished he’d climbed out the damned window and made a run for it.

But all the same, there sat Mal, now all squeaky clean and not smelling like ass, cross-legged in his computer chair in his little storage-room turned (surprisingly tidy) home. Staring straight down at the bloody ground, that metahuman brain of his running about a million miles per second trying to figure a way out of just what he’d gotten himself into.

But there he sat, unmoving.

Uncomfortable, yes. But unmoving.

”So, uhh… yeah.” Mal finally (failed to) start, clearing his throat. ”Just, err… I’m not exactly sure where to start…”

”Well, with things like this, it’s usually best to start at the beginning, right?” said Karen, smirking.

Mal raised a brow at her for that, but said nothing. Simply settling on fixing the girl with a cold glare for a few seconds before nodding along.

”...Alright, fine. You’d need the context anyway.”

Shutting his eyes (a useless gesture for the boy, but a natural impulse all the same) and leaning back in his chair to mull over the words in his head for a few seconds, Mal finally got started.

”Well, to start, if we’re going from the beginning, I should probably tell you that I’ve never actually met my real parents.” The boy stated neutrally, finding a spot on the ceiling to focus in on for this little bout of storytime. ”My Dad, or the guy who became my Dad, actually found my still soggy, newborn ass out in a dumpster behind a biker bar and across the road from a Denny’s in the middle of a blizzard seventeen years ago.”

Just the tiniest hint of a grin formed on Mal’s face at the mention of his old man, but he continued nonetheless.

”He was a good guy, Jack Talhaiarn; homeless, old, freezing his balls off… but the first thing he does when he finds a naked newborn baby, screaming in a pile of trash, is decide that he’s not gonna let him die.” Mal explained, that little smile of his growing wider. ”You’d’ve liked him, I think. A weird blend of Marine and teddy-bear, he was; Strong, tough... built like a fucking tank, in fact. But always calm, controlled… understanding... and more kind and giving than a man who lived in a fucking alley really ought to be.”

Karen smiled at this. Memories of some of the kinder individuals she had met in The Wedge pushed their way to the surface. They were odd ones, truthfully, given the hellhole that they lived in. But then, she had always been told that she was a strange one as well. Maybe, for some people, being forced to endure terrible situations just made them want to soar ever higher.

”He sounds like a pretty awesome guy to have for a dad,” she said. Certainly better than her own had been.

Mal grinned in a nostalgic way as he continued to stare up at the ceiling.

”That he was... Not to say he was all soft, mind you; when I screwed up, he wasn’t above a little cuff up the back the head and an old-fashioned military talking to. When he was teaching me how to read, or fight or generally do anything goddamn useful, he made sure I actually learned, whether I wanted to or not. And I’ll admit, there were a few times where I was being a little shit and wanted to do anything but.” The scarred teen reminisced, a a slight chuckle escaping his throat. ”But he always had my back- I never doubted that for a second- and any time I was actually in trouble, it was my Old Man I could always turn to to save the day.”

Another little silence followed that, as Mal found himself in his own head with a weirdly (for him) kiddish grin now downright splitting his face as he sat there, still staring up at the ceiling.

”Of course, he had some help along the way raising my little hooligan ass, there were the Mikhailovich boys… didn’t speak a lick of English between ‘em ‘cept what they needed to insult eachother, but could MacGuyver damn near anything from nothing. My Aunt Lin who could make a feast outta whatever you could grab out of a trash-can, a few others...”
The rambling teen paused again, eyes flicking back toward fully one half of his current ‘family’ in the midst of all this rambling about his last.

”I learned a lot growing up as a kid who technically didn’t exist in the eyes of the government... Hell, I was speaking at least five languages, by the time I was four. Kind of a necessity growing up as I did… but it was a good life- rough at times mind you- but good.”

Karen had listened quietly at his described his early life with his father. Given that he had arguably had it even worse than she had in The Wedge, it felt a little silly for her to be jealous over their relationship. Especially since common sense would dictate that their time together did not last…

She wasn’t about to rush him to that point, however—better to let him enjoy his happy walk down memory lane for as long as it would last.

”Four languages is a lot for anyone to know,” she noted. ”Especially when you’re that young.”

”Yeah… well, ya absorb a lot when you’re young and surrounded by it constantly. Or maybe I was just a bright kid, even before my brain got kicked into high-gear, I dunno…” Mal agreed with a little laugh and a smile… that grew just a little bit rueful as it wound down, slowly being supplanted by a particularly grim expression. ”But I’m talking yer ear off ‘bout crap that doesn’t really matter anymore. I should get back on topic.”

The boy shuffled in his seat, clearly uncomfortable about this next bit. But continued all the same… but only after a long pause and averting his eyes away again.

”The night before I turned eleven, me and the rest of the alley kids were all sitting around the fire listening to my dad playing Cash on an old guitar we found a while back and MacGuyver’d back into working order. The Slav Twins were screaming at eachother, while working on something in their corner, Lin was cooking up something while humming along with whatever my dad was playing, I had my ol’ dog ‘Fleabag’ in my lap and Lin’s daughter-- who I remember having a pretty massive crush on-- huddled up next ta me for warmth. All in all, a happy night in the mind of Lil’ Boy Me.”

He had to pause again.

Now came the hard part.

”I remember… Fleabag suddenly got really antsy. And suddenly everyone got real quiet… Mal continued, clearly struggling a bit to speak as his hand unconsciously drifted it’s way towards the burns on his shoulder. ”I remember turning around and seeing this… thing that sort of looked like a person shambling towards us. Some guy who’d been so badly burned, his skin was still bubbling, even as it was falling off in chunks at his feet.”

Malcolm leaned back in his chair again, swallowing hard.

”And then he showed up… this huge guy in a mask who looked at that other guy, then at the rest of us... and started giggling.” The boy told, possibly not aware of the absolute, vice-like grip his free hand had on his knee as he spoke, an unreadable but unpleasant look forming on his face as he seemed to be trying to bore a hole in the wall off to the side of them by his glare alone. ”And then he levelled his flamethrower at us.”

That glare slowly turned it’s way towards Karen, not relenting in the slightest.

”I can’t remember much of what happened after that--I think I hit my head on the ground when my dad snatched me up when he saw the flames coming--But what I do remember is all the screaming, the smell and waking up under what was left of my Dad and anyone I’d ever cared about the next morning.”

A little shiver of something went up Mal’s spine as he leaned forward finally, seemingly drilling a hole into Karen’s eyes with his own as he did so.

”...Does that answer your question?”

Karen returned his stare for only the briefest of moments before pulling him out of the chair and into the tightest embrace she had yet to give him—which was really saying something for a notorious cuddlebug like herself. Rocking in place for what must have been at least a minute of silence, she slowly released him. There wasn’t really anything she could say that would be an adequate response to everything she had just been told.

The only thing she could think to do was tell him about her own experiences.

”...Nothing so horrible ever happened to anyone I knew personally. The closest for me was that boy, Timothy, or those people eight months ago, she explained, trying not to focus on either of them too deeply at the moment. ”I was spared from seeing my mother’s death first hand, but I heard the gunshots that killed her from our home while she was on her way back from the Bodega Aurrera—this was just after they bought out Walmart.”

She stared up at the ceiling, trying to clear her head for the next part. Talking about her mom’s death was one thing; she could handle that. She had made peace with it. Not so much everything that came after it.

”I...took it pretty hard at the time, but my papa… he took it far worse; he took it out on me,” said Karen, closing her eyes. That was probably a mistake, as the darkness was soon filled with flashes of his oncoming fists, raining blows down upon her. Of his drunken spit flying every direction, his eyes wild and unfocussed.

She shook her head. ”It...was only when he was drunk, of course. Otherwise he just mostly ignored me, unless he wanted food. That continued for two years, and I remember...I used to have nightmares about him becoming so angry that he...didn’t stop. That he just kept on going until I was finally dead.”

”Thankfully, it never came to that...thanks in part to Zoey.”

By the point Karen’s arms had ripped him out of his chair, whatever spark of anger he had in him had quickly begun to wane.

By the time she began rocking in place, shivering and recalling her own youth, it had vanished entirely.

So, without preamble or ceremony or any flowery language you’d find on any myriad soap opera… Mal slowly, silently wrapped his arms around the girl and pulled her into an embrace of his own. Not quite as tight, but warm and—for someone like Malcolm, especially—genuine.

For a moment, he said nothing. Just sat there calmly stroking the back of his sister’s hair and holding her… until finally-

”Well…” He began, a dark little note of humour in his voice ”We’re just a pair of poster-children for childhood trauma, ain’t we?”

Karen smiled at this, nodding slowly. ”I suppose that’s why we’ve managed to get along so well all these years. Though I never knew what exactly you had gone through, I could always tell you had been through something really traumatic.”

With a little snort Mal finally released her… well, mostly- still keeping his hands on her shoulders as he spoke, something resembling a sad attempt of a grin snaking it’s way onto his face.

He couldn’t help it, it was like second nature to him to kick his own thoughts down and put on a brave face when he saw the girl like this.

”Now, now… stop that. We’re gonna be here all day, at this rate.” Mal stated with a little upward twitch at the corner of his lips ”...And I can’t exactly fix your spine if we’re both in here bawling our eyes out, now can I?”

Karen chuckled at this, easing back onto the bed she had been sitting on. Swinging her legs over it to present her back to her little brother, she rolled her neck from side-to-side. ”Alright, fine...but no promises on me not crying anyway if you’re too rough on my back.”

A laugh followed that statement.

”To be perfectly honest Karen… this is probably going to really suck for the first half-hour.”

”Fuck you, Virgil.”

February 10th, Poseidonis campus 3:24 PM

The words still rang loud and clear in Virgil's mind. He looked like shit, he felt like shit, but he was still alive. Nobody died this time, but he knew he could have handled things better than he did.

A few days of going AWOL and looking inside yourself really did wonders. Being gone for a few days was something Virgil couldn't say he was fond of, but there were times back in Dakota where Virgil would leave on a "school trip" onto to spend a day or two patrolling as he saw fit. He still couldn't believe himself, but he was back. Well, physically.

He figured it started long before he got that feeling in his bones. In truth, it started the moment he got off the shuttle down here. He was there, telling himself he was taking a break from being a hero, only to flaunt his powers left and right. That should have been the first sign. Then it was tinkering with his gadgets. He shouldn't even have brought his equipment down here. Just in case was a lazy excuse to tell himself that he really didn't want to take a break. Talking to Richie on the Shock Box. Virgil brought his phone. The moment Virgil truly crossed his own line was when he put on that suit and went parading around Atlantis like it was Dakota.

Then he met Mal and the other Argonaut. When Virgil got clued in that these guys were not only good, but of some importance, he got high and mighty to prove himself to them. He should have stuck to the plan. All he had to do was take out the generator and lay low. If anyone came rushing out, he should have handled it then. He should not have walked into the building, firing bolts left and right at people who tried to get at him. His sudden exit probably wasn't handled all that well.

Virgil grabbed his arms and looked at the campus he stood on the edge on. He had snuck into the dorms the night of the Raid and changed into civilian clothes, but those were the same clothes he was wearing right now. He just didn't know if he was ready to face Mal. Karen was in the party, playing the agent or something so Mal had eyes and ears inside. Sociable eyes and ears, that is.

He had to apologize. Virgil knew that to be true. He also deserved a powered punch or something from the Watchdog since Virgil was almost absolutely sure that Mal still had it in him after the raid. He had to own up to this. He couldn't keep running when things went sour.

With that, Virgil set foot on the campus of the university for the first time in nearly three days. Whatever happened, happened.

3:02 A.M.
Aquarius Apartments,Bazar Quarter, Atlantis

Ophelia nodded to Karen, propping herself up to sit on the bathroom countertop. She leaned her back against the mirror and watched as Karen left. Funny, she probably could have figured out Karen had been talking to someone else the whole time, if she had ever at all suspected that. For some reason she’d assumed Karen had been actually interested in her. It was now apparent she was rather wrong. This whole thing had been an excuse to play detective or spy or whatever the fuck.

