T H E H O M E O F T E D K O R D

---

^{Present Day, Around an Hour Ago | Boston, Massachusetts}

Ted Kord walked back and forth between the suitcase on his bed and his wardrobe, packing for his trip. He started with the basics first. The immutables - underwear, toiletries, shoes and socks, and now he was starting to have to make decisions.

This shirt, that tie, those pants, and a dress suit for the Expo itself.

The Expo itself. Where the likes of Lex Luthor and Tony Stark were likely to attend. Paragons of post-modern executive fashion.

Ted couldn’t choose. He stuffed the three suits he was picking between in the case and hoped inspiration would strike him as far as which he should wear on the day. He zipped up his case and reached over to pick it up. Suddenly the Intercom whistle sound from the classic Star Trek series came through, indicating that Ted had just received a message. Checking his phone, the sender appeared to be hp@redant.com.

The only way the sender ever communicated with him. By his own company email account, doubtless filtering out all third party observers with its secure connection.



Ted quickly fired back a response.

“I fly in tonight, will be in town for NY Science Expo. Urgent enough for tonight, or is tomorrow morning OK?”

It only took a few moments before another Star Trek intercom whistle sounded and he got his reply.



Ted fired off a final message.

“Alright, I’ll be there first thing in the morning. Be ready to buzz me in at 7.”

A final whistle and it was confirmed.



Ted paused for a second in contemplation, then ran off to his lab. He returned with his Blue Beetle suit and a bag of his own design.

Ted had recently come into a small amount of vibranium, one of the most valuable metals on Earth. Not a significant amount for any kind of mass-production, but a small sample size for testing. The interesting thing about vibranium - its most valuable property scientifically - is its ability to absorb energy and its versatility in doing so. That energy can be in virtually any form, from kinetic energy as in blunt physical force, to… say the bombardment of X-ray’s from your standard dual-energy X-ray system that you might see at an airport. Using vibranium, Ted had created a thin bag that could absorb X-rays a few inches and mimic empty space within the bag, or around the size of a folded metal-mesh and circuitry suit with a prototype non-lethal BB gun. Effectively rendering its contents invisible to the technology.

Hank Pym. Ted thought to himself. What have you gotten yourself into..?



Hank Pym was easily the most brilliant mind Ted had ever met. In fact, Ted would hazard a guess that Hank Pym was the most brilliant mind that everyone who had ever met him had ever met. The kind that gets seen maybe once in more than a few generations kind of brilliance. Before meeting the man himself he’d once read an article that mentioned his name alongside of a string of others; Galileo, Da Vinci, Newton, Edison, Bohr, Einstein. At the time Ted thought it was a nice bit of rhetoric, if a little cliched and hyperbolic. Since then when he thinks back on that article, he spends more time thinking about which names probably don’t live up to being next to Hank’s. Except the man on the street probably wouldn’t really understand just how brilliant he actually was due to his displeasure at the notions of selp-promotion and desire to shy away from the limelight. He wonders if there was something in destiny that there must be an Edison in the world at the same time as a Tesla. If a Pym had to exist at the same time as a Stark… and with a Luthor on the horizon, with a greater promise for the future still.

Or does that make Ted a bad scientist for even mentioning the notion of destiny in the first place? Wouldn’t be the first time he’d felt at all intimidated or questioned himself when thinking about Hank Pym. It would unlikely be the last.



Ted first met Hank Pym at a symposium in New York. One of only very few that Hank had ever been successfully pressed into attending. He’d introduced himself to the very quiet man, who hadn’t responded in kind and the pair found themselves in a back corner watching everything unfold, when Ted noticed a famous face and couldn’t help but burst out...

“Wow! Is that… Janet Van Dyne?” The gears in Ted’s head quickly began to whir and spin, connecting the dots as to why that might be the case. “Here? At a symposium? Hey, that must mean that Hank Pym is here! That’s crazy! I’ve never met the guy. I’ve been reading up on some of his nanobot principal work, some of the things he thinks he’s going to be capable of doing in the next few years…”

Hank had fallen very quiet at first from the mention of his name and Janet’s. But eventually a small smile began to crease across his face, before Ted’s description of the work caused it to spread further still.

“Well, maybe I’ll go ask her…” He started to walk towards the beautiful woman.

“Yeah, sure. You’re just gonna go up and talk to her, you seem even more awkward than I-- hey! Where are--! Ok, you’re just going to go right up and talk to her, huh? Well, good luck with that…”

Ted watched as the blonde haired man approached the model and said something he couldn’t hear. Suddenly she threw her head back and laughed, whilst taking the man by the wrist intimately. She suddenly kissed him on the cheek and turned, as the two approached Ted. She had a smile that could make Ted’s knees shake.

“Hello, Ted was it? My husband here said you’d very much like to meet me.”

It was one of very few times that Ted had found himself at a complete loss for words.

The blonde haired man completed introductions. “Ted, this is my wife Jan. Jan, this is Mr Ted Kord.”

“Hank? Pym?” Ted stammered.

“Yes.” The man said, awkwardly chasing down a waiter carrying a tray to get another drink.

“Well… why didn’t you say?” Ted found himself confused over the whole situation.

“You didn’t ask.” Hank said, very matter-of-factly, taking a somewhat uncouth swig of champagne that gave away the fact he wasn’t used to the etiquette of this kind of event.

“But I-- I introduced myself. It’s generally considered good practi--”

Jan took Ted’s hand and smiled at him, “Ted, welcome to my life. Hank has his ways.”

This would very much become an understatement, Ted would find over the the course of his friendship with Hank.

“I’m going to the bathroom.” Hank bluntly announced between the three of them. “I’m going to be a while. I need to--”

“It’s Ok, Hank. We get the idea. I’ll be right here talking to your friend Ted when you get back.”

“So you’ll be here?”

“I’ll be here.” She smiled. “You won’t have to go looking for me. Right here.” She said to him, gesturing to the exact spot she was standing on. Hank nodded and waded his way through the mass of people towards the bathroom on the other side of the room.

“So, how do you know Hank?”

“I guess I don’t. I just met him now. Standing here talking with him… although admittedly, I guess I was doing most of the talking. I guess I’m starting to regret running my mouth so much now… I could have been asking him about his work, if I’d known it was him that I was talking to.”

“Ah-huh.” Ms Van Dyne nodded. “And what is it about his work that you’d want to know?”

“Oh… Well, we’ve just started looking into the possibilities with nanotech ourselves over at Kord Omniversal. I guess I was going to ask about whether he finds it easier to work with more complex individual nanodrone programming and a central processor which can then delineate--”

Ted stopped.

“Yes?” Janet asked him. “You stopped.”

“I just realized this is the most I’ve been able to speak to a fellow scientist’s wife or girlfriend at one of these events without either her eyes completely glazing over, or outright running away and going to talk with Tony Stark instead…”

Janet’s eyes lit up and she laughed. She had a smile that could make a man feel twenty feet tall.

“Well, you know, I met Hank at the introduction day at MIT...”

“Of course you did, am I the only one who attends any of these things who didn’t go to MIT?” Ted muttered to himself.

“...and that was before I got the offer to appear on ‘Runway Ren--’”

“Runway Renegades!” Ted said, slightly too excitedly. “I know, I saw the whole series! You were awesome, you never should have been kicked out in week twelve!”

Janet was somewhat taken aback that anyone here recognized her from that long ago. Whilst that show eventually gave her a springboard to opportunities in the fashion industry, few people actually remembered her from the show itself.

“--well, I suppose. But I should probably have been out earlier in wee--”

“Week 9? With the bridal gown challenge? Nah. Yours was still better than Ernesto and Ingrid’s. Sure, you might have had a down week, and skated a little on past performance but their’s was even worse. Ingrid completely butchered the neckline, she used stretch stitching instead of…”

He found Janet staring and rendered slightly agape.

“...sorry. I-- I have a pretty good memory...”

“I can see that.” She smiled again.

“I’m back. Sorry. They had an attendant in there. He was looking. I think I’ll have to go at home.”

“That’s OK, hun. Ted here was just telling me what he thinks of your work. He was curious about your programming the nanodrones and whether you preferred complexity in the programming within a central processor or more autonomous individual nanites with a broader rule-governed framework.” Ted stood impressed that not only had Janet recalled his question, but phrased it more clearly than he originally had.

“Oh!” Hank exclaimed with pleasant surprise, smiling and turning to Ted and finding a kindred spirit in science.

“He also was telling me what he’s thought of my work, and his own preferences against using stretch stitching in sweetheart necklines of wedding dresses…”

Hank stiffened up out of curiosity.

“It’s a joke, Hank. I mentioned to Janet how I saw her on her ‘Runway Renegades’ show years ago.”

“Ah!” Hank said, relaxing again. “And call her Jan. Our friends all do.”

The three smiled at the thought, as friendship was plainly stated by the scientist, a slightly uncomfortable pause broken up by a commotion as a man ran across the hall, a half minute before a black-garbed figure dressed as a spider swung across in pursuit.

The conversation changed to how this spider man could possibly achieve these feats, further forging the aforementioned friendship.

L O G A N A I R P O R T

---

^{Present Day | Boston, Massachusetts}

Ted stepped out of the car with his bags and left a $20 cash tip for the driver. He pushed through the airport, and saw some familiar faces.

“Murray, Jeremiah, all ready for New York?”

“I believe so, Ted.” Said Jeremiah, who already looked flustered. Ted wondered how much the older man had needed to scramble in order to get himself ready for this brief trip.

“This is gonna be great!” Murray repeated.

Ted put his arm around the smaller COO. “It’s alright, Jer’. We’ll check our bags and get a drink in you. Let you take a load off. First class and lounge perks. Time we got that back un-kinked. Relieve some of the stress in these shoulders.”

“I should call my wife…” He said.

“When we land. At the moment, you need to take some time to unwind before your heart gives out. You work plenty hard. The Christmas bonus I give you every year is supposed to tell you that, Jeremiah. So since you’re so bad at taking hints. We’re going to get these bags checked and have company-mandated booze pumped into you. You don’t have to come out with Murray and I when we land, but you’re gonna kick back now. That’s an order.”

“Casual clothes fridays and Gin and juice Jumbo Jet Junket-days!” Murray Takamoto said, beaming from ear-to-ear.

“Something like that…” Ted said, as the three took their bags to check-in.

---

_{Location: Warehouse Rooftop, Star City - Night}

Queen's Heir #1.03: Splitting the Arrow

---

"Uh, I dunno about this, Overwatch. These guys have like...big guns. Really big."

The voice in the young archer's earpiece sounded almost annoyed through the modulator "If you want to start hitting Brick where it hurts, causing a big enough disturbance at one of the warehouses where he's 'secretly' stockpiling and shipping out drugs to justify me giving the police a tipoff and leaving it all wrapped up in a bow for them is a good start. Besides, it took me days of searching to figure out just how to hit this place!"