Ophelia wasn’t a stranger to having ulterior motives during a romantic encounter. In fact, that was probably the majority of her romantic encounters. Possibly that was her only type of romantic encounter. But she’d never been the one being used before. Or at least not the only on being used. It hurt. Maybe a little more than she’d like to admit. Was this how it felt on the other side? She had legitimately liked Karen; she was cute, and sweet, and smart.

She turned around to look at herself in the bathroom mirror, her face illuminated for split seconds at a time in the strobing lights. ”You reap what you sow, you beautiful bitch.” She said to herself. She, of course, was the beautiful bitch.

The other girl retched behind her, the sound of stomach contents hitting toilet water followed. How poetic.

”God, could you keep it down, I’m trying to have a dramatic internal monologue,” Ophelia said, throwing a glass at the door and watching it shatter.

Ophelia stared at the crack between the tile and the wood, watching the light hit the glass shards. It took her a moment to even wonder what had caused the sound. God, she was drunker than she thought. She summoned a bottle of gin, and another two glasses, pouring a healthy serving into each of them. She set the bottle down on the counter, her feet back on the floor, and the second glass into the hand of the still-retching girl.

She walked over to the bathroom door, her feet crunching on broken glass, her step more wobbly then she’d ever admit. Cracking the door barely an inch, she peaked out the door to the chaos beyond. People were yelling and beating eachother. Men in special forces uniforms were running around, some guy in a super suit was there. Looks like the real party had finally started. She closed the door, she’d seen it all before. In her line of work, the chaos outside was just another tuesday. The thing really tearing her up was the deal with Karen.

She’d never actually liked someone before. For something other than money, at least.

”Cheers.” She said to the girl, raising her glass and downing the liquid inside.

Then she vanished. She re-appeared near the wall in the main room. Then vanished again. Re-appearing this time right outside the door to the apartment. She repeated her vanishing act a few more times in the hall, the elevator, the lobby, till she was out on the street. A few other party-goers had already made it down, and she could hear panic from the doors behind her. She wasn’t planning on sticking around to see it though, and she started walking.

Walk was a strong word. Teeter would be a more accurate description of her method of movement. Destination didn’t even occur to her at this point. It was mostly just away.

From there, things started to get blurry.

---

8:38 A.M.
Asterion Dorms, Poseidonis University, Atlantis

Walking back to the university would have been a pain, luckily, Ophelia was a pretty girl and there were a lot of resources that came with that. Like strangers letting you into their cars. Of course, strangers letting you into their cars is a very risky endeavour, luckily, Ophelia was a dangerous girl. And a grumpy one. Nursing a hangover two days in the making. It was surprisingly easy, considering the state she was in, to hold a man at gunpoint and kick him out of his car. Driving back was the hard part. Somehow, she’d survived, although she couldn’t say the same for the car, or many road fixtures.

Ophelia stumbled back into her dorm room and headed straight to the fridge. She grabbed the carton of orange juice, her bottle of champagne, several different mystery tupperware and a container of hummus and retreated into her room, slamming the door. In less then a minute she had nested herself into her bed, poured herself a mimosa, and began eating old pasta and strange leftover casserole with her fingers. If anyone had seen her in that moment, she may have looked like she’d been there an eternity.

Karen had been jared from her morning ritual by the sound of a slamming door, her heart leaping at the implication of it. Hannah would never slam the door like that; she was a very timid and polite girl. No, the only one here that would display such inconsiderate early morning behavior was Ophelia, whom she hadn’t seen since the party.

She had certainly looked for her afterwards, of course, despite her injuries. She hadn’t been in the bathroom where the other girl was, and none of the witnesses she had spoken to had seen her fleeing the raid. When Karen realized that Ophelia had also taken some of the offered drugs earlier, her worry had tripled—the arcane stimulent they were handing out to surfacers, as it turned out, had resulted in several victims being so overwhelmed by the rush of unnatural energy in their bodies that they literally exploded.

It was quite gruesome.

The thought that her very own roommate might have suffered such a horrible fate had made Karen utterly sick to her stomach, made worse by the fact that she couldn’t seem to find her, no matter what. She wasn’t answering her cellphone, and nobody else at school had apparently seen her.

Up until she heard the door slam, she wasn’t even sure if she would feel up to confronting Mal today about what happened during the raid. She had felt so guilty for bringing Ophelia there…hopefully she was alright.

Leaving her own room, Karen wasted little time in making her way to Ophelia’s room and gently knocking on the door. ”Ophelia? That’s you, right? ...Where have you been? Hannah and I were really worried!”

Ophelia paused in the middle of scooping hummus into her mouth with her ring finger. Oh, so now she cared. She couldn’t help but be a little spiteful of Karen after her would-be lover so callously used her and ripped her heart out, only to toss her aside like last seasons ready-to-wear. Maybe she was being a little dramatic, but she’d never been dumped before. Did last night count as a dumping? Was it last night? She looked at her bedside clock.

It was not last night.

Where had she been?

”I don’t know the answer to any of those questions.” Ophelia spat back, licking the hummus off her fingers.

Karen blinked on the other side of the door, finding her sharp response a bit odd. Normally, Ophelia was very nice to her...but then, it was understandable if she was angry at having been left in the bathroom without much of an explanation.

”Listen, I’m really, really sorry for running off like that, okay?” said Karen, leaning slightly against the door. ”People’s lives were in danger, though, I had to do something!”

Ophelia rolled her eyes. People’s lives? What about her emotions. People’s lives were in danger every day. What’s news? She sighed and clawed her way out of bed, sending the pasta flying onto the floor after being catapulted off the blankets. She opened her bedroom door to look at Karen.

She was in quite a state; the curls in her long dark hair were mostly just knots, her face still had a few remains of makeup around her eyes, and her lips had a red-ish tint. At some point during her misadventures she must have changed into a loose silk slip dress that’s strap kept falling off her shoulder. The bags around her eyes felt more like full luggage at this point. Everything hurt.

”I’m not upset that you left me in the bathroom. I’m upset because the entire time you were talking to whoever the fuck over some secret shitty bluetooth headset and I had thou- Yanno what? Honestly, forget it.” Ophelia said, crossing her arms and looking away.

Karen’s shoulders sank, another mistake on her part for this motion elicited a series of painful pops and cracks. One thing that both she and Ophelia had in common was that they were both not at their best right now. Karen’s left wrist was in a brace at the moment, while the right side of her face now sported a discolored bruise from where she had been punched. Her back also popped and cracked with just about every motion she dared to take.

”...You’re right. I fucked up there—I should have been honest with you from the start,” said Karen, rubbing her uninjured arm idly. ”I somehow thought I could manage to do both; have a fun night out with you, and protect the other students. Naive, I know…”

Shaking her head, she released a long sigh. ”I didn’t mean to lead you on, though, really. I should have been more considerate of your feelings.”

Ophelia paused, seeing how beat up Karen actually looked took her out of her own self-involved world for a moment. She hadn’t even realized that Karen was taking a risk by going out there like that. Karen wasn’t like the people Ophelia was used to being around. No one she knew would risk getting beat up like that for strangers. It confused her.

Of course she knew there were those self-righteous supers out there always talking about saving the innocent and stopping evil-doers. But that wasn’t Karen either.

Karen actually… cared?

”Hey, look, it’s really no big deal. You do- Do yo- Um… Are you okay? You look a little rough. Do you wanna sit down? I can make you a mimosa.” She offered, opening her door a little more. She gestured over to the seating area she’d set up in her room, two white plush velvet armchairs and a round glass coffee table in the corner of the room.

Karen pressed her tongue to the inside of her cheek where her bruise was, wincing slightly at the stinging pain that radiated outwards. ”I’ll live…but yeah, I wouldn’t mind having something for breakfast. What about you, though? You look pretty rough too, are you sure you’re okay?”

Ophelia looked like she had a few rough nights under her belt by this point. Gone was the glamorous party girl from two days ago, now replaced with somebody who had “I’m so done” written all over her face.

Ophelia offered a coy smile, and a little twinkle came back to her eyes. ”I’ll try not to take offence to that. Come, sit. There’s pasta on my floor but ignore that.” She said with a tiny chuckle.

Ophelia grabbed another glass and poured a second mimosa for Karen. She cleaned up a tiny bit, picking up the containers of food off her bed and putting them on her table. She walked over to the chairs with a mimosa for both of them, setting them on the table as well.

”I think I stole Hannah’s hummus.”

Karen glanced down at the hummus and snickered. She doubted Hannah would actually care—she didn’t seem to be the type to get upset about something like that, given Ophelia’s current state.

Taking her seat at the table, she stared at the mimosa for only a moment before taking a sip from it. She wasn’t really one to drink, especially this early, but if it made Ophelia feel better about her shitty weekend, then she would do it. Besides, if there was one kind of alcoholic beverage she liked, it was a fruity one.

”How’s your head, by the way? Do you need me to whip you up something for a hangover after breakfast?” asked Karen.

Ophelia pulled her knees up to her chest, sitting like an egg in her chair.

”I’d already forgotten I had a head still,” Ophelia said. ”Breakfast sounds wonderful. Can I ask you a question?

Karen took another light sip of her drink, smiling over at the other girl. ”Sure! I guess you probably have a lot of them after the other night, huh?”

Ophelia paused, then pursed her lips, looking at the other girl. She really just wanted to know if Karen had any interest in her at all, after all that had happened. Karen did say she had ‘led her on’ though, which didn’t make it sound like Karen did have feelings after all. Karen had only gone out with her to investigate those drugs, after all. Had it all been so one-sided that Ophelia couldn’t even see the truth? She was so accustomed to being able to read and play people’s emotions like sheet music but it was so different with Karen. She felt foolish.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a perfume bottle falling and shattering on the other side of the room. The air suddenly grew rank with the scent of Chanel N* 5. Ophelia looked shocked. She’d known for a fact she didn’t call that out, and yet it seemingly shot out of her pocket dimension out of it’s own free will. She glanced at Karen, hoping the other girl would assume it’d fallen from a shelf or something.

Karen’s head had immediately jerked in the direction of the perfume bottle when it shattered. Partially standing from the table, her confused eyes surveyed the room. Where had that fallen from? The shelf? But it was quite a distance away from where it had landed… “What…?”

“You know, I am starving. Can you make some eggs? I’ll clean my room later, but if I have to wait another second before I get some food in me I’ll probably die.” Ophelia said dramatically, jumping out of her chair and rushing towards the door. ”I feel myself getting dizzy. Holy shit.”

Refocusing her attention on Ophelia, Karen pushed the perfume bottle to the back of her mind. ”Oh, sure! I can do that. How do you like your eggs?”

If there was one thing Karen could take pride in, it was that she was actually a pretty damn good cook. Usually when she stayed with others, she would offer to fix meals for them as a form of gratitude.

”Depends if we have toast or not.”

”Last I looked, yeah—I bought some last week,” she said, making her way out of the room.

Ophelia followed her out, closing the door behind her. Out of sight out of mind. ”Then sunny side up. I like to mash them up after and use them as spread on some buttered toast.” She said, taking Karen’s arm gently and walking them to the kitchen.

Karen smiled at her and nodded. The kitchen wasn’t looking so hot—just what had Ophelia done to it? If she had to hazard a guess, the answer would be “drunkenly looking for hummus”. Oh well, it wasn’t a big deal. She could always clean it up later.

”Sunny it is! Honestly, that’s probably the best for a hangover, short of just eating them raw,” said Karen. Clearing away any obstacles barring her from the stove, Karen placed a skillet on one of the eyes and turned the dial to ignite the flame. From the refridgerator she took four eggs, setting them to the side.

She then poured butter and bacon fat down onto it, smiling with satisfaction as it began to sizzle—that meant the pan was hot enough to add the eggs. Cracking the eggs one by one, she carefully spaced them apart so that they wouldn’t accidentally merge together. Taking a small brush from the drawer, she then lightly basted the still cooking eggs with some additional butter before covering them with a glass lid.

”...Right, shouldn’t be long,” she said, turning back to Ophelia.

Ophelia closed her eyes and breathed in through her nose. ”It already smells amazing.”

Bjorn Bjornsson wandered out of the party. He'd been there a while, watching. It was a bit juvenile to be honest; stalking felt beneath him! He was a soldier, a career soldier, not a middle-aged house-husband with nothing better to do than watch young women enjoy their lives. On the other hand, he was glad to have gone, what with the sudden breakout of violence and the arrival of a disguised man who could be no other than that young Malcolm boy, and another who was far more readable: the King of Atlantis himself.

Some secret mission had gone on here, something about blackout drugs and other stories he didn't care to listen to. All he knew was that these men were rather important, and although a good number of them were taken down in the assault, there were definitely some who had slipped under the radar. It was simple to identify them and track them down, they left in a hurry and weren't shy about leaving evidence. It was so simple in fact, that Bjorn found it simple to retrieve his gear from where he had stashed it at the side of the building before returning to the escapee's trail. He attempted to hide himself among the few people walking at this ungodly hour, dipping into alleyways, all of which were luckily empty, and kept on his way.

Bjorn didn't know where the man thought he was going, but he seemed to know what direction he was heading at the very least. Bjorn leapt from building to building, suiting himself and holstering his weapons, finally placing a helmet overtop of his head, his breaths began to make a soft noise, and a dim red glow began to come from his eyes.

He smashed down into the dead-end alley behind the fleeing man, a cape flaring behind him as it caught the air. The man barely had time to turn around before Iron Eagle unleashed an explosive combination of blows, fragmenting the brick wall behind him and utterly deforming the man's face.

"I see your fear, Atlantean. I feel your pain. And I enjoy it, as we enjoyed watching your friends' suffering at the party. You are in my way, and I will remove you, once we are done... Well, I may as well show you."

Iron Eagle grabbed the man by the throat and tossed him to the ground, crouching down beside him and preparing a single finger as he tried to crawl away. With a swift thrust, Iron Eagle drove his finger through the man's cheek into his mouth. He hooked his finger around, and dragged the man into the air. He dangled the man in the air, reveling in his groans and desperate cries of pain

"All of this city, of this land, all of it is our domain. You may claim it, but we have only allowed you to live here out of the kindness of our hearts, now we've come to take what is ours. Every Atlantean will be driven out of their homes, brought to the surface, and shot under the sun, and then we will inherit Atlantis. So warn your colleagues, tell them your king openly consorts with us, and tell them that you have no time left, already the surface's strongest warrior has arrived in Atlantis, and she makes me look like a mere minnow."

Iron Eagle tossed the man to the ground with a thump, watching gleefully as he spasmed and crawled.

"How unafraid we are, to tell you exactly what we plan," Iron Eagle said with a mocking laugh. "Try your hardest, Atlantean, we will still exterminate you like the pests you are."

It was an impromptu plan, but reading the man's mind and seeing his pure disdain for the surface, Wilhelm knew it would work. With seemingly every prejudice being confirmed, the man would radicalize, and soon none of those from the surface would be safe, well, except for maybe Karen, but he'd work on that. Just as he'd work on influencing these weak minds further. There was some kind of larger plan Wilhelm saw that the man didn't quite know about, but Wilhelm didn't much care about that. He was just looking for a little fury, a little resentment.

A little chaos.

Downtown, Central City
February 14th, 22:40

"Oh yeah, I totally knew that. Actually have your stream on record back home, would have been watching it already but was a little held up with non-hero things."

Quite a lot of them if she was being honest with herself. College papers, hanging around with her friends after class, trying not to die of boredom during lectures… She would much prefer to be back at her apartment than out on a chilly rooftop in mid-february, but it wasn't everyday that she actually ran into another hero. If she remembered right, it had been quite some time since her last team-up, though this hardly counted as one. Her lips pulled into a smile as she watched Arsenal shift about on the rooftop, putting a little bit of distance between them as if not wanting to be too close, all the while his body-language and mannerisms said very much the opposite. It was a little endearing.

"I do a bit of that myself to be honest, well not as me but as me if you get what I mean. Really more of a vlog and a hobby to be fair, but a little bit goes a long way. Actually started as a class-project at first, a way to get some proper experience in the field and learn a little by doing. Kept it going afterwards for the cash, alongside my part-time job and a few other things. Gotta eat, and keep the lights on at home. Sometimes being a hero isn't great for the wallet, but that's the price we pay, right?"

The white-faced guards at the perimeter had been pretty amenable all things considered, Jason mused. They were under orders not to let anybody out, but had no problem letting people in, assuming they weren’t cops. At least, that’s what the last one had said before Turn Back had knocked his lights out. Though they did have a point, Turn Back was a pretty stupid name… Maybe he’d change it in this new world. But, in the here and now, he had business to attend to.

A patrol of gang goons coming down the alley towards a larger street. Turn Back knew there was a large group of survivors in that direction, he had just pointed them towards the hole he’d opened in the perimeter. He’d have to stop this patrol before they got much further, or they’d likely gun down the innocent folks for not ‘playing by the Angels rules’. This Angel gang was kind of fucked up.

Stepping out from behind a burning dumpster, Turn Back swung his cane lazily in a circle. “Come out to play, boys?” He asked the oncoming group of gang members, who slowed to a stop and leveled their weapons at him. Jason crouched slightly and pointed his cane at the leader. “We can do this Anime style where you come at me one at a time, or I can take you all on at once. Whatever you guys want.” He said with a grin in his voice. He already had a small charge of power built up, enough to quickly knock a few of these guys out, but he could also use their rush to build up a bigger charge as well.

Fortunately, the lot of them chose to bull-rush him. Like a wave crashing against a rock, each blow that fell on Turn Back simply stopped the moment it connected, the strength being sapped from their hits and added to a growing pool of energy inside the masked vigilante. With a snap of his wrist, Turn Back lashed out with his cane, a flash of purple energy being expelled at it connected with the nearest foe, sending him flying back down the alley. A few moments later, the process had been repeated a half-dozen times, each time ending with a gang member lying bruised and beaten on the dirty floor of the dingy alley. That would buy the survivors time to escape.

“Looks like this bitch has got some kind of meta-power,” said a graveled voice from the back of the group. Lounging against his bike was a man that looked to at least be in his fifties—an old roadhog in leathers with a long, white beard to match. The rest of the gang had halted in their tracks the moment he had first spoken, all turning to regard him with a sense of both fear and respect.

Pushing himself up off the ground, the old man rolled the kinks out of his shoulders while regarding the boy in front of him. Turn Back could clearly hear the name “Mammon” being muttered under their breath.

“This is the Angel’s turf, bitch,” he said calmly, raising his hand in the direction of his fellow bikers. What had at first appeared to simple tattoos were now glowing with a strange power along the length of his arm. “And it’ll be your fuckin’ grave—viribus.”

When that last word was spoken, it echoed unnaturally throughout the street, the other bikers immediately grasping their heads in what at first appeared to be pain. As they began to scream in an unholy chorus, however, Turn Back saw that their muscle-mass had greatly expanded, with their fists now glowing with a strange orchid light.

“Show that bitch what happens when you go up against the power of Mammon,” he said quietly.

Charging Turn Back again, the gang moved with a strange power behind their gait, closing the distance between them in but a second. As they struck at him with fist and chain, the orchid fire would lash out to further enhance their already superhuman blows with arcane fire.

“Huh.” Turn Back said, watching the strange glowing energies surround the previously defeated gang members. “That’s weird and cheating. I don’t like it.” He planted himself in a firm stance as the group advanced on him again, ready to teach them their second lesson of the night. “Come on again boys, I can do more than just punches and hits, I can—”

The quip was cut off by the first of the arcane-enhanced fists slamming into his gut. Though his power siphoned off the normal force of the blow, the heat and enhanced strength caught him off guard, the magical energy being completely unfamiliar to Turn Back. The vigilante staggered back, swinging his cane around quickly in an effort to ward off the rest of the attackers. He managed to connect with only the closest one, pushing him away only for another to step up and fill his space.

Turn Back backed away from the advancing crowd of goons, looking around at his surroundings to try and come up with a plan. “Well, this is unfortunate.” He said to himself, musing out loud. “It’s been awhile since I actually felt pain, so… You know, fuck you for that, asshole. Man, it would be super nice if I had some backup to count on or something…”

Mammon had once again returned to relaxing against his bike, though he now remained standing. As if possessed, the seemingly still unconscious bikers continued to swarm Turn Back without hesitation or any sort of visible emotion.

“Should’ve never come here, bitch,” said Mammon, lighting a cigarette. “Don’t even know how to deal with magic—ain’t much of a double-A, are you? These guys don’t feel pain right now, and they don’t know fear. You’re fucked.”

Indeed, even the man he had struck with his cane seemed to barely even notice outside of briefly being knocked back. None of the injuries he had inflicted on them earlier seemed to be slowing them down now, either.

Hssssss.

A small black projectile pierced the air, a straight line from the dark pollution hovering over the city. Just behind the line of attackers what appeared to be a cylinder bounced off the concrete with only the smallest of thumps, beginning to spin wildly with a low hiss. It took only seconds for the ones closest to the cylinder to stagger, then collapse. The ones in front of Turn Back soon succumbed as well, their command encompassing their sense to look for trouble.

CRASH.

And with the projectile came its owner. A comet of dark metal and glowing red eyes straightened out behind Mammon, the twisted metal remains of the biker’s precious ride stomped beneath the armored suit, the wolf’s visage in the helmet and stamped on the shoulders.

With little more than a glance to the hefty biker a glove hand slammed into his face, hissing emerging from the palm as the thick fingers dug in like steel clamps to lift him directly into the air. Even when magic sparked across Mammon’s fingers it seemed to skid across the armor, only earning a slight cock of its owner’s head before Grim looked forward once more. The free arm of the Iron Fang armor rose, another projectile shooting forward, that familiar hissing emerging to stop the back of the hoard from crushing their companions in a mad scramble to reach Turn Back.

When Mammon’s struggling kicks slowed and ultimately his grip around Grim’s wrist loosened, he dropped the biker carelessly to the ground without a second glance.

Turn Back had dived to the side as soon as the cylinder had begun to spin, rolling towards the dumpster as the hissing canister took out the apparently magically-enhanced goon. He stood up just in time to hear the crash of the armored figure dropping onto the bike and a second hiss from another canister. Turn Back pumped an arm into the air as he saw the armored wolf-like figure effortlessly neutralize Mammon.

“Alright, that’s some good backup!” He called before turning and jumping into the flaming dumpster fire. Upon contact, the flames died down and the dumpster cooled, all the energy from the heat transferring to Turn Back’s bank. He turned back towards the few remaining goons and pulled out a handful of rubber bands from his pocket. Charging each one up and firing them in turn, small fireballs blossomed on the chests of each thug as they advanced, pushing them back towards the hissing cylinders

Climbing back out of the dumpster, Turn Back slowly skirted the edge of the battlefield towards Grim and Mammon, keeping a charged rubber band trained on the nearest goons before turning his attention to the armored figure. “Right, thanks for the assist. So I guess magic is gonna be a problem for me here, that’s good to know. So, uh… We gonna stick around here or are you gonna whisk me away to the mansion?” He asked, dropping a subtle guess as to the identity of the armored figure in front of him. He couldn’t be quite sure yet, but there had been something familiar about the almost brutal efficiency with which Grim had dealt with the situation.

For his part, Grim merely tilted his head slightly once more. He studied Turn Back, taking in the young man - then abruptly jerked his gaze to the side as more screams rang out. Despite their brief interlude the city blocks were still being picked over by the Angels, a fact that the distant noises covering this side of the city could attest to.

A low rumble sounded out from Grim’s mask before he raised a hand, first tapping against his opposite arm before reaching out to grab onto Turn Back’s shoulder. For a moment the Gotham Hero could only study him, mask expressionless.

“Survivors first,” Was the simple, though seemingly reluctant answer that was finally given. Overhead a dark jet blazed passed, stopping to hover over them. Grim withdrew his hand from Turn Back’s shoulder -

Only to clamp those cold fingers over his mouth, that familiar hissing coming from the palm.

”You will survive, this time.”

---

Jason awoke with a start on an unfamiliar mattress in an unfamiliar room. Rolling off the covers and landing in a crouching position on the floor, Jason fumbled in his pockets for his cane. Empty. Eyes darting around the room, Jason saw his stick, still extended, sitting on a nearby dresser. As he grabbed for it, Jason winced at a sudden stabbing pain in his left arm. Looking down, he saw the reason: His prosthetic arm hadn’t been removed before he’d been dumped here, he must have slept on it funny. That was going to be a bitch later on.