"Like, longer than my whole arm. Just, ridiculously big guns. And...is that a bazooka?!

"Hey, relax...remember, 'fear is the mind-killer, the little death that brings total obliteration.' Let it pass over and through you, then turn inward and focus. Once it's gone, only you will remain." She- Connor was convinced after several conversations that 'she' was appropriate -said it in a mockup of his teachers' solemnity, but he nodded anyways and took a breath to calm down and center.

"I...don't know what sutra or canon that's from, but it's really good stuff."

"Seriously? We have got to introduce you to some culture, GA. Shift change should've just hit the midway point, Time to get going."

From his vantage point on the roof, Connor confirmed that a bunch of guards were heading out in cars yawning and worn out while there was still no sign of any cars rolling in. They'd been over the plan probably a dozen times in the last day or two.

It was simple. Just slip in and cause a scene between shifts when there was only a skeleton crew's worth of guards on duty. Use the disturbance and some audio recordings to have Overwatch play concerned nightshift worker and call things in to the police. Then Star City's finest would swoop in and put the place on lockdown right after Connor made a hasty exit. Even if they didn't catch a ton of Brick's people, there was no way they could move the merchandise off-site in time, so it should hit him right in the wallet.

Simple, except for the part where he deliberately drew fire from heavily armed professional criminals. Still, he secured a grappling hook anchor to a sturdy looking point and prepared to slide down. Overwatch knew a lot about online shopping, and according to her anyone could just order military-grade grappling hooks, cords and climbing kit online for weirdly cheap. Of course, he'd had to explain to the monks that he'd taken up rock-climbing, but it was worth it to lessen the chance of breaking all his bones 'on the job'.

The actual skylight was Connor's next obstacle to entry. According to Overwatch, since it was a much older building from back before Star City's building codes were updated, the skylight was made completely of tempered glass. She'd gone into some big physics-y explanation, but basically he should be able to break it with an arrow and climb through without cutting himself.

Okay...breathe...nock, draw...breathe...and loose!
*twang!*

The big windowpane exploded in a shower of glass beads, oddly mesmerizing. Connor turned, tossed the rope down, tugged on his anchor point hard to test and then flung himself down through the air after his arrow.

The seconds between making that little leap and sliding down the taught rope stretched for an eternity and he was sure he would hit the ground and shatter harder than the glass. The grappling hook jolted him as it held and for a second he thought he'd hit the ground and braced for pain, but when he didn't feel any he remembered to squeeze on the descender clipped to a harness on his chest that started his real slide down.

He breathed a sigh of relief as his feet touched down ontop of a big metal container, releasing the harness and-

"What the fuck!?"

-remembering he was here to get shot at with big guns.

He lifted his hands in the air and turned around, faking an almost embarrassed grin as he stared down at a tattooed guy with what was definitely an assault rifle hanging off his shoulder-strap while still staring openmouthed.

"You wouldn't buy it if I told you this was just an accident, right? That I was just doing some nighttime parkour and uhh...fell through your skylight? In...a Green Arrow Costume? With...with a bow and arrows and a grappling hook?"

The poor guard's face went from shocked to slowly angrier, the rifle pointed up at his perch on the shipping containers, though Connor still kept the uneasy grin with his hands in the air...

"Guess not, huh? In that case uhm...how about a chance to surrender? Trust me you're not gonna like how this goes down, we can all just wait for the police and-"

Connor saw the man's trigger finger slip into the guard. Without stopping to think he launched himself from the big metal box, ears ringing from the barely evaded burst of gunfire as he spun through the air in the highest flying Kyokushin Wheel Kick he'd ever attempted. As he twisted, his foot cracked down on the gunman's skull and they both crashed down to the warehouse floor together.

Sorry...also oww...

No time to catch his breath or examine his pain, Connor kipped up with his bow in one hand, reaching back and fumbling the catches on his quiver's side draw as another guard came around the corner of a pile of crates to investigate the noise, gun already raised and readied.

Crap! Nock, Draw, Aim, Loose!
*twang!*
*shnk!*

Connor plugged the barrel before the newcomer could get a shot off, but as he nocked another arrow he saw the assault rifle drop and a hand pulling a gleaming pistol from a waistband.

No time for a barrel-trick, Connor aimed fast and let fly.
*Twang!**Bang!*

His arrow struck the pistol right before it fired, the bullet missed and weirdly enough it threw off the shooter's grip enough that Connor was pretty sure he saw the man hit himself in the face with his own pistol. He'd never be sure. Connor was already sprinting at his assailant full tilt, throwing himself legs-first into a low flying scissor leg lock around the waist and twisting. The stunned thug face-planted into the hard cement flooring.

Connor scrambled away from him and nocked another arrow from there on the floor. He heard shouting from somewhere in the labyrinth of metal and wooden boxes, not sure where. Blocking out the pain already spreading through his whole body he got up, jumping and scrambling up loosely piled crates to try and get a better view and catch his breath.

"GA, I picked up on the shots, you okay?"

"haah~...I already got shot at twice and I'm pretty sure I've had to give at least two guys concussions so yeah I'm doing great!"

Connor spotted another assault rifle-wielding guard rushing toward the scene, though he was tucked out of sight ontop of the crates. Might as well thin out the numbers...

*twang!*

He pinned the poor man to some crates on the other side by his loose...carrying...sling...thingy- he really had to learn more about guns if he was gonna keep getting shot at by them.

"Sarcasm doesn't seem very Zen even if it does sound kinda cute on you-"

"-You're picking now to flirt?"

"-What?! I...eugh no nevermind, the police are on their way. You should get out of there before they show up or the rest of Brick's guys-"

Connor spotted something out of the corner of his eye and cut her off.

"So hey Overwatch uhh, remember that RPG?!"

"Oh no... "Yuuup!

While they'd been distracted talking, a fourth guard had spotted him, taken up a position with a clear line of fire to the crates from the other end of the warehouse and had the launcher aimed right at him

Okay okay don't panic don't panic just-

*FWOOOSH!~*

Connor's brain shut down.

No thought, no conscious aim.

He just leaped off his pile of crates and shot an arrow at the oncoming explosive in midair.

---

Light. silence. pain.

His sight came back first. He was lying on the ground, hurting like crazy with the sight of his arrow and the warhead about to meet and the light of the explosion burned into the backs of his eyes. He blinked tears away checked to make sure he wasn't dead.

No missing limbs, no shrapnel wounds, no burns...

The pain was just from landing on the warehouse floor.

"I never...never wanna try that again."

He couldn't actually hear himself, but it was reassuring to at least feel himself speak. He pushed himself up off the floor and rushed back over to his original landing spot. The pain from jumping and climbing back up the shipping container made him tear up. Hauling himself up the rope was even worse and made him a clear target but he didn't even care if he got shot at that point. It would've felt like a mercy to his screaming body.

Somehow, he was still alive by the time he pulled himself over the top and saw the SWAT vehicles pulling in.

He didn't care if he hadn't taken on every hired gun on Brick's warehouse crew. If they didn't have enough evidence before, the mess from the explosion would have to do it, right?

"Overwatch, I dunno if you can hear me, but I'm going home. I need to sleep. Forever."

How the hell did Oliver do this every night?

A N D R O M E D A G A L A X Y

---

The Kymellian smartship sailed toward the neutron star.

Alarms were echoing inside of the craft, alongside eerie sounds of the hull compressed under the stress. Still, the young horse-lord pressed the craft on. Standing before the cockpit’s large window, the technomancer’s apprentice had his three-fingered hands extended out toward the void beyond the glass.

“Warning: gravimetric shear in excess of safe margins.”

The white maned boy’s eyes were vacant. Glowing, pearlescent orbs of energy as the child slipped into a trance, divining the universe according to the laws of physics. The layers of the physical realm separated into strata of matter, organized and orderly, surrounded by the chaotic forces of kinetic potential that was contained behind every possible action.

Turning his hand, Kofi extended his metaphysical reach out toward where a single human child was acting against the gravitational force of the collapsed stellar core. It was as though Billy was just out of reach. Kofi’s fingertips brushing against the boy, without being able to grasp him.

There was a sound like part of the hull beginning to buckle. “This is as close as I can get you,” Friday’s voice snapped.

Crossing his arms, the young Kymellian drew in a deep breath. Then worked through a series of meditative exercises designed to open up the mind’s eye to the prime physical realities. Gravity. Velocity. Matter. Energy.

Outside, in space, the dark haired boy was pushing himself harder than he had any time before. The output would have been blinding, except that the forces rolling off his body were immediately stripped away toward the stellar prison that was pulling him down.

Kofi put his palm against the glass, as though willing his reach to push through the unseen barrier. “Come on, Billy,” Kofi uttered, gritting his teeth as he redoubled his efforts. “Come on...”

A presence appeared behind him, matter displaced and then re-organized as Lord Aelfyre Whitemane just snapped into being, teleporting aboard Friday. A glow rose up from Kofi’s feet, as a scientific equation was scrawled out like a magic circle, surrounding where the two Kymellian technomancer’s were weaving their powers in unison.

“Billy Batson, I need you to picture Friday in your mind,” Aelfrye voice supplied, the voice of the elder Kymellian booming in both Billy and Kofi’s heads. In his mind’s eye, Kofi could now see the threads of physical reality that were weaving through the forces that were acting on Billy’s corporeal matter.

“See yourself where you want to be.”

Doubt was starting to sap the strength from Billy’s will to keep trying. Pushing harder to go forward, when everything was working to drag him down. “Where I want to be…” the boy echoed, even as he struggled to raise his eyes toward the small, speck of light that was the smartship.

He suddenly felt weightless. A mild dissociation as the familiar, intrusive touch of Kymellian teleportation magic suddenly swelled around him.

He managed a weak smile as he felt the universe start to slip away...


The energy coursed across the sky.

Across the globe, the phenomenon caught the attention of space agencies. A comet that had escaped notice? A meteorite colliding with Earth? There was no warning and not enough time to try and deduce what was happening.

Whatever it was, it was already here. Only after the fact was there time to digest and deduce the available data to determine that something had just crashed down in Fawcett City, Ohio.

The cascade of energy displaced the water vapor in the air, creating a beautiful illusion in the sky. It was as though the end of the rainbow had appeared over Fawcett, out of which tumbled a single, small object.

The child’s red-and-blue emblazoned form slipped into the atmosphere, as the unconscious Marvel dropped toward the ground below like a stone. The lightshow overhead had garnered attention, the people on the street looking up in awe at the appearance of the dark speck that had appeared from out of the now fading rainbow.

A shrill whistle permeated the air, as the boy’s still form shot through the air with the collected inertia propelled on by gravity. In the park, awe transformed to panic as people scrambled away from where the airborne child seemed aimed to land.

The impact send a plume of grass and dirt twenty feet into the air. As the soil rained back down, a few brave individuals crept toward the small crater that had been carved like a scar across the otherwise pastoral green lawn. A dark haired boy lay there, his form still.

The 9-1-1 call went out from there.

The ambulance arrived about twenty minutes after. Police cordoning off the area around where EMTs put the boy up on a gurney.

Wheeled into the emergency room, the EMTs passed the gurney off to the attendant medical staff. “Juvenile male, age unknown. Literally fell out of the sky. All witness accounts agree by at least a couple of hundred feet,” the EMT supplied, as the doctor bent over the gurney. Prying open Billy’s eyes, one after the other, the man shone a light to gauge the pupil response. “Pulse and breathing irregular, but all outward injuries appear to be superficial lacerations or bruising.”

“What is this material he’s wearing?” a nurse blurt out, prompting the doctor to look down with the realization that the child was attired in some form of armor.

“Oh, watch the cuffs,” the EMT uttered, indicating the bluish-gray metal encircling the child’s forearms. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but the gauntlets almost seemed to be glowing. “Those things will give you a wicked shock.”

“We need to clear a path to a vein for a blood type and screen,” the doctor said.

“Maybe he’s O-Neg?”

Turning his head, the doctor looked over at a medic, then down to where the medic’s hand was holding an object. The boy was wearing a set of notched dog tags around his neck.

Reaching out, the doctor inspected the tags. They looked military. And old. The name embossed read WILLIAM J BATSON. “Find our Red Cross liaison,” the man stated, looking back up at the medic. “Maybe they can run that tag. See if it gets us his parents.”

---

Peter pushed forward with the jungle, his headphones hanging loosely around his neck, the music coming from them audible only to him, or so he thought. The three unlikely companions had been walking for what felt like days, treking towards some goal only the raccoon had any idea of. Rocket, was his name, which made Quill chuckle. The little creature was named after a Beatles song, and he didn't even know it. Probably didn't even know who the Beatles were, Quill realized. Peter would have to rectify that situation, as long as the psychopathic little trash panda didn't murder him first. Rocket liked to threaten that as much as possible. Still, there was something about the cute little demon that Quill liked. The raccoon was resourceful, witty, and didn't care what the other two thought of him. Peter could respect that.

Hawk, on the other hand, barely said a word an hour. She had only threatened to kill him the one time, but he was pretty sure she'd actually carry it out, unlike the raccoon. For as pretty as she was, she was as cold to boot. Whenever their eyes met, he saw the killer that lurked behind them. They were cool and calculating. Not in a crazy sort of way. She was far too pragmatic for that. No, she knew how to take care of them quickly and quietly. They'd never stand a chance. Quill was on guard, but he was pretty sure it wouldn't matter in the end if she deceded to do something to him.

"So where the hell are we going again?" Peter said after a few more steps. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't used to being his own leader. Following others just was not his style. But Rocket knew this planet better than he did, so he followed.

"We're going towards Mongul's stronghold," Rocket explained. "I knocked out one of that big yellow idiot's drones and hacked into its databanks. It told me where I could find him, so that's where we're going. Now turn that music off before you bring every blasted gladiator on this planet down on our heads."

"You could hear that?" Quill was amazed.

"Yea, basically everyone who isn't a humy could," Rocket laughed to himself. "Idiot."

Quill shook his head and turned off his Walkman.

"How'd you end up here?" he asked his newest traveling partner. "We ended up here because Paul McCartney's Wings here decided to try and kill us."

"What part of 'be quiet' don't you understand?" Hawk snapped back.

"Oh come on," Peter rolled his eyes. "You could probably kill anyone who tried to kill us."

"I should kill you," she sneered.

"Oh do it then, and save me from having to deal with your surly ass," Peter stuck his tongue out at her.

"Heh," Rocket snorted. "You're both idiots."

They continued in silence for a few more clicks. Relative silence, of course. The jungles of Warworld teamed with life. Bugs the size of Peter's hand fluttered around the group, their irridescent purple wings constrasting beautifully against the silver of their bodies. He had seen teal lizards with webbing between their legs gliding from tree to tree. Sometimes the sound of something bigger deeper in the brush. So far whatever that was had kept its distance

"My partner and I were running from some bounty hunters like our winged friend here," Rocket broke the silence, explaining how he came to Warworld. "We made a jump, and ended up here. Split our friggin' ship in half. He got thrown out. Been looking for him for a little over a month now."

"Damn, I'm sorry," Quill shook his head. "My...friend got thrown from our wreck, too."

"Losing me a ton of money in the process," Hawk added.

"You think you friend is at Mongul's fortress, or whatever he has?" Quill ignored her.

"Dunno," Rocket shrugged. "But I figure if I kill that dumbass it'll be a lot easier to find Groot."

"Cut the head off the snake," Hawk considered the plan. "Not a terrible idea."

"Oh sure, great idea. Marching into the unquestioned and all-powerful ruler of a planet's hideout and try to kill him," Quill shook his head. "I'm sure no one ever thought of that. Great plan. We're definitely not gonna get killed."

"Would you relax? This is my plan," Rocket assured him. "There's no way anything is gonna go wrong."



"I am Groot."

"Yes, thank you, Tree," Thor grumbled, wondering why he was stuck with walking with the talking house plant at the back of the column. Still, he was better than some others Thor had marched with. He certainly didn't smell as bad as an Asgardian after a few days out in the field. "Eloquent as always."

"I am Groot."

Before long, their small band came to a clearing of the jungle on the side of a cliff. From the location, Thor could see the large, walled city of Mongul. The white walls and buildings of the city looked like they were carved from the ivory of some gigantic beast. Most were uneven and awkward looking, no doubt made for the slaves and workers that kept Mongul's empire running. Other than that, the two buildings that stood out were two golden ones that sat on top of the hill that overlooked the entire city. The larger one was Mongul's palace. That much was obvious. Its opulence outmatched anything around it. It was like an Asgardian palace that was plopped down in a slum.

But the building next to it was what drew Thor's attention. It too was gilded, shining in the morning sunlight. It looked to be some sort of casino, if Thor had to guess. But more importantly he could see the passage of ships to and from a landing pad on the roof.

"So space travel is possible on the planet," Thor smiled broadly as he joined Heimdall on the cliff's edge. "All we have to do is get into the city."

"Yea, sure. No problem," Korg agreed. "Just have to get past Mongul's death squads. And Draaga. And Mongul. Should be a piece of cake, man."

Miek chatted int agreement, and Groot agreed as he always did. At least he seemed to agree.

"No, guys, that was, like, sarcasm, you know," Korg waved the two off. "We are surely gonna perish."

"No one's going to be perishing today," Heimdall grunted. "At least no one in our group."

"Oh well that makes me feel loads better," Korg grunted, and Thor could not tell if he was being serious.

They were a motley crew, that much was certain. He didn't know how good they'd be in a fight, but Heimdall claimed they were fiercer than they appeared. The tree especially was a force to be reckoned with. Thor had heard talk in the past of tree spirits that could tear gods limb from limb. He didn't know if Groot was one of said spirits, but if he was as formidable as his friend had said, Thor figured he would have to be.

"We're getting into that city," Heimdall looked at Thor. "We know Mongul's disrupting field doesn't cover the space above his city. We get in there, we get off this rock."

"What's the plan of attack?" Thor's eyebrow raised at the other Asgardian.

"Simple," he nodded towards the God of Thunder, "you're gonna walk up to the front door and challenge Mongul's champion. The rest of us will sneak into the city and cause a ruckus. After you kill Draaga you'll meet us in the city and we'll get out of here."

"Why is the plan always sending me into the face of certain doom?" Thor sighed.

"Because you're the best fighter," Heimdall shrugged. "Shoulda thought of that before you won all those wars for Asgard."

"I am Groot," the tree patted Thor on the shoulder.

Thor just grumbled to himself.



Quill and his companions sneaked quietly along the outer wall of Mongul's city, searching for god knew what. Rocket still hadn't really told either of the others how they were actually going to get into the city. He seemed sure he could do it, of course. Then again, Rocket was sure that he could always do whatever he said. Quill figured Rocket would say he could breath in space whenever he wanted to. The little guy was seriously full of himself.

"Ah, here we are," the raccoon presented a sewer grate cover, a large, cartoonish smile painted on his face. A thick, brown-grey sludge flowed slowly from the bottom three inches of the almost four-foot grate. The smell that came off of it was almost enough to knock Quill out right there.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me," Quill grumbled. "This was your plan? Go through the sewers? Who knows what crazy stuff is living down there!?"

"For once I actually agree with this idiot," Hawk shook her head at Rocket.

"Listen," Rocket explained, "we need to get into that city. This is the only way to do that. It smells. So what. Deal with it. You wanna die on this rock? I didn't think so. Now, let's go walk through some shit. Literally."

"I just met you," Quill sighed angrily, "but man do I hate you."



Thor's boots crunched against the dried, cracked land in front of the gate of Mongul's city. Whatever the despot had done in this area of the planet, it was clear that the rains that fell elsewhere in the jungle of the planet didn't touch this area. Maybe Mongul believed his deified head should never be touched by anything other than sunshine.

Thor shifted uneasily as he approached the gate. He had seen Draaga fight on the clips every night. He was good. Ferocious, fast, and strong, he was the kind of warrior Thor had often looked forward to fighting in the past. But now things were different. He didn't have Mjolnir. He didn't have the powers the hammer granted him. Without them would he be able to defeat the planet's champion?

Now was when he would find out.

"My name is Thor! Son of Odin! The rightful king of Asgard!" Thor called out to the gate. It was Heimdall's idea. He said that telling the world who he really was would draw Draaga out for sure. Mongul wouldn't resist claiming the price on Thor's head. "I come to challenge Draaga, champion of Warworld, to single combat!"

Thor smiled as he finished the short proclamation. It was something he had done countless times before. Once, he called out the leader of the Frost Giants in order to secure an end to a long, bloody conflict. He could barely stand at the time, his strength sapped by months of fighting. Yet he still managed to fell the Frost Giant after three hours of back and forth brawling.

The doors of the city creaked open slowly, and from them emerged Draaga. But he wasn't dressed as he was in the video from before. No, now he was clad in golden, shimmering armor. Mongul was going to make a show of this. Probably send the video personally to the person who had destroyed Asgard.

As Draaga approached, Thor noticed what he held in his hands, and the Asgardian's blood began to boil. The glittering blade of the battle ax shone brilliantly in the sunlight that poked through the clouds above. Thor knew the curve of its handle and blade well. He had used that ax for centuries. It was his first great Dwarven weapon, Jarnbjorn, being wielded by nothing more than a common thug. Whoever had raided the cache had given this gift to Mongul, and now Mongul hoped to kill Thor with his own weapon.

The trepidation that had filled him moments before washed away in rage.

"Mongul accepts your challenge," Draaga sneered and charged at Thor.

S. T. A. R. L A B S

---

They called it cold storage.

It looked like a morgue.

Felt like a morgue. Standing off to one side, Dick felt an involuntary shudder course through his body. An odd ache biting into the back of his shoulder as he tried to shrug off the chill that permeated the austere, stainless steel interior.