“God damn it Zoey…” He growled, folding his cane and slipping it into his pocket. Where did she get off, gassing and abducting him? He’d been there to help, damn it! So he didn’t know about this magic shit, hadn’t been expecting it, but he’d have been able to take care of it!

Grumbling as he stepped into his ratty shoes, Jason threw open the door of the outdated bedroom into a too-bright hallway. Raising a hand to shield his eyes, Jason grimaced as he approached what he assumed was part of the serving staff vacuuming a rug.

“Hey, uh… Hi. Dunno if Zoey let you guys know I was here or anything, but… I’m gonna need to talk to her. And if she doesn’t want to talk to me, I’m going to start wandering around yelling for her. … Sorry.”

With a confused and startled nod, the young man hurried down the hallway and disappeared around a corner as Jason began to pace the hall.

”Jason!” It didn’t take long for the woman to appear, turning a corner down the hall. The smile curving her painted lips was bright, relieved and excited. ”You’re - you’re up! And you’re really…” Zoey trailed off, only to offer a slight laugh and run a hand through her hair. She stepped forward, marveling at the man before her.

”Jaina… Jaina explained what she could. Uhm, your lizard - Emily? - is here. Since Jaina is still dealing with that awful business with the Angels.”

Jason had turned towards the voice, intending to launch into a tirade of expletives and demands for answers, but the words caught in his throat when he saw the face of his oldest frenemy. He hadn’t seen Zoey, really seen her in… Years. And this… Well, she wasn’t quite his Zoey, she was a little older for starters, but… It was her. Jason couldn’t keep a smile from creeping onto his face as he crossed his arms and shook his head.

“So close Zo’. Ellie is her name, but I don’t blame you for forgetting. I mean after all, I’ve been dead for what? Fifteen years? She… Well, I don’t really want to think about that, come to think of it.” He said, cutting himself off from the thought of what may have happened to the beloved pet of this universes version of himself.

“And yeah, I’m alive. Well, a version of me anyway. I dunno how much Jaina told you, but I’m not from here. Where I come from there’s no Gotham, no magic, no Atlantis or aliens. But there are superheros… Zoey, can we talk somewhere a little more secure than a freakin’ hallway? We’ve… Got some things to discuss about those Angels, I think.”

”My hallways are secure!” The billionaire immediately protested, but nonetheless she glanced around before finally sighing. ”But yes. I have a meeting room on the first floor that’s built for privacy. I can get someone to bring us food, fetch your Eliza…” She trailed off, but still gestured for Jason to follow. Zoey began to lead him through the large castle, retrieving her phone to tap away at it.

She kept glancing over her shoulder as though to make sure he was still really there.

It took a few minutes of navigating the expansive interior of Kasimir Castle, but soon Zoey was showing Jason into a room draped in dark slate, a meeting table occupying most of the space - though there was a bar of prominence to one side. Laid out on the table was already a tray of food, and beside it, Ellie - with a small bowl of mealworm, surprisingly.

Once inside, Zoey touched the flat panel to the side of the doorway which beeped once. The door seemed to shift and made a hollow noise as it sealed itself.

”This must be … so confusing for you. I mean, it’s confusing for me! You’ve been - you’ve been dead - and…” Zoey trailed off as she turned to look to her friend. Or … another version of her friend.

Jason raised an eyebrow at the impressive security, but seeing it really only helped to solidify his theory. Smiling at the sight of his fat and happy lizard, Jason made a beeline for the bar, stepping behind it to check the selection. Fully stocked, but who expected less of Zoey Kasimir? Grabbing a bottle of whiskey, Jason poured two shots and slid one towards Zoey.

“Confusing? Yeah, a fair bit, I guess.” Jason admitted, before tipping the shot glass back and slamming the booze inside. Grimacing at the sharp taste, he continued on. “Relieved to find you, Jaina, and, uh… ‘Tank’ here at least. He was not hard to find, let me tell you. Same alias here as it was back home. Oh, which reminds me!” He lied, the thought having not left his head since he woke up.

“What the hell was that last night? Like, backup is nice and all, but I don’t appreciate the gassing. And whoever put me to bed forgot to take off my arm, so I’ll be feeling that for a couple days now.”

”Girard was a hero in your world, too?” Zoey paused here, shot glass already empty. Her brows came together as she thought before shaking her head, looking up to meet Jason’s eyes. ”Well… Grim didn’t exactly say much when he dropped you off. Quiet, that one. Jaina gave me most of the information about you - erm, sorry about your arm. I didn’t think - well, I’m sure I can pay for a better replacement, anyway, so you can sleep with it.” She offered an apologetic smile.

Jason glared at Zoey, unconvinced. He poured another pair of shots and slid down a second shot glass to the redhead. “Yes, Girard is Tank in my world. Younger there, but we all are. You included. I’m assuming you don’t have the shadow powers though, so the armor is a nice touch. Also the wanton destruction of property when someone threatens something valuable to you, that was a refreshingly familiar sight. As for the arm…” Jason paused, glancing down at the prosthetic before taking his second shot. “I kind of doubt I was in the habit of accepting handouts in this world either, so thanks, but I’ll pass. I just want in, Zoey. Behind the curtain. No smokescreen.”

Zoey’s eyebrow began twitching.

”Okay, ignoring what you’re implying for two seconds - I had powers in your world? Are you fucking shitting me?” Zoey huffed, and abruptly stepped up close to Jason - only to snag the bottle of vodka to drink directly. ”That’s such fucking bullshit, in one world I’m a hero and the other I’m the god damned bank…” Another swig, a roll of her shoulders, and another involuntary twitch.

”Moving on... Yeah, I don’t have powers. And where the fuck would I get a set of power armor?! I think Grim straight up built his and there’s no way I can do that shit. Okay, look, yeah I’ve been providing the funds for superheroes for years but that’s pretty much all I can do!”

Jason vaulted the bar and closed the distance between himself and Zoey, his brow furrowing in frustration. “Don’t give me that bull, Kasimir! Of course you’ve been bankrolling the Justice Buddies, or whatever, someone would have to be blind not to know that, but there’s no way you’re not in on it! You were a hero in my universe and you couldn’t make a fire by rubbing your two brain cells together; and even I can see that you’re not a complete ditz in this one!”

”First of all, rude--”

“And another thing about that, quit playing dumb! You’re bad at it when you’re not actually a moron! I fought side by side with you and Girard and Emma for years! We were the only people left to fight! I know you, Zoey! I know how you move, how you fight, how you talk and stand and intimidate and I know that underneath that badass helmet there was a mess of red hair and a girl who wanted to save her friend from dying again!”

“And you’re not going to stop me by playing dumb! I’m not helpless, Zoey! I can fight, I’ve been doing it most of my life! I was stupid here, and that’s what got me killed, but now I’m not! Now I have powers! Now I know how to defend myself! So you can either let me in and keep an eye on me that way, or you can cut me loose. Your choice. Make it.”

A small flicker of movement, a flash of something dark in Zoey’s gaze as they were so close together was Jason’s only warning before there was suddenly a small, sharp blade skirting along his jaw - not aiming to kill, not even to maim, but it didn’t matter anyway. For a moment Zoey’s steel blue eyes merely studied the intact skin, the knife that had been up her sleeve resting in her palm.

Finally she heaved a heavy sigh and stepped back, using her free hand to rub her temple.

”For the record, you’re still stupid.”

“And you’re not. And I’ll be honest, that is very refreshing.”

Harris’ Forest Retreat, Hope Springs, West Virginia
12 PM, February 15th.

Harris had taken to sitting silently. No movement, no noise, just sitting simply and listening as thousands of horrible things happened that he could no longer stop without potentially making things worse. He watched as the gathered transients lived their lives off of the fruit of his connection with The Green. Homeless, penniless, all living their lives simply, and all because of him. He felt a sense of pride, but also a sense of melancholy; he couldn’t do any of this again.

Well, sitting here and being sad never helped anyone, he’d always gotten over difficulty before, and this would be no exception. The Green would fix itself, it had been around for millennia before he showed up, why would that change? He just needed to wait a little while, that was all.

His attempts to calm himself were unconvincing, but maybe he just needed to take his mind off of it and wait. He’d only killed a few people, that was no big deal, right?

The world almost seemed to turn black for a second, but he smiled the best he could anyway, and started walking in no direction in particular.

”Aw, man, who cut this watermelon into a heart shape and just left it overnight?! … Even if it is really cute …” Surprisingly, Josh had taken to the gathering of people rather well once introduced. At least, once they got used to him. Being used to strange beings was probably a prerequisite for living with Mr. Harris, after all. So even if some of the people only skirted around any discomfort the ten foot tall ‘Demon’ brought, it was never spoken out loud - to Josh, it was a definite improvement!

Even if he was kind of jealous to find all these people in his forest home initially.

Still, Josh did his best to help those there. Including cleaning up discarded pieces of fruit, it seemed. He wasn’t nearly as useful as Mr. Harris, but when all your powers centered around destruction and you were scared of leaving your home…

Well, Josh made himself useful.

”Mister - Mister Harris!” The surprised exclamation was accompanied by the teenager jumping up, his long navy ears shooting skyward akin to a dog’s. ”Are you, uhm, done ‘meditating’?”

Harris turned to face Josh, his quite obviously fake smile distorting half of his face. This fake smile quickly faded into a real one when Harris made eye contact with Josh.

”Yes, I suppose I am. At least for today that is,” Harris said, scratching his chin. ”What have you been up to, Josh? Just cleaning up like usual? Have you been talking to anyone your age?”

Harris couldn’t help but flood the poor kid with questions. He was a little insular, and Harris thought he should try to break that, encourage him to get a few friends, take his youth back. Harris had found it easy to get used to this new life as soon as he had found himself, but he got the feeling Josh never had.

Maybe helping Josh out would take his mind off of The Green’s problems.

”Uhm,” Josh shifted on his bare feet, nervously scratching his thick nails against the black scruff on his jaw. ”I’ve just, you know, been up to the usual… I don’t, I don’t really talk to people much - oh, but the old blind lady likes telling people stories about the Actor Activists! So, I sometimes listen to them so she’s not lonely…” The boy trailed off, only to clear his throat and offer a toothy smile to Harris that didn’t seem entirely sincere.

”But that’s okay! I’m happy just being back home.”

Harris nodded in acknowledgement, keeping down a sigh, he was a good kid, but he really needed human contact.

Not that Harris was an expert on human contact or anything, but his point still stood.

”You know, maybe you should walk over to Hope Springs every now and then, talk to people, they already know you’re a good person, but if you actually care and get involved then they’ll see you as a superhero, like me!”

Harris realized after he finished speaking that he had another reason behind saying that. He was worried that he might die if The Green didn’t fix itself, and he wanted Josh to… not so much take his place, but at least be capable of doing some of what he had done.

Maybe he should have told Josh earlier, when he had started meditating. A voice in the back of his mind told him that there was no time like the present. Harris didn’t much like that preposition. He tried to keep his face at least neutral, but it was probably clear that he was in conflict.

Harris swallowed. Josh had to at least know what was going on. He couldn’t keep hiding this from him.

Harris opened his mouth a moment and then closed it suddenly. Finally he was able to sigh away his bubbling stomach just enough to be able to get a word out.

”There’s something I’d like to talk to you about, alone,” Harris said grimly. Too grimly. Oh god. His brows lifted and he offered what he thought was a comforting smile. ”Wait, not like that, I just want to chat is all! Yeah, come on, let’s talk.”

”Well…” Josh had initially been hesitant, not wanting to deny Mr. Harris - even if he was talking of leaving the forest to go to Hope Springs. However as the Vinestalker continued talking, the teenager’s glowing eyes widened, and he began to fidget nervously. Mr. Harris was not good at this, if it was supposed to be comforting!

Still better than Miss Lady Arcana, though.

”I… Of course I’ll walk with you, Mr. Harris,” Josh finally said weakly. What else could he do? He would never deny his mentor. The teenager stood to his full height, abandoning the little compost bin he had been shouldering during clean up. ”If, uh, if this is about the three I’m really, really sorry - I didn’t mean to drool on it while I was sleeping….”