Security here was tighter than at the morgue. Doctor Charles worked a cipher lock on the cabinet door, before finally plugging in a biometric key. Dick could hear an audible click, followed by a series of mechanical sounds, before the cabinet door popped open.

A long, metal slab came sliding out of the open cabinet. Atop which was the body of Pinocchio. If Dick didn’t know better, he’d have easily mistaken the Toyman’s craftsmanship for a real human corpse. The level of detail that had gone into creating this puppet without strings demonstrated a sincere devotion to the creation of the doll. Dark hair framing pale skin, a bluish tone giving the boy an alabaster quality that only seemed to reinforce the idea that it was just an porcelain doll.

Sarah re-appeared, wheeling a computer cart over beside the table on which the simulacrum lay. Digging through a pile of cables, she fished out the end of a coaxial connector and then unfolded what looked like a schematic. “I’ll be honest,” she uttered, laying the schematic out atop the doll’s body as she tried to orient to the layout. “We weren’t sure that we still had any of the right hardware. We’re still not,” the woman remarked.

Pulling away the blueprint paper, the woman felt along the boy’s abdomen. “No one’s touched this thing in more than ten years.” Prying open the naval, she wrestled a moment with marrying the coaxial cable to the port concealed there. Then she picked up a second cable and search for a second port a the base of the cranium, concealed by the hair. When she had finished, she flipped open a laptop and then set to work. “Let’s hope that I can remember my MS DOS...” Sarah commented, opening a window and then starting to type away. “The operating system may not even pair with modern computers.”

Dick didn’t respond. He had doubts of his own to contend with. Capturing Toyboy had been a sixteen year endeavor for both Officer Grayson and Nightwing. It hadn’t ended well, for any of them.

After another minute, Sarah sat back from the laptop “All right, the BIOS is loading now,” the woman noted, turning her head up to look over at the former boy wonder as she explained, “The diagnostic tools will take a few minutes to cache.”

If Dick heard her, he didn’t do anything to indicate it. After another moment of silence, Sarah remarked aloud, “So, what’s this things deal, anyway? I don’t think you ever told me.”

“I don’t think you ever asked,” Dick uttered softly.

So, he was listening. “I think I was afraid to,” Sarah admitted candidly, turning her eyes down to the boy on the table. “I couldn’t put it into storage fast enough,” the woman added, as her gaze trailed over to where monitors on the wall were measuring the radioactivity levels. Even in storage, the power cells were still remarkably hot.

“Horton cells...” the woman breathed. It was difficult to say whether she was impressed or terrified.

The answer was probably both.

“Schott had to be a right bastard to play God with something as powerful as that,” Sarah stated finally.

“Yeah,” Dick said. Finally, he reached a hand out to touch the doll on the shoulder. The body was ice cold.

“I think he’d agree.”

Hinkely Creek
June 8, 1996

This was supposed to be great.

This was supposed to be everything that he was created for. There were children. There were toys. They could all just play and have fun.

It was a surprise for Anton’s tenth’s birthday. Toyboy had gathered up the boy and his friends from the school that he attended. They could laugh and run around and play all the Toyman’s games.

“Children who do not follow rules must be punished!”

The Toyman was angry. No matter what Toyboy did, no matter how hard that he tried, the children didn’t want to play the Toyman’s games.

Anton didn’t want to play the games. He’d encouraged the other children to try and escape from this place, from this utopia that had been made for them. For him.

The Toyman was angry sometimes. Sometimes a lot lately. He’d been angry at Anton’s mother, that was the first time that Toyboy had seen the Toyman angry like this. The Toyman had made it so that Anton’s mother would never be able to make him angry again.

When that happened, the Toyman had given Toyboy a new directive: To keep Anton safe.

“I gave you everything that you could ever want.”

Turning his head up, Toyboy could see where the Toyman had Anton backed into a corner. The man was holding up a knife. The light gleaming off the blade betrayed the slick, sticky red mess that covered the knife, the handle, and the Toyman’s arm.

In his arms, the Toyboy was cradling the body of a child. Blood smearing across the doll’s hands and clothes, as the automaton struggled to process what was happening. They had been been playing just a short while ago.

To play. To laugh. To be the greatest toy ever made. Those were all of the reasons that the Toyman had given him for why he had been created.

Today was supposed to be what he was created for, what he was created to do. Instead, the doll’s dead eyes looked out over a playground of broken dreams.

“What? You’re afraid? Of me?” the Toyman’s voice uttered hoarsely. Reaching out, the man grabbed his son by the arm, roughly pulling him close. “This was for you,” the man barked, his tone softening as he seemed deflated for a moment, “This was all for you...”

Grabbing Anton by his head, the Toyman forced the child to look out over the bloodied bodies of his classmates. From the edge of the boy’s vision, the man could be seen raising the knife, as he darkly declared, “And this is all your fault...”

Something sailed between them.

Ripped from his grasp, the knife went tumbling through the air. As Anton sank to his knees in shock, the Toyman reeled back in confusion.

Confusion that slowly coalesced as the moving blur came into focus. A momentary realization seeped into an otherwise diseased mind. “Toyboy..?” the man uttered.

A child-sized fist buried itself into the Creator’s solar plexus. As the man lurched forward, reflect doubling him over, the doll executed a windmill kick that caught the Toyman on the underside the chin. The result launching the man up into the air, before he came crashing down a few feet away.

He struggled to move for a moment, then the fight gave out. As he collapsed onto the ground, Winslow Schott looked over at the Pinocchio of his own making and ask, “Why?”

Crouching down, the simulacrum drew his arms around the trembling, weeping form of Anton Schott. The doll’s eyes seemed alight with hell’s fire as he glared defiantly over at the man who had created him, and declared, “Toyboy keep Anton safe.”

S.T.A.R. Labs
Present Day

The body of the doll was shaking atop the metal slab, like a child in the throes of a grand seizure.

Lurching forward, Dick placed his hands on the doll’s shoulders, pinning it down. The violent convulsions racking the automaton proved a struggle, as Dick found himself nearly tossed on his ass by the force of the body’s spasms.

Turning his head, the former circus act threw a look over toward where Sarah was working the laptop. “Can you shut it down?”

The shake of the woman’s head was the only answer he needed. “His Horton cells are fully energized,” Sarah remarked, her head down as she continued plugging away at the machine. “The reaction is self-sustaining.”

Great. Another Grayson good idea. Pull a thermonuclear-powered teddy bear from out of cold storage and fire up the reactor. What could go wrong? Except maybe turning it into a teddy bomb…

The convulsions were starting to intensify. Dick realized that he could feel heat coming off the body. Steam was starting to rise off the doll’s form. “Readings are approaching critical,” Sarah warned, her voice sharp and her fingers paused. She seemed at a loss for what to do next, as she glanced at Dick with a harried expression and said, “I think he’s about to expl…”

The doll lurched, snapped up into a fetal position and turning on its side. Dick had to scramble to re-position himself so that the simulacrum didn’t spill out onto the floor.

Then it retched. A milky-white liquid splashing onto the floor as the doll threw up. And then began coughing and sputtering.

After which, the spasms and convulsions stopped.

“Not what I was expecting,” Dick deadpanned simply. What had he been expecting? What exactly did one expect when they pulled a lifelike automaton out of the closet and fired it up for the first time in more than a decade?

As Dick helped the doll to sit up, he heard Sarah comment, “His power output appears to be regulating itself.”

Looking back over at the woman, Dick gave a tilt of his head to indicate the wet mess on the floor as he asked, “How did he..?”

“Best guess? Negative pressure on a coolant tank valve,” Sarah answered, with a shrug. “Beyond that, no one provided us with a manual. We were hired for storage only.”

Dick couldn’t argue with that. Instead, turning back toward the lifelike boy, the man helped to steady the android into a seated position on the edge of the metal table top. “Hey, Toyboy,” Dick offered. “It’s been awhile.”

It was uncanny. Like a close encounter with the third kind. An involuntary shiver ran down Dick’s spine as the doll cocked it’s head toward him. Though human-like, the way in which the eyes looked out at Dick were clearly inhuman. The pupils dilating and contracting in abnormal fashion, as the lens and camera focused on Dick. Toyboy was meticulously recording his features, looking up at his head and then panning down to his chin, before returning back up to his eyes.

Moving from his spot by the table, Dick retrieved a Target shopping back. An assortment of boy’s clothing was folded up inside, with the tags still on them. Breaking open a pack of underwear, Dick pulled out a pair and then helped guide the doll down from the table. “Let’s get these on you,” he remarked, holding them out for Toyboy to step into.

Returning to the bag, Dick next produced a pair of mesh shorts. While he wrestled with pulling the tags off, the automaton was exploring the wires and cables that were feeding into it’s body. A coaxial cable ran into his naval. A second was married to the base of his skull. An electrical and an optical line were going into two different points on his left forearm.

Holding out the shorts, Dick uttered, “And these...”

Toyboy’s hand rested on Dick’s shoulder, as the doll stepped into the shorts. As Dick hiked them up to the automaton’s waist, the simulacrum finally spoke. “Voice pattern analysis indicates, with eighty-seven-point-six-four percent probability, that you’re Nightwing.”

Ignoring the observation, Dick instead looked over at Sarah as he wiggled one of the cables running from her computer into Toyboy’s body. “Are we good to disconnect now?”

Doctor Charles just shrugged in reply. “At this point, I’m just monitoring. Toyboy’s functioning completely autonomously.”

“Well, then, let’s get you unplugged,” Dick remarked, turning back to the doll. Reaching his hands around to the back of the child-like being’s head, he worked to disengage the connector there. Pulling the coaxial cable from the base of the boy’s skull, Dick let the cable fall free. From his position, crouched down at the doll’s eye level, the man looked at the android and asked, “You need help with the others?”

Bringing both hands to his naval, the automaton unfastened the umbilical cable. “Your physical appearance has been altered since our previous interaction,” the doll noted, even as it used its right hand to pull the remaining cabling from the ports on its left arm.

Reaching into the bag, Dick drew out a t-shirt and then a hooded sweatshirt. “That’s right,” he murmured, as he worked to pry the tags off. “Arms up,” Dick said. As the doll raised its arms up over its head, Dick pulled the t-shirt and then the sweatshirt over the automaton’s head.

With that done, Toyboy now both out of the freezer and dressed, said, “I just go by Commissioner Grayson now.” Reaching over, Dick deposited the discarded tags and other trash back into the Target bag. Then, turning back toward Toyboy, offered, “If you feel up for a drive, I can get you caught up in the car.”

---

If there’s one word I hate the most in the English dictionary, it’s step-father.

Robert Hawkins is my real father. Black Lightning ain’t.

Robert Hawkins shelters the poor, the homeless, people who don’t have power from the people who have all the power in the world. He’s the operator of the Freeman Community Center. Robert Hawkins taught me how to bicycle down a hill. Robert Hawkins took me out for hot dogs whenever I aced my test. Robert Hawkins taught me what it means to be a man.

Black Lightning? Black Lightning left me behind when I needed a father.

I shot my first three pointer without him. I got my powers without him by my side. I survived the Big Bang without him. I lost my mother without him. I had 11 good birthdays without him. He's a stranger to me like he is to everyone else in this town. It doesn't matter that both of us have the same blood.

The only thing that he did was to leave behind a legacy for me to live up to.

If he ever comes back to Dakota again…..

Man, that's a good joke.

---

time: 13:05, Saturday

place: sadler's shack, dakota city

The two of them pushed, half-laughing and half-stumbling, through the door of Sadler’s Shack, bell ringing to introduce their entry in the bustling road diner.

“ - So, that’s how Sharon’s two pet goldfish went missing?!” Virgil’s dad gaped “ ‘Cause you believed that stupid fish movie I watched with when you were seven years old?”

“ Well -” Virgil muttered, embarrassed “ All drains lead back to the ocean. Right?”. That got a chuckle out of Virgil’s dad as he slapped the back of his son, shaking his head in disbelief.

Damn, he’d missed talking with Dad. Meandering small-talk that dug up lost secrets fossilized in memory. The original topic of their conversation had shifted so far off course like a game of chinese whispers. One moment, they were talking about how the Freeman center was holding yet another charity drive and the next, it had strayed off to a talk about TV shows and car accidents.
“ Isn’t your friend supposed to be here?” Virgil scratched his head as he searched through the restaurant.

His dad signed, checking the time on his wristwatch. “ He was. Maybe, he’s caught a bad jam downtow-”

“ Table for two?”

They were both interrupted by a black-haired waiter, lips pressed tight with a pencil behind her right ear and clearly on the verge of impatience. Virgil’s dad shook his head and explained. “ Table for 3.” The waiter gave a silent nod before leading the both of them to an empty table.

Virgil’s mom once said that a restaurant was a glimpse into the soul of the city and Sadler’s Shack was no different.. Hissing oil and the smell of smoked sausage and hash on the griddle was thick and noxious enough to churn his stomach. Sadler’s Shack wasn’t just a simple cul-de-sac restaurant. Sadler’s Shack was Dakota history. Everyone from outer Utopia Park to Prospect Hills knew about Sadler’s Shack and your father’s father probably ate there when they were your age. The faded brick walls, seemingly crumbled but not collapsed, were lined with scores and rows of pictures, some black and white and others colored. There was one picture, though, which everyone was crowded over like it was the Mona Lisa. Virgil reflexively flinched away from a picture that he’d seen so many times during his childhood when his mother had brought him. After all, who wouldn’t want to take a picture with his former father?

Their table was situated next to an open window.

“ Ah, Larry, Larry, Larry!” Virgil could hear the rapping of fists together and the slapping of arms against backs. “ Nice to see you out of your office once in a while.”

Larry. Virgil’s brow furrowed in anxiety. Where had he heard that name before?

“Virgil - Oh, for god’s sake, put that menu down!”

A hand pried his attention away from a waffle dish that looked downright delicious towards Dad's friend. First impressions were that the man looked out of town. Like he'd just recently settled in. He could tell that from the shifting eyes of suspicion and the way his neck was tense at the muscles. His thick ridged skull bragged a genetic history of being a punching-bag with a boxer's physique, top-heavy with bear-like arms. He was wearing a thick linen jacket and his sandy head was clean-shaven to the roots. There was a cough from his Dad as he gestured towards Static. With a roll of his eyes, Virgil lifted his left arm awkwardly up lazily for a handshake, crossing his left hand over his bandaged cast.

“ I would like to introduce you to Larry Buchinsky. He’s in charge of our donations team for the Freeman Community Center and this week’s charity drive manager.”

“ Don’t be so formal, Rob. It's just Larry.” Virgil could barely make out Larry's words through his thick British accent " You must be Virgil. Your dad's told me a lot about you over work these past months."

A part of Virgil’s brain was screaming at him, grasping him by the shoulders, telling himself that something was up. What was it that Herman had told him? It was on the tip of his tongue. Something that started with E. His mind began returning back to that conversation the closer both of their hands approached together.

Larry Buchinsky. Went by the name of Electrocutioner.

And

Buchinsky goes straight for the kid like a coiled cobra

it just-

I never took up the mask again

Hit him.

“ You’re looking a little pale there, son.” Larry Buchinsky, the Electrocutioner, gave him a worried frown. “ Is a handshake too much to ask for around these parts? ”

Crap. Was his hand really shaking that much? The chewing and crunching of toast and waffles around him reminded him of that first,fateful encounter when he broke his right arm, twitches of phantom pain lancing up from his elbow to his shoulder. The whole entire world was spinning around him now as he tried not to retch at the sheer cosmic irony of the situation. His heart began to thud faster as Virgil’s hand grasped Buchinsky’s dinner-plate sized one, large enough to crush his bones into dust and break him a-

Electricity bled from his trembling fingers as Virgil shook Buchinsky’s hand. Not enough to knock him out but not enough to be painless. Larry’s hand recoiled back as if a bee had stung him, nursing it. The former criminal blinked for a moment, his eyes narrowing momentarily in suspicion before shrugging and smiling at his father.

“You didn’t tell me your son was a prankster, Rob.”

“ He isn’t.” Virgil’s dad slowly turned to glare at him. “ You didn’t pick up anything bad in Hemingway, did you now, Virgil?”

“ No, no! Just must have been...uh....some static. " said Virgil, who was currently wishing that he'd never agreed to the coffee date in the first place. If Ms Barnes hadn't rescheduled the English test today, he would have had an acceptable excuse. However, having a video-game binge with Richie on the fresh copies of Street Sluggers wasn't going to convince his Dad.

The explanation wasn't good enough for his dad but to his relief, it was good enough for Buchinsky. Virgil breathed out as Buchinsky chuckled, seeing it nothing more as a practical joke. He composed himself, trying to bury his fear underneath a mountain of apathy. ALl he had to do was to keep it together for the next thirty minutes. Easy enough. Besides, Buchinsky didn't suspect anything at all. His calm exterior started to break the moment Buchinsky sat right in front of him, eye to eye. Virgil's breath hitched as Buchinsky asked him a question.

" So, Virgil, how's school? I heard you study at Hemingway."

"Yeahit'salright.School'sfoodgoodandwehavedrillsevery" Virgil blurted out before slowing down into an intelligible pace. His cheeks reddened as both adults raised their eyebrows at him " You know, it's an okay place. Nothing out of the ordinary."

" Nothing out of the ordinary." Buchinsky repeated before muttering cynically. " Nothing's been ordinary ever since the Big Bang happened. Our community center's been more flooded than ever with the homeless and the poor since last month. Our kitchen's ran out of soup stock trying to feed our 550 residents. 550, can you imagine that, Rob?"

" 550 less off the streets." Virgil's dad clasped Buchinsky's shouler supportively. " Be more optimistic, Larry. By the way you've been talking off, our next donation should secure us for a long time."

" Pah, donations." Larry flipped through the menu halfheartedly. " They can barely keep us afloat for more than a week. Everyday, it just seems like the number of more and more people in our shelter keep rising. Sometimes, I wonder how you can keep finding new jobs for them, Rob."

" Everyone always has a choice in Dakota City, Larry. Now, how's about we stop talking about work? It's your first time meeting my son after all."

" Now, that you've said it....." Larry closed the menu as he passed it slowly back to Virgil’s dad, one eye levelled on Virgil " Are you sure that I've haven't seen him before? In your house maybe or somewhere..."

" No, this is your first time." Virgil's dad leaned over to wave for a waiter. " I'll try and see if I can get a waiter that’s not busy in this place..."

The fluorescent lights began to flicker overhead as a bead of sweat rolled down Virgil's forehead. Damn, his powers just had to start malfunctioning now. Larry's eyes trailed upwards towards the ceiling. Virgil closed his eyes as he began shutting off the flow of electricity in a fit of panic, the lights returning back to normal. He signed before opening them right up to the sight of Larry’s granite-like gaze settling on him. His two hands were locked together in a loose hold, the pads of his fingers rubbing his knuckles like a grindstone, waiting for Virgil to do something. Virgil pretended to not notice that Larry was staring at him, staring boredly outside the window whilst internally panicking in his mind.

The sound of a baby wailing and a mother hushing her child broke the tension. The glare dissolved from Larry’s face as it was immediately replaced by a crinkled smile of a family friend.

“ So, Virgil. You play any sports?”

“ I can’t really shoot any hoops since I...well…” Virgil shifted his bandaged right arm as if its existence was explanation enough.

“ First time breaking it?” Larry asked dryly whilst Virgil gaped in shock. “ Don’t look so surprised. Your dad was yammering on all about it on the phone to me yesterday.”

“ Yammering?!” Virgil’s dad exclaimed, looking at Larry testily “ When the school called me on Thursday, I thought of the worst. Ever since Mary….” He caught himself, staring at Virgil with regret before shaking his head. “ Well, I thought Virgil had been caught in a fight or worse.”

“ Relax. I’m sure it was a shocker to us all.” Larry paused lightly on the last sentence, as he swiveled his head towards Virgil and waited for his reaction. “ Besides, if anything happens in this town, Static will be there to save the day.”

Virgil froze, gripping the menu tightly whilst forcing the excess static building up in his body to the heel of his shoe, causing it to heat up uncomfortably.

“ Hmph.” His dad snorted “ If only he could save us from the city council’s bureaucracy…”

“ Can I get you boys anything?”

The same waiter that had greeted them in front was tapping her notepad insistently. Larry piped up first, grinning at the waiter.

“ I would like some hash and your Lightning Latke special, please.”

The ceiling lights flickered twice again.

---

“ Crap, crap, crap, c’mon, just a few more….” Virgil was panting by the time he'd reached his dorm room, skidding by his heels on the mopped floor. Why did the elevator have to break down today? He pushed the door open and locked it in a hurry, pressing his head against it before turning around. " Richie, there's something that I have to tell...."

Virgil's voice trailed off in horror, squeaking at the sight of what he saw. Richie was knocked out and duct-taped against the backrest of a wheeled stool, his arms and legs locked to the sides with his head resting on his chin, dried drool on his shoulder. Besides him was the lounging form of Larry Buchinsky who was currently dressed up in his costume without the mask and helping himself to a bag of potato chips.

" Don't stand there gawking like an idiot." said Larry. " Sit down. You and I have some business to discuss, Virgil. Or should I say..."

Larry kicked open the closet to reveal his signature blue jacketed costume.

"...Static."

---

Matthew awoke to cool air and muffled murmurs. There was a large - large - crowd around him, he could feel immediately: - the collective heat of them throbbed, pressing on his skin from all sides; myriad heartbeats drummed a mismatch beat across the surface of his skull; the white-noise whispers washed over him like static from a tuned-out television set. Their sound and heat illuminated his world, and through them he could see he was inside the rear compartment of some kind of vehicle. Matt tried to move to push the trunk open from within with his legs, and realized his hands and feet were bound with plastic zip-ties - they were thick and tight and they dug sharply into his wrists as he attempted to loosen them and wrestle himself free.