”No, no, it’s nothing you did. Just follow me.” Harris said again, gesturing for Josh to keep following. He made his way over to the largest tree in the small forest, the one he slept in and stored his things in. He pulled it open, letting out a characteristic crackling noise that reverberated through the trees.

”Come on in,” Harris instructed, placing his arm around Josh’s massive shoulders and lightly pushing him in before pulling the tree closed behind him.

He sighed, and finally turned to look at Josh.

”There’s something I haven’t told you,” he said solemnly, avoiding eye contact. His face turned from a clearly fake smile to a very hard frown. He stammered for a little bit, sighing quite a bit, before one final sigh, combined with a groan and a hand on the face, ended his stuttering. ”Right, here’s the truth...”

”I might be dying.”

”Wh...What?” The nervous shuffling stopped, the giant teenager having been glancing around curiously - as he did every time he was in here. Now his glowing white eyes were focused intently on his mentor, fanged mouth opening and closing slowly. After a long moment he finally took a step closer.

”You…” Another step, then another, until Josh was directly in front of Harris. His hands gripped onto the man’s arms, a pained noise escaping him. ”You can’t be dying! You’re - you’re Vinestalker! You’re with Mr. Green and you said he’s been alive like… forever! How?!”

If Harris had been a human he probably would have started crying then. Thankfully he wasn’t, and thus was incapable of crying unless he wanted to. If that was something to be thankful about. Whatever the case, his heart felt like it had exploded in his chest when Josh grabbed onto him. He softly placed a hand on Josh’s head, trying to comfort the best he could.

”It’s not a guarantee, best case scenario we wait a while and everything turns out okay. However, back when I was working with Ka-... Lady Arcana, she needed my help in order to transform. Doing that for her had some unforeseen consequences. The Green is a mess right now. It’s not quite apocalypse-level yet, but I’m worried it may get there. If it does… I’m going to have to do something. I either wait and die with the rest of the planet… or do… something… something that I probably won’t survive.”

Before Josh could say anything, Harris held up his hand.

”Of course, Lady Arcana isn’t to blame. The only person to blame is myself, and I’m fine with that. I guess what I’m saying is that I might be gone soon, and when that happens… well I’m not going to choose for you. You make your decisions, I’m not demanding you take my job when I’m gone, but I do want to be sure you’re stable, you have somewhere to live, you have people to support you. I don’t want your life to end because I’m not there, that’s all I care about.”

Harris moved his hands to Josh’s shoulders, having unconsciously grown to be slightly taller than Josh as he always did when someone needed comforting.

”I’m going to talk to Lady Arcana, Emerald Knight, all of the Justice League. They’ll take care of you. I promise.”

”I don’t want to be taken care of!” Was the immediate response, blurted out without thought. Now tilting his head up to look at Harris, the white eyes beginning to shimmer with tears. Josh was always prone to crying. ”I… I want to stay here, with you! Anywhere with you! You took me in, Harris! You’re the one who cared enough to and … you … you’ve been …” He choked on his words, taking one of his hands to scrub at his face with a blue palm.

”... I know it hasn’t been long, but … but you’ve been like a father to me.”

Oh God. Oh good God in heaven.

This had to be the most difficult thing Harris had ever done. He felt like his stomach was about to explode and he had no idea what to say. His mind raced and he knew inside that he would have been reduced to a blubbering mess were he human. Finally he grabbed the back of Josh’s head and held him for a while.

”I know… trust me I know,” he said. He stood with a pained look on his face and collected himself. ”If it were up to me I wouldn’t change a thing. But it’s not, so I’m doing the best I can while I still have the chance. You’re my… you’re like a son to me just as much as you think I’m a father to you… if that makes any sense.” His words were coming out jumbled and his voice weak, but he kept going, because he worried that if he stopped he wouldn’t be able to start again. ”Just trust me, Josh. I can’t know everything, but I know for sure that you can be happy without me. I love you Josh. Nothing will ever change that. If there’s any chance I will take it, not for me, but for you. For now, I’m going to be at your side every moment of every day. And… I know that The Green will always have a place for you too, even if it complains… and moans… and cries.” Harris managed to make himself smile despite all of it.

”Do you want a hug?”

Instantly Josh launched himself at Harris, throwing his immense weight into hugging the other man tightly. He was openly crying now, words coming out in a blubbering mess as he rambled and choked on them. Still, he made an effort to say the most important ones clearly - and to not hug so tightly he split Harris in half.

”I… I love you too … and I’ll - I’ll make you proud! I’ll be, I’ll be the best hero, and I’ll protect Mr. Green too!”

Harris didn’t waste a second.

”I’m already proud, Josh. I know how hard you have it, I went through the exact same thing, and you’ve gone through even worse after that. You’re so strong, Josh. I’ll never stop cheering for you.”

Harris held him tight, not saying anything and keeping his eyes closed. He didn’t need to breathe, but he took deep breaths anyway to encourage Josh to do the same. He knew this was going to be hard, but not this hard.

But at the same time… he was so glad to have done it.

Fabruary 26th, 3:36 PM EST
Watchwoter, Earth's Atmosphere
Two figures stood in the Watchtower, a space station put together to serve as the base of operations for the Justice League. That was what they called themselves. Rather, that's what Preston liked to call them, no matter what they thought of the name.

"So, where next?"

In the years that had passed, with the trials faces and the fires doused, Preston had become almost an entirely new man. What was once a careful, yet mild mannered astronomer was now a man who has had his curiosity sated, and his quest for the next thing was tempered by his desire to create peace. Some would call him rather boring, but the more Preston dove into his work as a Green Lantern, the more he discarded the man underneath the mask.

"Preston, I think we've done enough peace-keeping missions on earth. You hardly treat other planets like this." The one exception was Sotra, but Catalea would consider her planet a home to Preston as well. She had yet to get acquainted with Earth like he had with Sotra. Her mask clicked to disengage, and the hero of the Vespasian people looked upon the planet below them with naked eyes.

"Besides. I've seen Paris, Kyoto, Washington, Central City, Rio, Switzerland, many in between and far beyond. Where else will we go?" Between their missions, taking care of various criminals that they had come into contact with in their travels, he really did show her many great places around the earth. Despite this, Preston didn't feel like it was enough. Like he was missing something that she had to see to witness another facet of beauty on the planet he called home.

Preston racked his brain trying to think of a new location. Themiscyra was not only a place already traveled to, but off limits. Period. Well, at least to him. Catalea, being an honorable warrior, was allowed in as she pleased. Not even his title of Green Lantern and super powered superstar of the planet would make the warrior women budge. Genovia was going under some internal redevelopment, not to mention it being another isolationist country.

A smile worked it's way to his features. Without saying anything, Preston spun on his heels and began to walk away from his wife.

"Hey!" She let out after having noticed him walking away.

Still he said nothing. He was rather quiet as she followed him with annoyance.

Preston's little walk led them to a large computer in the Watchtower. Technically the computer belonged to Zoey, but she wasn't around. Not that she'd care anyways. With several taps on the keyboard of the monster of a computer, he issued a broadcast to a certain under water city.

"Hey, Orin? You there?" Preston spoke up, his wife quirking an eye brow.

She rememebred Orin, king of the seas. He was there at the wedding. Charming man, noble.

"It's Preston. I was wondering if me and Cat would do a little tour of Poseidonis. One of the last corners of the world I have left to show her." Had it not been for the fact that they were in a giant metal box, very, very far away from the surface, Preston would have made the call on his own communicator. However, the advanced strength of the watchwoter's computers made shooting a signal all the way into the ocean much easier than any other option.

---

February 28th , 3:36 PM EST
Poseidonis University, Lycus Dorm

It was back to the books. For real, this time. No more powers, no more gadgets, no more patrols. It was school. Normalcy. To be quite honest, Virgil was having a blast. This was something he never had in Dakota. If it wasn't the gangs, it was his powers, and if it wasn't his powers, it was something else. Now it was just him.

But that wasn't a bad thing.

He had school, he even had friends. He was doing well. While his grades were rather normal during his first leg of time there at the university, when he put away his distractions and double life, he had time to focus on his academics and smash them out of the water. He wasn't on the same level as Richie, but Virgil Hawkins was a damn smart kid.

He sat by the doorway of the Lycus dorm, his back against the building and a notebook in his hands. Electrical engineering and physics were his zone, and he was going to make sure that all of his work from now on was better than anything that came before it. After all, he had to make up for lost time.

---

February 28th, 12:02 PM
Harper Heights, San Francisco

The city was on its way to being hers

Who knew that all you had to do to strongarm city officials was abduct them in your alien powersuit that you found in El Paso so many years ago? Well, Patty had an idea about that.

Her generals, her favored allies, started out as a group of idiots who were also gifted great power. They just needed to be put in line, and to have their perspectives changed a little. The Five Fighters, a surprisingly coordinate group of hustlers with powers given to them by some supernatural means, were gifted not only in abilities, but weaponry.

She took the lead, of course. Apex, the most powerful villain on the west coast, worked hard to intimidate and scare anyone and everyone with political power. The Five Fighters ushered in a wave of crime with skill and grace. Patricia Palomo, a newcomer to the scene, kept her head low. She had the money, she was getting the influence, but her pride was getting the better of her.

As fun as it was to push congressmen around, she wanted that podium. She wanted the city in her hands directly. Night after night she mulled over her plans for the future. Her son, first and foremost, was growing up. She didn't want him in this business. Not this life. He would find his path, and she would set the light on it so he could walk it unimpeded.

She sat in her office. Shotaro stood by the door, the other four were posted around the city, making sure their growing empire was running like a train.

A pen twirled between her skilled fingers. One one hand, Patty could be the new face of San Francisco. She could use the will of her mafia to get whatever she wanted done, and when things didn't work out, Apex could take a visit. However, people would connect the dots at some point. By then, would it really matter? The city in her hands, metahumans, hustlers, and workers at her disposal, proxy after proxy. What could go wrong?

Ding dong!

For now, the question would have to remain unanswered. Patty removed herself from her chair. Shotaro, ever the loyal guardian and leader of his team, stiffened his shoulders and watched her leave the office. A quick word to him made him relax and take his departure as well. However, he didn't leave the house. Tobias was Shotaro's other priority, and sometimes the bosses had the strangest requests. Like "straight chillin".

Patty returned to the living room of her house to see her son and her second in command butting heads over something trivial. She didn't care. When you had as much money and power as she did, why would you care about anything? It was good to relax a little. Be a little normal.

And normal meant that it was pizza night.

Febuary 14th, 10:40
Downtown, Central City

oh my god she watches the stream

SHE PAYS MONEY TO WATCH ME DO STUFF

Arsenal internally shrieked in hype.

He was actually quite surprised that she also had a vlog. And a normal one at that. He'd figured that she was really busy doing hero stuff. Thinking about it, super speed isn't exactly the most time-consuming power to use. She HAD to have had a job, what to eat and all that. She probably eats a lot and never have to worry about it, with her power probably taking a lot of energy. He'd started to wonder if she worked out, or if her thighs were just naturally fit due to all the running, when she'd started talking about the downsides of being a hero and how you don't get paid.

"Oh, yeah! Unless you're like me, am I right?"

I pay a different toll...

"But really, I get it. You're obviously really busy trying to balance normal life with hero-work. I should probably get going so you can do that..."

Arsenal perked up for a second and pulled out his phone.

"Oh! Before I forget, can I get a selfie?! If it's not too much to ask!"

David climbed through his window in a less than agile fashion, landing flat on his ass and taking a moment to breathe. Max trotted up to him, the dog staring at his owner inquisitively, as if questioning the cheap clothes he was wearing. "Yeah, sorry Max, was a pretty crazy night." He pulled himself up and pet the dog, before taking off his helmet and removing the raggedy clothing he took from a back alley on the way home. "You hungry, buddy? I'll get ya some food."

David went into his apartment's kitchenette, pulling out Max's dog food and pouring some of it into the bowl. The dog quickly scrambled into the kitchen at the sound of food being poured into his bowl, and began to munch greedily on the kibble. Dave chuckled at the dog's antics. "Yeah, don't starve yourself or anything. Fatass." He headed back into the living room, collapsing onto the couch and sighing. He needed some rest. He didn't have work today, thank God, so it was fine if he slept in for a while.

Taking a deep breath, David closed his eyes, and fell into sleep.

It was going so well.

Blackstar had taken his suit just hours before in order to head after Anarkee's goons by himself, confident that he could take them down. He had just beaten four of the five when he heard a gunshot, followed by a searing pain in his side. Then he collapsed, vision fading into black. The last thing he felt was being lifted off the floor and thrown over someone's shoulder.

Which leads to now, his costume torn to shreds, his helmet carelessly thrown aside when Anarkee had first started torturing him, and his damaged voice modulator heavily distorting his gasps and grunts of pain. Anarkee had started with her 'razor gloves', leading to the torn costume, and was about to do much worse to him.

It was going so well!

Anarkee had begun building her small gang quite by accident, a few disenfranchised youths looking for a cause and a few packs of white face paint had led to a positively booming success! A group of anarchists under her lead painting the town red with their passion, sometimes literally! There were very few rules for the Angels, Anarkee didn't like rules very much. But there was one: Don't make Anarkee angry. She'd had to teach a lesson to a few young upstarts about that one, but everyone mostly fell in line now, and some even went out of their way to make her happy. Like drawing Blackstar, AKA David Kasimir, Grim's young ward off by himself. So focused on taking out her little minions, he didn't even notice the trap! Anarkee would have preferred Grim, of course. But young David was a good consolation prize...

Anarkee tapped her fingers together, shivering at the sounds of the metal fingertips rapping off of each other. "Now now, don't give up on me yet, Blackstar!" She said cheerfully, stepping behind the chair he was bound in and beginning to undo his voice modulator. "We're only just getting started, and I haven't even begun to discover who's the mask and who's real yet!" Anarkee chuckled and yanked off the voice box with a swift motion, digging her razor sharp fingers into David's shoulder.

"Before we begin in earnest though, I wonder... What has Grim told you about me? And not just the bloodied angel you have the honor of interacting with today, but the woman behind the paint. Has your mother shared that story with you?"

The eldest of the Kasimir brothers struggled in his bonds as Anarkee began to undo his voice modulator. He turned his head to look at her, and spat at her, the loogie landing on her cheek. "I don't give a good fuck who you were, all I know is that now you're a fucking pyschopath," the young vigilante said defiantly, despite the immense pain he was in.

"And when Grim and Watchdog get here? We're gonna kick your ass to Kingdom fucking COME!"

Anarkee barely blinked when Blackstar turned on her, smiling slightly as he yelled and spat, even as her own face became the target. She reached up and wiped the offending insult off her cheek, being careful not to cut herself. Then Anarkee leaned down and ruffled David's hair forcefully, grinding the loogie into his hair and digging her sharp-tipped gloves into his scalp. "Such fire. Such passion. You could have made a good Angel. But then, you got that from mommy dearest, didn't you?"

Anarkee stepped around Blackstar, dragging her hand along his chest as she went, leaving deep gashes along his already tattered costume and into his flesh. "I don't normally monologue about my past, Davey." She explained with a grin. "But for you, I'll make an exception. Oh, and don't worry about us being interrupted, I've already taken care of your trackers. It's just us."

"Many years ago, before you were even a glimmer in your dead parents eyes, there was a boy. A boy very much like you, David." Anarkee said, flicking her foot and extending the embedded knife in her boot. "He had a rough childhood. Too many expectations, not enough opportunities. Society passed him by. And then he got hurt bad, and the doctors had to take his arm." She murmured darkly before turning and digging her razors into David's bicep. "Right about here. Imagine that, being a twelve year old with an amputated arm. That's expensive, you know. And our great country made sure his parents never forgot it. His mother worked herself to death, and his father went soon after out of grief." She growled, leaning in and pressing a sharp finger into Blackstar's chest, near his heart. "And now, he was almost completely alone. You know how that feels, don't you? Well, he got lucky, just like you did, little Kasimir. He had his own Kasimir, a rich young girl with fiery hair and a fieryier personality. And he found a brother, a beast of a boy who wouldn't ever let life knock him or his family down. And he found an idol. A dark specter of justice, the Grim Guardian of Gotham. And he wanted to do what Grim did. Make the city safe. So he put on a mask. Found some scum. And was found dead and bloated in the harbor a week later." Anarkee straightened up and kicked at Blackstar's shins harshly, snarling at him as she fought to keep his attention. "And Grim did nothing to stop him! Nothing to help! Zoey didn't even try to talk him out of it!" She screamed into the echoing warehouse before leaning down and grabbing David's chin.

"And because of that, she took my baby brother from me, David. Did she ever tell you that?"

David could do nothing but listen as Anarkee monologued on about her tragic past, occasionally giving him more wounds which he tried his best to ignore. Though he didn't show it on the outside, inside David was conflicted; his own mother didn't even try helping whoever it was Anarkee was talking about, her brother it seemed, and of course having a brother of his own made him a bit sympathetic for her.

'... What the fuck am I thinking?' The boy cleared his thoughts, reminding himself that this was a very dangerous woman who, if Zoey and Malcolm didn't arrive quickly, would kill him. He shouldn't feel a damn bit of sympathy for her. She had dug her grave. He was going to make sure that she was the one who ended up in it, no matter what.

By the time she had finished her story, however, leaning in so that she was only a few inches away from his face and placing a gloved hand on his chin, David had given up hope that Zoey and Malcolm were coming. He knew he would die here. He had never been scared of dying... At least, he thought so. But staring death in the face right now, he could barely hold it together... He was going to die.

He was going to die.

But he'd be damned if he would die without putting up a fight.

David gave a small chuckle. "... Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?" he asked, before ramming his head into her nose.

Anarkee reared back, pain blossoming in her face as her nose broke with a sickening crunch. She stepped back and groaned for a moment before steeling herself and shrugging off the pain. She was no mere sheep on the street, she was stronger and better. Blinking through her stinging eyes, Anarkee grinned at Blackstar, feeling the blood coming from her nose. "Oh, I like you!" She said with a throaty chuckle.

"Just for that, you get a chance. One shot." Anarkee pointed a clawed finger at Blackstar and felt her metahuman powers activate. She could feel his steely resolve, fear tempered by rage and a deep desire to turn the table and do her harm. Anarkee slowly closed her fist and channeled a feeling of neutrality towards him, ideally allowing for instinct and ego to take over for just a moment...

"Answer wisely, little firecracker. No going back after this one. How does the position of AnarchAngel sound?"

For some reason, David felt... Calmed. Gone was the anger, the resolution to stick to his guns, the fear. Now he just felt like there was nothing to worry about. He was just David in that moment. She asked him a question. He responded in a monotone voice, "If I have to be perfectly honest, then you can take your offer and shove it up your diseased twat. I don't care if I have to fight through the depths of Hell. I will make sure that you die in the most painful way I can imagine."

With those words, his fate was sealed.

Shaking her head, Anarkee strolled leisurely around David, leaning over to spit out a mouthfull of blood. Once she was behind him, she reached out to the other object in the room, the head of the large hammer scraping on the ground as she hefted it over shoulder. Anarkee let her emotional manipulation on Blackstar fall away as she toyed with the toggles on the hammers grip. "That's a damn shame, you know? We could have started some beautiful fires. Oh well. I'll make it quick for your sake." She said before flicking a switch. The canisters on the end of the hammer roared and burst into flame, and Anarkee swung the rocket-propelled hammer through the air, the arc terminating perfectly in David Kasimir's brain.

David always heard people say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes.

That's a load of sh

...

t h i s i s i t
"... His vitals... They're dropping! Shit! This is bad!"
t h e e n d
"Get some adrenaline, quick, before his heart stops!"
g o t o t h e l i g h t
"You son of a bitch! You're not dying on us until you give us what we want!"
g o t o t h e l i g h t d a v i d
"The numbers, David! What do the numbers mean?!"
e m b r a c e t h e v o i d
"GET THE FUCKING ADRENALINE!"
t h e r e ' s n o c o m i n g b a c k
"It's here! I have it!"
n o c o m i n g b a c k
"We're not done yet, Kasimir!"
Open your eyes.

The boy rose from the pits, desperate for a breath. He felt around his body for wounds, finding nothing. He felt his head. Perfectly intact. He looked at his hands. Smooth, without a callous on them. The boy looked around, examining the pool of green liquid he was in. Judging by his surroundings, he was in a cave of some sort. "Where... Am I?"

He didn't know where he was. He didn't know who he was. He only knew that he felt an unconstrained feeling of rage, deep within him... Why? Why was he so angry? What was he angry at? He was so confused. He just wanted to go home. Wherever that was.

"David Kasimir!" He heard the voice of a man above him. He looked up, feeling a sense of familiarity with the name, and saw an older man with a goatee and greying hair, staring down at him with intense eyes from a platform overlooking the pit. "Do you seek vengeance against she who has wronged you?" he asked.

"W-what?" David stuttered, looking into the man's eyes. The man stared back.

It all came back to David.

He blinked.

"... Yeah. I really do."


David woke up with a start, scanning the room over for any threats and instinctively reaching for the pistol he kept hidden under the couch cushions. After a moment, he realized where he was, taking in a deep breath. He noticed Max sitting and staring at him a few feet away, looking almost worried. The dog walked over to him, putting a paw on his owner's stomach. "Hey, buddy... It's okay. I'm okay." David scratched the dog behind the ear, ducking his head and sighing.

After a moment, David muttered to himself, "I need a drink... A strong drink." He looked at Max, whose worried expression morphed into the trademark Kasimir brow. That firm, disapproving brow. David rolled his eyes. "Don't you fucking judge me, dog." David sat up, heading into his bedroom to get dressed, before stepping back out. He hadn't headed to Siobhan's bar yet, despite having been welcomed there after their meeting a few weeks back...

With a nod, he headed out the door, but not before filling Max's bowl. Let's just hope Siobhan wouldn't water down his drinks.

”Gotham. Thank Christ.”

A trio of words Malcolm honestly never thought he’d ever find himself saying out loud, yet here he was- Stood on the observation deck of the now-surfaced Atlantean transport as it made it’s final approach to the sprawling metropolis that was his adoptive home, which slowly rose up on the horizon like some big ugly mass of light and smog.

His father would lose his mind if he’d ever heard him utter that.

The twelve-hour voyage had been… much less eventful this time around; given the option of staying in the city where they were almost all old enough to legally drink and party with impunity or spending half a day in a claustrophobic tin-can racing through the crushing depths of the ocean to visit their parents, most students were quite emphatically in favour of the former, making for a somewhat quieter ride back to the surface. Sure, he had his usual celebrity things to deal with, a few selfies here, an awkward conversation with someone there but it was downright mild compared to the trip down when the Nautilus was absolutely filled to bursting with young adults who’d seen his face pasted all over magazines, television and the internet for the past six years.

Not to say he wasn’t known by the people below the surface, mind you, but that was… different.

He tenderly rubbed at the bandages on his right hand at that thought.

Very different.

Still, with home now in view at least, it would probably be a good idea to make sure the groggy, grumpy seasick beast that’d followed him all the way here was actually awake and not snoring loudly and open-mouth drooling all over her seat like she was when he’d left her in their cabin a few hours back.

A cursory glance behind him through the ship’s hull confirmed that, yes, that was indeed something he’d have to take care of.

’God… dammit, Karen.’ The boy thought with just a slight twitch of his brow and a hint of dread.

His sister in all but name was emphatically not a morning person. At least not in a big damned submarine, anyway.

---

”Karen...”

Nothing.

”Hey, Karen.”

Still nothing.

He felt his brow twitch a little, just slightly annoyed at the drooling, snoring mess of a girl before him he’d spent the past seven minutes and thirty-four seconds trying to politely wake before reaching out and grasping her shoulders in the most… genial way possible.

”Hey. Bubble-Pop. Ruck the fuck up”.

...And gave her a not-so-genial shaking.

”Ngghh…” groaned Karen, one eye half-opening to glare at him irritably. ”Wha…? What is it?”

Raising a sleeve, she drowsily wiped the drool from her chin and shook her head. It seemed to take her a moment to remember where exactly she was, her eyes briefly darting about the cabin she had been seated in. When she caught sight of the rain outside, a look of relief overcame her formerly grouchy face.