He stopped as he heard the doors of the vehicle open and slam shut on one side, and then felt footfall - heavy, two sets - walk around the front of the vehicle - long, tall, boxy, likely some manner of Hummer or stylish APC - and open the door on the opposite side. Two more sets of feet got out, one after the other. One light and deft. The other heavier than either of the first two.

The three waited for the one, and as the one moved away, walking straight forward, the light set followed and the first two walked back around the vehicle to the trunk where Matt was. The muffled crowd exploded into vibrant clarity as the lid was flung open. The two men regarded Matthew for a second as he did the same, then caught his feet in their hands as he tried to kick at their chests from his awkward position. One of them buried a fist in Matt's stomach, and the other wrested Matt's remaining baton from its holster, hitting him across the head with it - Matt's head erupted and he felt a splinter crack across his cowl. Dizzy and winded from the blows, Matt struggled feebly as he was roughly seized, wrenched up and out of the trunk, and tossed out of the vehicle. Matt rolled as he his the ground. Concrete, asphalt. The back of his head hit a curb. He was close to the edge of the crowd, and through the growing noise Matt could pick up a few scattered conversations.


"Shit, that's the Devil!"



Across the blank space in front of him - the crowd, he could feel now, were being dispersed in a wide oval by masked men in body armour and armed with rifles - another voice came. Matthew shook to his bones to hear it.

"Cut him loose."

The two men that had tossed him now approached again, this time brandishing large knives they had pulled from their belts. They cut Matt's binds and stepped back as he pushed himself up off the ground, breathing heavy as he did so. He felt groggy still from the toxin; his side ached from his puncture wounds; his arm flared with hot pain from his shoulder whenever he moved it; his head rang with a thudding migraine from fatigue. Matt was wounded, exhausted, poisoned, and his state made it difficult to focus his radar, instead swimming in the buzz of noise and heat from the crowd - but all concern for his physical condition melted away as he tuned his senses onto the man stood not twenty feet across the empty space from him.

God, but he was a behemoth. Wilson Fisk stood seven feet tall, every inch of him rotund and straining against his suit. He rippled with carefully sculpted muscle hidden behind a veneer of obesity, but Matt knew his secrets. This confrontation had to be fast. Fisk would crush him with a single hand if Matt allowed it to drag on. Kingpin chuckled low, regarding the unsteady Murdock with disdain.

"They call you the Devil, the Man Without Fear. But this..." Fisk threw his arms out, gesturing widely at the open air and the crowd that circled the two men. "This is what happens when you meddle with a real demon. New York is a fine city full of fine men, Daredevil, but it needs dark men just as much. We are two sides of the same coin, two opposing forces keeping society in balance. Witness Times Square, a monument to self-destructive consumption. Men like me keep the billboards on, keep the companies ticking, keep the city from crumbling. Men like you..." he cracked his knuckles, sneering. "Men like you let the common people think they don't need men like me. But they do. Without me, New York collapses. You've had your fun, you've peeked behind the curtain. You've set me back a day, maybe two at most. And where has that left you? Poisoned. Exhausted. Bloodied. Beaten. At my feet, begging for mercy. But you will find none."

Fisk moved with surprising speed, dashing towards Murdock and clearing the space in a matter of just a few seconds. He launched a fist towards Matt's chest and Matt brought both arms up crossed across his breast to block the blow, stumbling back as the force of Fisk's fist hit him hard. He launched a feeble counter swing but Fisk grabbed his forearm and yanked, dislocating Matt's already injured shoulder and throwing him ten feet. Matt skidded on the ground, and around him he could feel the electric buzz of recording phones.

"You are to be an example of what happens to vigilantes who try to destabilize the empire I have crafted, the empire that is the foundation of EVERYTHING THIS CITY IS AND EVER WILL BE! There will be NO MORE 'Devils', NO MORE 'superior men', NO MORE MASKS!"

Fisk crossed the gap again and this time seized Matt's cowl in one hand, squeezing until the splinter down Matt's forehead ruptured and cracked completely. Fisk tore Matt's mask from his head and crushed it beneath his feet. There were scattered gasps and screams from the crowd as Matt's face was exposed, and in the distance, Times Square billboards lit up with Matt's bloody face as the news was live-streamed on every channel.

"You may have thought you could topple me, Mr Murdock. You may have thought you were RIGHTEOUS enough, ZEALOUS enough, MORAL enough." With every word Fisk put another fist to Matt's face, cracking his nose and jaw and teeth and lips. Matt felt only pain. Behind the pain, anger began to rise. "You are a MAN, Mr. Murdock. Just a man, with fear, and weakness, and no true power. You hoped to leave a legacy by becoming my undoing, but your only legacy will be a warning. A warning to any other would-be 'hero', any other vigilante who believes they can affect ANYTHING in MY CITY! After tonight, EVERYONE will see what happens when they cross the Kingpin. And no one EVER. WILL. AGAIN."

Fisk picked up Matt by the collar and punched him in the stomach. Matt felt ribs break and coughed blood, the hot red spray staining Fisk's suit jacket. Another punch, a punctured lung. Fisk slammed Matt to the ground, kicking him in the stomach and then marching over to the two men who had pulled Matt from the car in the first place. He held out a hand, and they gave him Matt's baton. He walked back towards Matt, who had rolled over to his back to face Fisk. He was numb to pain, and behind his eyes the Devil rose with white-hot fury.

Fisk raised an arm to bring the baton down. Adrenaline flooded his system. Matt made his move.

He snapped up a broken shard of his cowl and dug it viciously into the back of Fisk's knee. Fisk yelled as his leg buckled and Matt kicked at his opposite ankle, breaking it and sweeping the leg out and bringing Fisk to both knees. Fisk tried to grab Matt but he rolled sideways and then picked himself up, putting the toe of his boot in Fisk's solar plexus, winding the giant, and then brought his leg up to break Fisk's nose with his knee. Fisk put his empty hand on the ground and Matt stomped the wrist, snapping it clean; he snatched the fallen baton from the floor and brought it down on Fisk's kneecap, shattering his patella, and then again, and then the back of his head, and again, and again, and again. Fisk grunted with each blow and Matt felt the loosening of bone and heard the cracking of the skull from behind his scalp as the skin tore and split, ravines of flesh opening and letting loose rivers of blood that poured down his back and dyed his white suit red. Fisk put a hand up and behind to catch the baton; Matt grabbed the fingers and pulled them sharply backwards, snapping them and Fisk shouted again and cradled his hand. Kingpin spoke, gurgling through the blood streaming from his nose and wheezing.

"You can't stop me...you can't put me down...I'll be back...I'll always be back..."

Matt loosed the cable of his baton and wrapped it quick and tight around Fisk's neck. He stomped on his back, pushing Fisk to the floor, and grabbed both ends of his baton, pulling up hard with everything he had left. His shoulder, broken and stabbed, screamed with pain that Matthew could not hear over the ecstasy of the Devil. There was a gurgle as Kingpin tried to say something. Matt didn't hear him.

There was a snap in the base of Fisk's neck, and he shuddered and lay still.

Just a man.

Matt let go of his baton and stumbled backwards. The crowd was silent. Kingpin's men were silent. Matt fell to the ground, spent completely. The world went dark, and before he blacked out completely, for a solitary, tranquil moment, Matt felt like his great struggle was done.

Shanghai
1923

“Bloody hell.”

Detective Chief Inspector Gates held a handkerchief to his mouth. Just minutes earlier he’d been using the rag to wipe sweat from his brow and neck. The commute here hadn’t done them any favors. The SMP car they managed to snag from the headquarters’ feeble motorcool spent the better part of a half hour stuck in traffic. The source of the congestion? An overturned ox-cart that took nearly a dozen mean to flip upright. A half hour ago this looked to be just another quiet summer night. But now?

Gates had been stationed in the Orient for over twenty years, most of it in Hong Kong before Shanghai. He was no stranger to senseless violence and brutal street warfare from dueling gangs. He’d taken down Hong Kong Henry, for God’s sake. Grisly scenes of death were second nature to him. But this was something else altogether.

“Best we can make out, there were about a dozen of them,” DC Strong said.

The two men stood in a back alley just off Middle Ring Road. SMP patrolmen had cordoned off the alley to prevent anyone else coming in, but to Gates that was like closing the barn door after the bloody horse had gone. Word was already spreading through the city about the massacre here. Gates figured there was very little they could do here at this point other than cleaning up.

At least ten bodies, or at least parts of them, were scattered across the alley. That was based on just a rough estimation of matching arms and legs. The emerald tinted tattoos and markings on severed limbs made it clear that the dead men were members of the Green Gang. Gates and Stone were familiar with the Green Gang in the same way doctors were familiar with syphilis.

“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of blokes,” Gates said, spitting on the pavement at his feet. “Bunch of opium dealing savages.”

“What is that, sir?” Strong asked, pointing towards the alley wall.

Gates clamped his handkerchief tighter around his mouth and nose and walked gingerly through the alley. He stepped over a severed finger to get a better look at the wall. Someone had written something across it. Upon closer inspection, Gates could see that it was dried blood that had been used to write out a message in Mandarin.

“‘The cost of crime must be paid in flesh,’” mumbled Gates. “‘The bill has come due for the Green Gang.’ Dear lord… he’s struck again.”

---

Chicago
2019

Lamont Cranston looked out at the city skyline. His penthouse apartment sat on the fortieth floor and had a picturesque view of the city. A million dollar view, his realtor had said. It was more like an eleven million dollar view. For those that could afford it, the view would be worth every penny.

And Lamont hated it.

Because he could see Chicago for what it really was. He could see everything laid out below him, the twisting black tendrils that threatened to choke the city. The smog that hung over the upper limits of the skyscrapers. Only Lamont could see it. Because he could see the evil that lurked in the hearts of men, he could see how that evil poisoned a city. And because of the beautiful view, Lamont was always reminded of how he was failing the city.

He turned away from the window and retreated through the penthouse. He couldn’t bear to look out at the city any longer. Lamont reached into his pocket as he walked and slipped the ruby ring on to his left hand. Something else weighed on his mind that night. It enhanced his desire to go out into the night and look for trouble. He had a sense that something loomed just past the horizon. Something was coming, something he could not see the shape of. But whatever it was, it would be evil and bloody.

---

The SUV raced down the southside street. The four men inside the car were dressed for war. Tactical body armor, automatic rifles, and night vision goggles. It was all top dollar and better than they were used to. They were all former soldiers, but the Salvadoran army equipment they trained on had been nothing but US Cold War relics. The four men didn’t look anything at all like the stereotypes they broadcast on the news and over social media, not face tattoos and well-spoken English with only traces of accents, but all four of them were MS13 to the core.