”We’re here, finally!” she said, standing from her seat. Stretching no small number of pops and cracks out of her body, she stepped around Mal to leave. ”Come on, I need some fresh air—even if it’s Gotham air.”

At this, Mal just slightly shook his head but followed behind all the same. Stuffing his hands into his pockets as he went.

”Y’know, ya might’ve wanted to mention that sea-travel didn’t agree with ya.”

Karen shot him a sharp glance, ducking under the bulkhead—after grabbing her bag— as she exited the cabin for the airlock. ”I didn’t know that sea-travel didn’t agree with me. I’ve honestly never traveled under sea as...well, like this before.”

”Did you bring an umbrella, or do I have to try and conjure one?” Karen asked him.

At all that sass, Mal just snorted at Karen and pulled a fold-out model produced by his mom’s company from his coat’s inner pocket.

”Of course, Your Highness...” He sassed right back at her, in his typically ‘Malcolm-ish’ way. ”...Wouldn’t want a bit of acid rain ruining all that bed-head you’ve got going on there.”

Karen stepped under the umbrella and nodded for him to continue walking. ”Honestly, I’m so sick to my stomach right now that my hair’s the very least of my concerns. I dread stepping back on that thing in a week.”

Being unable to simply teleport to wherever she wanted to go had apparently been quite the jarring experience for her after all these years. Having to travel like a normal person was quite new to her.

”Hopefully this feeling wears off quickly,” she continued to grumble.

”Well, we could just use the teleporter in the Grotto next time.” Mal stated with extremely well-concealed mirth as he calmly zipped up his coat and started up the stairs to the airlock. ”...If you’re so opposed to conventional travel, that is.”

”It depends—how opposed are you to me projectile vomiting in your face?” asked Karen with equal mirth.

”Whaddaya think the umbrella’s for?”

---

The harbour was, as could be imagined. Wet. Very wet. Owing to both the rough seas hammering against it’s edge and the typical Gotham ‘welcome’ of thunder, lightning and a shitton of rain.

Also, the traffic, if just how long it was taking their ride to arrive was any indication, Malcolm mused as he stood there under the glass ceiling of the passenger pick up area, with the hood of his coat still pulled up after having left the umbrella for Karen’s use, having been just a tad more prepared for the local weather then she was, apparently.

Still, it was nice to be back above the waves and breathing non-recycled air for a change— even if it was filled with that famously polluted Gotham stink that warred incessantly with that of the raging seawater up the pier behind them.

If one could even be bothered registering that with all the cacophony lights and sounds that had become the Gotham waterfront in the Post-War years, where even in this weather, businesses, merchants and people of all types- legal to questionable- from all types of places- near, far and downright strange- went about their nightly routine without even a hint of slowing down-

Some Chinese guy, an Italian and what was clearly a goddamned Minotaur in business wear stood on the corner under an awning, drunk as all hell trying and failing to sing Auld Lang Syne and to get anyone who passed by them to join in on the fun. Or maybe just teach them the words. Either or.

A harpy that a more fight-ready part of his mind recognized as being suspiciously similar in appearance to one that broke into his mom’s place and tried to kill them six years ago stumbled out of a bar, caught sight of him and staggered across the street to make a… frankly disarmingly bad attempt at either picking him up or picking a fight— hard to tell around that shitfaced slur— before being gently shooed away by an Atlantean Marine who’d also been on the Nautilus to see the surface on his leave days.

Something he did often enough, apparently, that when he entered that very same pub that harpy had just left, he was greeted with a thundering cheer (and at least one thrown bottle to the face) audible even from across the street.

Right before someone was abruptly ejected from that same pub via the window, to even more cheering, before being helped back to his feet and led back inside for another round as if this was just another daily occurrence and some Magi patron within pieced the window back together with his magic mojo.

Average weekend on the Gotham Waterfront after the One Week War, all things concerned.

With a little chuckle, even in the midst of all this thunder and rain and madness, Mal had to admit-

’It’s good to be home.’

But still, it’d be better to be dry and out of this damned rain, he’d have to admit as his eyes went back to scanning the proverbial horizon for that damned car again.

”That accident on Fifth and Wayne finally cleared up.” The boy finally spoke to the girl beside him, eyes locking onto something in the distance. ”Won’t be too long now.”

Karen quirked a brow at her brother, frowning. ”Are you already looking to jump back into things? We haven’t even been back for an hour..”

Though, in reality, her objections might have simply been due to her current inability to contribute much to the hero scene. At the moment, she was simply normal homo magi—and not a particularly powerful one, either. If she went out trying to fight crime as she was, there was little doubt that she would get badly hurt, if not killed.

”All I want right now is some of Henry’s food,” said Karen, referring to Zoey’s private chef. ”I love Atlantean food, nothing compares to Henry’s cooking.”

”’Back into things…?’” Mal snorted in response with a little shake of his head. ”Karen, if the past month has taught ya anything the past six years somehow haven’t, it’s that the fight never ends. Regardless of where I am.”

And, turning his head to fix the blonde with a little smile that was both rueful and somehow… almost relieved, he added-

”And it never will.”

Though, before that particular avenue of discussion could be fleshed out further, their ride finally arrived, kicking up no small amount of water as it came to a stop in front of the passenger shelter.

”Well, looks like you get your wish, Karen. Henry’s always had a soft spot for ya, so he’s probably been frantically cooking up a feast ever since I called ahead last night and said you were coming.”

The boy stated with a little laugh; truth be told, Henry had a soft spot for everyone who ate his food, but Karen seemed to get just a bit more in the way of portions for reasons he was pretty sure had everything to do with her systematically de-hooliganizing her pseudo-brother over the past few years. Something the high-class chef was more than a little grateful for.

”...So, shall we?”

Karen, it seemed, had had the last laugh.

While she had got to enjoy a quiet, comfortable ride home to what was going to be at least a four-course meal prepared by a world-class chef… Mal had been abruptly handed a change of clothes and told he was coming here. To sip non-alcoholic champagne, hover over the hors d'oeuvres table and try to at least look the part of the high-class, Gotham Socialite he was expected to be while using every once of his considerable willpower to not just cram every single one of those tiny, fancy sandwiches into his starving gullet.

That’s not to say he really hated these charity events mind you-- it was for a good cause, after all --But having this whole thing abruptly dropped on him after twelve hours on a goddamn submarine was a bit much.

He could feel that ol’ Kasimir Brow twitch involuntarily in unbidden irritability, even as he not-so-subtly wolfed down another one of those tiny sandwiches and chased it with a gulp of his fake wine.

Such was the life of Malcolm Talhaiarn-Kasimir.

Well, at least he seemed to be left to his own devices for the time being- something he was particularly grateful for, after not only the voyage, but the past month of ’work’ beneath the ocean. Hell, aside from the customary joking ’Hail to the Little Chief!’ shouted from the Vanguard table he’d gotten used to hearing over the years when he arrived and stopping to shoot the shit with them before his hunger got the best of him and he headed to the big fancy table of fancier food… he hadn’t actually run into anyone else.

Which was weird, because usually he couldn’t take a breath at these kind of functions without someone aggressively all-but-humping his leg to try and gain his mom’s favour... Or take his picture... Or try and marry him off to their kids in some weird dynasty-building gambit...

Weird, but not at all unwelcome.

Still a little odd to be alone at the hors d'oeuvres table of all things, he couldn’t help but think, as he finally took his mind off of his empty gullet for the first time since getting here and actually bothered to look around, pay attention and-

”OOOHOHOHOHO!”

”What.”

Came Mal’s very audible, very sensible and very much ignored sentiment to that… particular piece of vocalization that assailed his ears and danced across his vision like ripples on a pond as he finally turned around and solved that riddle of where exactly everyone had gotten off to-

Crowded around a single woman on the opposite side of the room, apparently.

Literally.

Everyone.

Even the mice no one else seemed to notice.

”What the hell.”

Again, Mal’s thoughts made themselves known out loud. And again, there was no one paying attention to take offense to them. Not that he minded the lack of anyone around to hear his big social faux-pas, but odd he found it all the same. And it grew more odd the more he looked at it.

Namely, the fact that while seemingly the entire guest-list minus him was crowded around this mystery-woman, they weren’t actually mingling with eachother at all, eyes focused solely upon her save for the very subtle, occasional elbowing they did to work their way deeper into the messy mass of people.

The fact that the pleasure-centres of their brains seemed to light up in a way that struck him as particularly unnatural also stuck out. Moreso that it seemed exactly proportionate to how close to the woman they were.

And that the woman herself wasn’t quite… right. In a way that he couldn’t quite put down in words.

That bore investigating.

So, Kasimir Brow rising to full mast as he finished what was left of his fake booze and set the glass down, Mal stuffed his hands into his pockets and quietly made his way over, a mixture of curiosity and suspicion beginning to make it’s way onto his face.

...And even more quietly, the mechanisms in his psyche that made up the other half of his life began to spool up in caution.

The woman at the epicenter of the crowd, rather than being overwhelmed by all of the attention being rained down upon her, seemed quite at ease and even comfortable, if perhaps a little bored. With a glass of champagne in her hand, she quite casually addressed the crowd, which seemed to hang on her every word.

”This is why events such as these are so important—even now, five years after that terrible conflict. Millions are still without food or water throughout the world, with little being done to correct this injustice,” she said, her kind words delivered with a level of haughtiness that most would consider insincere, though it wasn’t clear if that was truly the case.

Despite the way she held her head high, her nose practically pointed down at the gaggle of guests surrounding her, there was no sense that they found her attitude the slightest bit off-putting. Quite the contrary, in fact.

”I expect you all to do your very best to support this most important of causes, as Herlua Enterprises will assuredly do,” she continued.

Frowning slightly at this young lady’s downright lordly attitude, Mal’s eyes travelled to his left… and then to his right to gauge the reactions of the party-goers around him and found that, contrary to conventional wisdom that seemed to scream that they should be just a tiny bit put off by her non-chalant haughtiness and body-language that painted in great detail just how little she actually wanted to be there, the whole lot of them seemed ready to heave her up on their shoulders and carry her directly to her own coronation on her very next breath.

All this paired with that… laugh from the woman he was still not entirely convinced was human earlier only served to make this whole thing seem even more ridiculous.

”Riiiiight…” Mal mused flatly, though quietly as he calmly plucked a glass of actual champagne off the tray of some server who wasn’t paying attention anyway and downed the whole thing. ”Right when Karen ain’t around. That figures.”

Because he had a pretty good idea of what exactly he was dealing with by this point-

Magic.

As if he had unintentionally summoned her attention through his ruminations, the woman’s head turned towards Mal, her sharp blue eyes centering on the scar-faced boy. Smiling subtly, she stepped through the crowd towards him—which obediently parted for her with the same expression of awe.

”I say, aren’t you Malcolm Kasimir? Yes, of course—your face is unmistakable,” she said, offering him a hand. ”It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance; I am Aelia de Herlua, of Herlua Enterprises, as I’m certain you’re aware.”

From his peripheral and his view of the crowd behind the young heiress, Mal’s brain began analyzing their reactions in less than half the time it took her to actually reach him and offer him her hand.

Shock.

Jealousy.

Something akin to heartbreak.

Just a touch of anger.

Just a bit unsettling, to say the least, as his left hand carefully began to rise out of his pocket to subtly hang at the ready by his side. Even as that famous little charming Kasimir Smirk of his that had become his trademark over the years played off his face to keep up appearances.

He was better off playing along until he actually knew what was going on here, he figured- he’d rather not be ripped limb from limb by a frenzied mob on his first day home, after all.

”Pleasure’s all mine, Miss de Herlua.” The boy responded, shaking the woman’s hand and trying to ignore the spike of firing neurons the act elicited in the crowd around them. Before casually indicating at the windows and the raging storm outside with his thumb. ”I trust you haven’t been too troubled by our traditional ‘Gotham Welcome’, have you?”

Aelia craned her head towards the window ever so slightly, before focusing again on Malcolm. She seemed almost perplexed by his question, though it wasn’t apparent why. ”Oh, no—the weather seldom troubles me. Are you...feeling quite alright? Is something the matter?”

The haughty expression she had worn since he had initially laid eyes upon her had been replaced with one of mild concern, as if she was looking at somebody who was visibly ill.