“In and out in sixty seconds,” the man in the shotgun seat said in Spanish. “We ventilate every living thing in that house.”

That was all the orders the four of them had been given. Go in, kill everyone, and then leave. Don’t take any money or drugs or make a big show of the killing. The shotcallers wanted whoever was living in that home dead quickly and quietly. Quick and quiet was their specialty and it was why they commanded so much money for ever hit. The secretive nature of the mission had them all pumped for the potential of actual challenge this time around. They were often deployed to take out rival dealers and people who crossed MS13. They were in a different class than the people they hunted. In a lot of ways it was like the Cubs playing against little league teams.

Something thumped on the roof of the SUV. The soldier in the back passenger side looked up just in time to see the blade of a sword slice through the roof. The tip of the blade stabbed him in the face and sent blood gushing through the car. The driver sped up past seventy and started to swerve in an effort to throw off the person on the roof. The two other soldiers raised their guns to the ceiling and opened fire. More thumps as the person on the roof moved, bullets ripping holes into the roof. The blade came down again and sliced the driver’s head off. The SUV skittered out of control and smashed into a parked car, the impact flipping the SUV. The assailant on top of the roof flipped away as the car came down hard and rained shards of metal and glass on the street.



Calmly, he walked towards the crashed car and looked in. One of the two remaining soliders was dead, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle. The other looked up at him with a bloody face and whispered for mercy in Spanish. The assailant put the blade against the man’s face.

“You live simply because of dumb luck, remember this fact. Tell your boss that if this is the best he can do, then Grendel is highly disappointed.”

Grendel slid the blade across the man's eye. He screamed as blood poured from the wound. With a swift twist of the blade, he stabbed the man's other eye out.

“No sight, but you still have a tongue so you may tell the story of what happens to those who declare war and lose.”

Grendel stood and holstered the sword. He started to leisurely walk away from the chaos he had initiated while the now blind man screamed.

_{Who the Fuck Knows? It’s somewhere in Kansas still... maybe. - One Month Ago}

Issue 1.01.02: Live and Let Die

---

_{Interaction(s): None}

Previously: 1.01.01: Knockin' on Heaven's Door

Roy Harper finished changing his clothes on the side of a dusty Kansas road, buttoning up the red flannel shirt and hiking up his jeans. He slowly hobbled back to the cab of the pick-up truck and climbed in, pulling on a baseball cap as he turned the key in the ignition. The engine tried to kick in, but instead chose to stall. Another turn, and the disappointing sound of a dead engine filled the cab. Roy slammed his hand onto the horn so that it hid his shout of anger.

He had been shuffling for nearly two hours on the side of the road before a friendly sight loomed on the horizon. He picked up the pace, and practically knocked the door of the gas station store off its hinges as he huffed and puffed. The lone gas station attendant, lifted his head from his crossword for a moment, before simply shrugging and turning back to his game. Roy gave a short nod as he made his way towards the back to grab something to drink. He circled towards the refrigerators in the back. He absent-mindedly opened up one of the fridges and grabbed on to a case, pulling it out. He had made it half-way to the counter before Roy looked down and realized he had picked up a 24 pack of beer. He sighed and turned back around to replace the beer to get some water instead.

Roy had to kneel down next to the fridge, reaching far back on the shelf to get the last bottle of water, when he heard the sound of several vehicles pulling up into the gravel lot outside. Apparently, there were enough people outside to force the attendant to put down his paper and head outside. Shortly after the bell above the front door jingled, Roy heard some cheering outside. He ripped off the bottle cap and chugged the contents before tossing it aside. He reached into the back of his jeans and pulled out his two trusty sidearms as he peered around the corner. Of course the bastards had managed to follow him.

Through the glass front door, Roy saw men wearing mismatched military gear circling around the attendant, getting in kicks or two while pointing their guns at him. Roy was able to just barely make out the barking orders from one of the militiamen. ”Who’s here, old man? You seen anyone?” The old man was simply crying in a huddled mass on the ground, his face too bruised and bloody to discern any expression. Roy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He needed a plan, fast.

The Alpha dog turned to the others with an amused expression. ”It looks like he is choosing to ignore our orders. And we all know what happens when you ignore the orders of a Watchdog in our territory.” He lowered his rifle down towards the gas station attendant’s body, his finger on the trigger. He certainly would have pulled it, if not for the jingle of a bell. All ten of the Watchdogs spun around and pointed their guns in the direction of Roy.

Roy gave a stupid smile, holding his hands up. In his right hand was what appeared to be a smartphone with the back of it pointed in the direction of the Watchdogs. For but a moment, there was silence. That is, until Roy decided to open his mouth. ”I really hate to interrupt this little military LARPing session, but I’m going to have to ask you to pack your red-neck asses back into your gas guzzlers and leave this place in your rear-view mirrors. And I swear to God, I will make sure your death is painful if you don’t let that man go.”

The Alpha’s eyebrows furrowed as he stared Roy down, before a small gasp of air escaped from his lips. In that moment, he began laughing wildly, along with his fellow Watchdogs. Before Roy could react, the Alpha lowered his rifle with one hand down towards the attendant and pulled the trigger. The crying stopped, and the body fell limp. The Alpha smiled towards his brothers-in-arms. ”Well, boys, it looks like we’ve found the son of a bitch who took down Wheeler. I for one thought he’d be bigger.”

As the Watchdogs began lifting their firearms, Roy squeezed the phone in his hand. A blinding light flashed from out of the phone, and the Watchdogs all clutched at their eyes as a few fired a few blind shots wildly. Roy took this opportunity to rip open the door again, the bell dinging. As the Watchdogs blinked furiously to get their vision back, they seemed to gain more courage as they opened fire into the store. Bags of chips and packs of cigarettes burst open as Roy slid over the counter and crashed into the ground, a few bullets barely missing him. Roy smiled as he clutched at the double-barreled shotgun under the counter. He took a deep breath as he kept the shotgun in his lap, reached into his boot to pull out three small throwing knives strapped to his ankle.

Now with their sights fully restored, the Watchdogs surrounded the front entrance as they searched for a sign of where their prey had gone. The Alpha pointed to two of his men and motioned for them to enter, and they gave curt nods as they began to make their way in. As soon as the bell dinged and the first two entered, Roy shoved himself up against the counter as much as he could. He closed his eyes, setting the knives down next to him silently as he held the shotgun with his right hand. The store was silent, except for the sound of the Watchdog’s footsteps.

BANG!

Roy pulled the trigger on the shotgun as he aimed it slightly upwards against the wooden counter behind him. The first Watchdog was blown back into the aisle behind him. The other Watchdog barely had any time to react before Roy had tossed the weapon aside and clutched one of the knives. In but a moment, Roy was able to turn around and shove his back against the wall behind the counter. He turned his gaze towards a mirror on his right meant to help the attendant see who was around him and smiled as his eyes locked on to the Watchdog looking at the counter with a confused expression. Roy lobbed the knife blindly over the counter, and the sound of a loud thud confirmed that the knife had hit its target.

The rest of the Watchdogs turned their gaze towards their Alpha, who simply grunted and lifted his rifle in the direction of the counter. The others followed suit, and began opening fire. Roy anticipated this, and managed to grab two knives and dash around the corner towards the aisles. On the way, the vigilante threw both knives with impossible aim directly into the necks of the two closest Watchdogs through the now-shattered windows. They crumpled to the ground instantly as Roy ducked behind a set of shelves. His hands blindly found the sidearms he had stored there before he lowered himself towards the ground again as bullets ripped through the aisles.

The Alpha seemed to have enough of this as his fellow Watchdogs began continued opening fire. He stepped back towards one of the pick-ups, removing the tarp and fetching the weapon lying there. In the meantime, Roy took a deep breath as he tried to plan his next move. He crawled towards the corner, with both hands wielding his sidearms. ”Alright… one… two… three.”

As Roy quickly jumped up to his feet to roll towards the counter while getting a few shots off, his eyes grew wide as he saw the Alpha press the trigger on his grenade launcher. Roy was launched backwards by the explosion, and he bounced off the back wall. The shelf in front of him fell down, collapsing on top of his body. The pain was excruciating, and the sound of gunfire stopped. He heard the sounds of the Watchdog’s boots further shattering the shards of glass near the entrance. He didn’t have much longer.

In what felt like forever, an indescribable sound could be heard from outside. It was a low hum at first, until it became louder. The footsteps stopped coming closer, and Roy could tell that the Watchdogs were heading outside to see what the commotion was all about. As the sound grew louder, he knew that it was the sound of an older motorcycle. He felt sorry for whatever poor soul was about to get dragged into this new mess.

Needless to say, Roy wasn’t too surprised to hear the sound of a fight break out outside. First it seemed to be punching, kicking, and the sounds of bones snapping. Then gunfire hitting something… metallic? The fight seemed to go on for far too long, and Roy quickly began squirming his way out of his trapped state. Shattered glass tore through his skin and clothes, but he didn’t very much notice as he was focused on taking this chance to settle the score.

Once he was free, Roy stumbled onto his feet and pointed his guns in the direction of the Watchdogs, only to then begin comprehending the scene in front of him. All of the Watchdogs seemed to be unconscious or dead. Four by Roy’s hand, and the other four appeared to have broken limbs or necks. Standing over the corpse of the Alpha was a woman in a red crop top and black leather pants. Her hair was long and somewhat unkempt, with two braids on the sides. Her arms, belly, and torso were all tattooed with designs that seemed rather peculiar. For a moment, Roy was incredibly confused as to what was going on. This gave the woman enough time to start marching towards him, her fists clenched. After years of experience with situations like this (usually after he had said something, not before), Roy simply tossed the firearms aside and raised his bloody hands in the air. ”Woah woah woah, Sorry, I was shooting at those assholes.”

The woman stopped in front of Roy, and it was clear now that she stood nearly half a foot taller than 6’ Roy Harper. He gave a goofy smile up at her, while she seemed to be giving him a quick look over. After a moment, she simply shrugged. ”You’re welcome, pipsqueak.”

_{Location: Central City}

Post #1.06: Exit Light

---

It had been a couple of days since they had last seen this ‘Sand Demon’ though, that hardly seemed right. Thawne had been scourging his files from the time vault, to try and figure out who, or what it was. But he never could quite figure it out. As if this person didn’t exist - an abnormality. What had he done to destabilize the timeline already? He had barely even been The Flash for a month, and already time was messing around? He managed to go 17 years as Doctor Wells that one time and everything was fine.

Surely, this couldn’t be his fault. Nothing’s ever his fault. Eobard Thawne does not make mistakes. No, Eobard Thawne acts according to the plan. Always. Things go awry, it’s someone else who’s made a mistake… But it’s always another speedster. And there are none... Not yet.