Again, Malcolm felt that Kasimir Brow of his raise slightly as he scanned the mish-mash of whirling… something before him that made up ‘Aelia de Herlua’, starting to look honestly perplexed himself.

Whatever else was going on here, that last remark seemed… genuine…

’Waaaaait a second…’

Those afore-mentioned mechanisms in his psyche began to wind down slightly, and that charming smirk fell slightly off that battle-scarred face of his as something suddenly occurred to him-

Was she… even aware of what was going on in the heads of the people around her?

”I’m… fine?” The boy finally answered after a moment’s silence, brow still raised, though it came back down again as he fell back into his usual wry charm ”Spent twelve hours on a submarine before I got here next to my grumpy, seasick friend, mind you, but I’m alright.”

At that, he couldn’t help but turn his head slightly to the side in an involuntary expression of curiosity.

”...Why do you ask?”

Aelia’s mouth opened as if to speak, but closed almost immediately afterwards. She seemed to be struggling to find the appropriate words, or explain the root of her concern. After several moments passed between them (with the crowd growing ever more restless with her diverted attention), she finally spoke.

”It’s just...you’re...conversing with me?” she said, her words still laced with uncertainty. ”No, but of course you are...it’s simply...I...do not know how to describe it. Did I do something to offend you?”

”...Wait, what?” At that, just a tiny bit of the real Mal bled through just a bit as a little chuckle bubbled it’s way up from his chest, setting off another wave of heightened reactions from the crowd he was quickly starting to ignore more and more as this played out. ”I know I don’t exactly have the gentlest features in the room, but I don’t look that mean, do I?”

His head tilted to the side slightly as he continued.

”Why would I be offended?”

”I...do not know,” she answered honestly, glancing over her shoulder at the crowd. This resulted in their collective faces lighting up, only for their joy to quickly vanish when she returned her focus to Malcolm. ”The only ones to ever converse with me in such a way were my family, and one particularly strange woman.”

Her awkward manner of speech made for quite the contrast to the earlier confidence that had practically dripped from her every word—not that one could tell based on the crowd’s enraptured stares.

As she looked away towards the crowd, the Kasimir ward’s eyes followed her stare, reading the room as she did, but having his own obvious means of gauging the situation and forming his own conclusion.

Eyes flicking back to the heiress in question, the boy took just the tiniest step forward (an action that sent shockwaves throughout the crowded room that he merrily ignored) and leaned in slightly, speaking low and without the filter he’d kept up this entire time.

”Just a hunch, but not one of these people have actually said anything to you all night outside of greetings and praising the very air you breathe, right?”

Aelia’s jaw dropped at this, her eyes once more darting to the crowd behind her. ”Well, of course not! They’re not my family, after all—why would they speak to me in such a way? Rather, the more appropriate question would be why you’re speaking to me in such a familiar manner?”
As her tone shifted, as did the crowd’s mood, something Mal couldn’t rightly ignore this time around as his hands folded neatly behind his back… and his thumbs travelled up his sleeves slightly to thumb at some unseen device.

A sharpness had returned to her words with this, perhaps brought about by his own blunt assessment of the situation.

’Ooookay, Mal… you’re playing with fire now…’ Came Mal’s thoughts as his brow furrowed slightly, eye’s briefly scanning the room but otherwise showing no outward sign of having any intention of backing down.

”Because that is not speaking, that is idolatry.” He explained, as if he’d been asked to tell her that water is wet, motioning towards the increasingly tense crowd with his chin. ”And as far as I can tell, I’m the only one you’ve actually talked to all night.”

At his tone, the people around them became more and more incensed and more than a bit of growling and muttered cursing mixed with threats had started to permeate the air… though a few of his Vanguard friends seemed to plateau from whatever had a hold of their minds and rapidly come back down as the reality of the situation seeped in.

That was reassuring, maybe he’d survive this after all.

Maybe.

Raising his brow slightly all the same in defiance of his circumstances, Mal concluded.

”...But if this is so offensive to you, I’ll happily show myself out.”

Aelia looked back at the crowd, raising a hand to calm them. ”Now, now, everyone—it’s quite alright. He has a right to speak his mind, of course.”

The crowd seemed to react immediately to her placation, growing outwardly calmer—albeit with a lingering fury behind their eyes. Apparently satisfied with this, Aelia returned her attention to Malcolm. ”I am not offended, simply...taken aback, I suppose. You are a very strange man, Malcolm Kasimir. I will remember this meeting between us, in case it is not the last.”

As the crowd seemed to calm down, Malcolm’s hands fell back into his pockets in a clearly relaxed posture… and more subtly the slight subsonic ringing that had been slowly building up in his sleeves, drowned out by all the commotion abruptly ceased.

”Ditto.”

The boy stated simply, relieving a now particularly grumpy server of another glass of champagne that he abruptly downed as he turned to leave.

”...And that’s Talhaiarn-Kasimir.”

Downtown, Central City
February 14th, 22:40

He had a point on that front. With more and more powered people coming out over the last few years, a good number chose to monetize their gifts. Some more successful than others, like Arsenal himself and a couple others as opposed to the numerous failed attempts. At least most simply found the hero life too expensive. She still wondered why it was that Grim never led with that approach. Being a college student was hard enough, but trying to be a hero at the same time as balancing studies and a part-time job? Whew, if she didn't have super-speed she would have had to drop the hero gig a long time ago.

"Hey, at least you got some entertainment value. Pop a couple of arrows, some trickshots here and there, maybe even get into a good brawl~" At that she did a bit of a mock fighting stance, rocking down a little lower and bringing her fists up before laughing it off. "Me, just zoom in, cuffs on and job's done. That and with the whole super-speed thing, not only would runtime on videos be pretty short, but the angles would be awful."

And just as she was starting to ramble about filming techniques, he brought up another very valid point. It was rather late in the evening, closing in on eleven actually. A quick glance at the small watch in the cuff of her glove confirmed that as well as another rather awkward piece of information that she would just keep to herself for the time being. She had enough trouble with missing the start time of her own stream.

"Ah, it is pretty late. Though being fast helps a lot in getting home in time for a lot of things, unless of course you miss recording times for your vlog."

Verra was just about to take off, but the potential for a little bit of mischief never was something she liked to miss out on. That and along with striking her as cute in his own way, he had been nice enough to stay and chat for a bit and relieve some of her boredom. Well, she also didn't quite get the chance to meet up with the others all that often anymore, so there was that. In that brief moment he brought out his phone, starting to angle it for that perfect selfie angle with them both, she tapped into the speedforce. All the world slowed around her, electricity coursing through her veins and charging her with a rush of energy. A single second spanned to minutes, then slowed even more as she could hear the inevitable click and whirr of the camera mechanism.

She closed the distance as casually as if the world hadn't stopped around her, coming in close to press her face right next to his and give that trademark wink that graced the covers of so many front-page articles. A single click and then she was gone as if never there, only a rush of static surrounding where she had been and leaving only the faintest of afterimages that faded just as soon as he would look to his side. Off in the distance a trail of lightning showed where she was already speeding off to home, miles away and disappearing to sight. What he was left with was not just the selfie but a little more. Fluttering in the wind was an index card, the edges singed from friction burns and on one side was a note.

- Next time call first, we'll make a date of it~ V.

Wilhelm had begun to re-evaluate.

Why had he even gone to Atlantis in the first place?

It was a question he knew the answer to in the back of his mind, but didn't want to actually address. He'd been granted a gift, and the first thing he'd done with it was to go behave like an infatuated teenager.

He really hadn't been prepared for the sudden hormonal shift of adopting Bjorn's body, which was quickly dying as an aside, and had reacted accordingly.

He would be more careful a second time.

First order of action: create a new plan. Rather than focus on Karen, Karen, Karen, he would use the fact that she was currently busy and believed him dead to make a move. He knew of monarchists in Austria who would be virtually euphoric to have a metahuman von Habsburg, especially one as powerful as himself pressing his claim, as well as Spaniards who had lived through and still fondly remember a Fascist regime.

Second order of action: get out of this dying body.

Wilhelm wrenched open the sealed door to one of his many hideouts, coughing as old dust flew up his nostrils, a smell similar to death. This had been his home for the first year after he'd come to Hub City, a younger man with an open wound on his forehead. He'd made his home in an old nuclear bunker, left abandoned after a fatal safety flaw was discovered that made it unworthy of continued use.

A Mossad agent poking around the nearby town for men of his description was enough to make him pack up and seal the building back up.

He had almost been caught by the Israelis on more occasions than he could count, but a faked death in the sixties took them off of his trail, and remained as his official date of death until he re-emerged and died for real.

The wound he carried when he first discovered the place had come from a fight with Heinrich Dersch, a former Gestapo officer and the sponsor who had ferried him in. Unfortunately he was simply attempting to turn him in for clemency, Dersch struck him in the skull with a shovel and dragged him into his truck. Wilhelm crashed the vehicle with a concealed grenade and was forced to slash Dersch's throat.

The surge of nostalgia he felt when he entered the bunker was palpable, and the fact that everything, to the dust on the radio, was exactly how it had been when he had hastily left so many years ago. The bunker looked like a well-furnished family home, he could easily see two children running amuck as a father sat upon the couch with his hound, the mother of the house off in the kitchen fixing up a meal.

This sameness was exactly what he was counting on.

He picked up the old bubble-shaped radio with its massive antennae and sighed. The batteries inside would have long since discharged, but he still felt his heart beat just a bit quicker as he ran his fingers over the dials and felt a feeling so familiar.

This was a strange feeling. He had never longed for the past quite so boldly before. This damned body and its hormones.

Speaking of bodies. He spotted a pair of glasses on a chair armrest. More accurately a frame, he had worn it as a disguise for a few months. Ah, the follies of youth. Taking the time to decorate and disguising so poorly: inexperience manifest.

Why did these glasses excite him so? One memory. The frames were manufactured in pieces, with the temple tips being separate from the rest of the frame. This separation lead to little strands of hair being caught between and pulled out, a painful and unpleasant experience. This was before he had begun to shave his head, and he would be lying if he said this annoyance hadn't contributed.

Human hair lasted around a year, unpreserved, but this bunker had been sealed for decades. Mummified bodies often retained their hair, so Wilhelm could only hope that this factoid carried over to his own.

As he lifted the frames, a small yellow line in the frame granted his wish. An old hair, blonde as the day it had been ripped out. He pulled it out and secured it between two microscope slides.

With one last longing look at the bunker, he left at speed, using his telekinesis to toss himself into the air. As he flew, he pulled out a phone.

He had gotten an amount of his DNA, now he just needed to clone it.

He'd never been a genius with computers, but he had connections to be geniuses for him. A hack of a certain email account, luckily not detected, gave him the password to the personal email of one Leonardo Cash, a vigilante streamer of little importance, except for one notable email. A simple notice, and a simple, simple really, but it showed an impressive construction, far beyond the capabilities of anyone Wilhelm had ever interacted with. Not only that, but also a program, incredibly complex and wonderfully effective, at least according to his contact. Perhaps this person, demonstrably a genius, could be able to recreate his body.

He floated, writing out an email haltingly, cursing himself as he floundered with the phone's many buttons.

---

To: GirlGeniusJ355@ihavemyownemailservice.pizza

From: J61d187yya543@Emailburner.com

Subject: Business Proposition

Body: Dear Girl Genius J355,

Hello, this is a business proposition, as can be assumed from the title of this electronic letter. I have

discovered your considerable talent, and wish to commission you. Your creations are both impressive in

construction as well as in concept, and I have made a few assumptions about your capabilities. To state it

simply: I require an adult-aged human clone, created both speedily and clandestinely. I will provide the

necessary genetic material, as well as a considerable sum of money.

To assuage any fears as to the authenticity of this electronic letter, I have attached an image of two

gold bars as well as the current date and time as I send this. I have taken pictures from multiple angles to

assure that the images are not electronically constructed, and I have attached a picture of my hand holding

the time and date to assure that I am a real person.

If there are any questions, I will be sure to answer. I am certain that the payment will be immense for

such a gargantuan task, and I assure you that I have more than simply the gold bars that I have shown you.

I will come to a meeting location of your selection once all details have been decided upon.

Sincerely

A potential business partner.

---