He couldn’t quite figure out what was happening. Nor why he wasn’t getting faster. Barry Allen had mental hangups to get over to get faster. Eobard already knew all of the tricks of being a speedster. He taught Allen most of them. Yet, he was barely any faster than Allen was at this point. Was the speed force perhaps not powerful enough yet, still recovering from the damage caused by their battle?

There were a lot of questions in Thawne’s head, and not nearly enough answers. So, he did what a Speedster does best. He ran. Fast. Mile after mile added to his shoes, each step gave him clarity, an attunement to the speed force he hadn’t felt for many years. Like a soft caress, rather than the harsh wind he was used to feeling.

His headset beeped. Gideon had picked up the police scanner. The black dust monster was back, and so was the man who controlled it. Eobard wasn’t messing around this time, he had Gideon hack the traffic lights and sending out a faked call to the cops to set up roadblocks where the traffic lights wouldn’t work. By the time Thawne arrived, running across the water, he had 40 blocks of straight road to the bank vault the monster was attacking. Every step was filled with determination and more importantly, urgency. He needed to figure out who this guy was and what he wanted - how was he a different Meta than what Thawne’s records showed? What was his story?

The scarlet speedster approached, whooshing past the cop cars, the car's windows exploding as he rushed past, the policemen losing their hats. Thawne’s fist tore through the body of the monster, it collapsed as Eobard did not even stop to check, instead of looking for the source - the one whom the stream of black dust was recalling back to. He found him inside of the vault.
He was wearing a more flamboyant top hat now, and a fur coat. “... Are you a pimp?” Thawne asked the man in black who cackled “Not quite, my dear.” tapping the floor with his cane twice, the dark dust swirling under him, covering him and shrouding him. Thawne zoomed past him, yanking the cane before he could do anything else, pulling it far beyond his reach. “What the hell is this. Some kind of tech?”

“Give that back.” The criminal demanded, and The Flash felt his grip loosen around the cane. Some kind of telekinesis. Okay, he could work with this. He ran in front of the cane, delivering a punch to the thief’s nose, sending him to the floor, cursing. “You son of a whore. Didn’t they teach you pesky heroes any manners?”

“Not this one.” The Flash responded. “Now tell me, who the hell are you?”

“Who can call me... The Shade. And well, I’m the new master thief here in Central City.”

“But I’ve caught onto you twice.”

“Ah yes. Or perhaps you’ve simply fallen into my trap… Hero” The Shade said, tapping the floor again and the dust around him covered the entire vault, sealing it shut and completely dark. “Great, you turned out the light. Oh no. I’m so scared.” Flash taunted, sarcastically.

“Perhaps you should be, Hero.” As the shadows started attacking The Flash. He got hit in the face, then the gut. He quickly began running, The Shade was moving. “You’re fast. Can you outrun a shadow?” The energy generated from Thawne running lit the room up for a second, enough for him to find his opponent and come rushing at them, a punch, a kick and another flurry of punches were all negated like nothing by the black dust covering him. As he did, he was immediately smacked by the shadow puppets. Thawne regained his footing before he could be held down and continued to move. He couldn’t vibrate through them, he had already tried, and he wasn’t gonna risk going for the kill by vibrating his hand into The Shade’s heart - who knows what would happen then. He needed to move faster. Faster enough to generate enough energy.

He began running in circles, on the floor, upon the walls, the hands chasing him. He pushed off the wall, leaping at Shade, attacking him with a flurry of blows that the shadow hands all deflected, forcing Flash to retreat back into the darkness, while Shade was still covered in his shadow pocket. He ran further around the room, the walls, floor, roof, the box Shade had built began shrinking, and Thawne kept on running. He finally generated enough power.

The lightning bolt formed in his hand, and he staked the wall of shadows with his lightning, frying The Shade’s powers, as the lightning immediately lit the room back up, all the dust was vaporized and Shade was spazzing. “What the hell did you do?!” He cried, as he began to glow with a bright light, as if he was overloaded, in a pained scream he exploded, the dust he left behind vanished as if sucked into the thin air.

“... That was incredibly creepy. And that’s saying something, coming from me.”

The reporters who had been held back by the shadow wall stormed into the room, to finally get an interview with the scarlet hero, the only words they could get out to him was the answer to a simple question.

“Who are you?” The young Reported asked and Thawne grinned. “I’m The Flash.” Before he vanished in a blur, and suddenly headlines were printed at a speed that could make the Daily Gazette the fastest newspaper alive.

---

_{Location: , Dockyard, Star City - Night}

Queen's Heir #1.04: Hitting A Brick Wall

---

"Connor?....Connor!"

Connor Hawke snapped his eyes open, immediately alert. He was under a boat's tarp docked in the bay- probably belonged to some rich guy who only took it out once or twice a year -waiting for the boat carrying Brick's new super-weapon to finish unloading.

"What is it? Are they moving out yet?" Overwatch had been keeping an eye on Brick's goons via the dockyard security cameras once they'd figured out that Connor had arrived too early. Connor was bored after the first ten minutes of staking the place out and decided to try and meditate, and he had just gotten his centering right...

"No, you just went dead quiet for like ten minutes. I turned your feed up and couldn't even hear you breathing! Where did you go?"

"Oh, sorry. I was meditating, trying to center my chi before the upcoming battle, y'know?"

"Your...chi?" Did she just snicker?

"Yeah! Chi is like...the breath of the universe, it's...sort of an energy field that exists in all things. It surrounds us, flows through our bodies, binds the universe together. With correct usage of chi, an ant can wrestle an elephant." That was how his Master had always put it to him, and it felt wise.

"I mean I've seen plenty of kung fu movies, I kinda know what chi is, but you make it sound way more like The Force."

"The what?"

A moment of silence on the line and Connor had just enough time to appreciate his mistake before-

"Oh come on Connor, seriously?! You practically quoted The Empire Strikes Back line-for-line, there's no way you've never heard of Star Wars!"

Connor couldn't help making a sorta half-embarrassed grin while he admitted he had no idea what a 'Star Wars' was.

After almost getting blown up at the warehouse he'd ended up telling Overwatch...well, almost everything. He just didn't want to die without someone knowing who he was and what he'd been doing, as vain and reeking of attachment as that felt.

"That's it! I can't take it anymore! The next time we don't have a city to save, we're doing a shared streaming movie night! All geek classics, all night long!"

"Uhh...what does that mean in 'Bad with tech?'"

"Your QPhone has an app that lets us watch the same visual feed at the same time. It's what I used to patch you into the security feeds on that Q-Store robbery a couple days ago, but we can also use it to watch movies together!"

"I dunno if the Monastery has wi-fi."

"Ugh, don't you have anything civilized?"

"...No. That's...that's kind of the point."

"Oh...yeah...well, it's no big deal. I'll show you how to set up a mobile hotspot. The way you're set up, it won't cost you anything. So, you really lived your whole life as a monk?"

"As an initiate. I haven't actually taken vows or anything. But yeah, I lived my whole life as part of the sangha as far as I can remember. Like I said Master Jansen knew Oliver Queen, apparently helped him train during a spiritual crisis. He'd never tell me who actually dropped me off at the monastery though. But he told me who my dad was when I was around...I dunno six or seven, when I started asking questions. I was only one of two kids around and there weren't a ton of other mixed race monks or whatever anyway so I knew something was up. The other monks and the abbot thought it was a bad idea, but Master Jansen said it was my right."

"He sounds like a pretty cool guy."

"The coolest! Sometimes if I did well during meditation or archery practice he'd sneak me newspaper clippings talking about Green Arrow stuff. I used to hide them in my pillowcase and look at them in the early mornings before meditation."

"Hahaha aww! Tiny fanboy Connor! My heart!"

Connor grimaced, trying and failing to fight back more sincere embarrassment "Y'know you can always go back to fighting Brick's guys by yourself!"

"Nice try, but we both know now that you've been handing out your sandwiches for free, the bums at Avalon Park won't be giving you even a quarter of the info I can."

She was right, even if he was just kidding. Besides, it was nice to have a partner in all this. Kept the tension down when he was stuck waiting for hours. He couldn't afford to let his guard down too much, though. According to the reports Overwatch picked up over the dark web (whatever that was, it sounded bad) it was supposed to be some kind of earthquake machine he was going to use to level every part of Star City past Mid-Town so his gangs would have control over every part of the city instead of just the ones the police couldn't handle.

The docks belonged to China White and the Triads, so Brick shelling out the cash or favors needed to ship in whatever this was by sea definitely added weight to the reports.

It was a horrifying plan, but Connor couldn't help feeling a little excited too! His first real superhero scenario and a chance to save the city!

"Connor, they're moving out. They hitched a big white container straight from the ship to the back of some truck somehow and it looks like they're getting ready to head back. Four guys on motorcycles, one at each corner."

Alright, time to go.

---

No elegant, precisely coordinated plan this time.

Connor just positioned himself a little ways out from the dockyard and put a bunch of arrows into the truck tires.

At first he was expecting it to be dramatic. He had always assumed the pressurized air in the tires would explode and the truck would flip or spin out, so he was kind of hesitant to do it in case any of Brick's people got seriously hurt. But Overwatch reassured him, and as it turned out putting a broadhead through a big tire just kind of rapidly deflated it.

After that though, things got hectic.

Connor sprinted toward the convoy full out as a pair of motorcycle riders peeled off to take him, engines roaring. They were both wielding glinting metal in the dark, crowbars or lead pipes, no way to be sure. He *twanged* an arrow into the front wheel of the nearest rider and that guy did flip. As Connor watched, he went soaring through the air to land in a tumbling heap of limbs that'd probably make Connor throw up if he wasn't fighting for his life.

But the hesitation still cost him. Now the next rider was bearing down on him with his big metal club raised high, bike spewing exhaust fumes and snarling like a starving dragon while the headlight's glare burned his eyes.

He ran toward the danger and launched into a flying side kick. He'd really just meant to leap over the motorcycle to safety, but reflex and adrenaline carried him into the kick.

The jolt when his foot connected with the helmeted head midair would have shattered his foot if his form wasn't perfect. Instead the momentum carried the thug and Connor clear of the motorcycle and sent both crashing to the ground while the bike fell over riderless.

Connor scrambled onto hands and knees, searching for his bow in the dark. Not enough time, in his peripherals he could see one of the cyclists dismounted, aiming an assault rifle.

His hand found the club instead, a crowbar after all. He glanced up. No time to calculate, just whipped it end over end at the gun.

A dull thud and no gunshot told him he was still alive, and it bought him enough time to find his bow.

nock, draw, aim loose!

Two arrows *twanged* off the bowstring one after the other and pinned both gunmen to the trailer of the truck by a sleeve each as Connor rose from his crouch. He ran to close the gap as the one he hadn't apparently clocked in the face with a crowbar struggled out of his jacket. He got clear of it and pulled a switchblade just as Connor got close, and the two of them ended up circling, wary.

Connor was too distracted by the the blade to realize the other gunman had slipped free and joined in too. He only noticed when he felt a forearm snaking around his neck from behind for a choke right when the switchblade thug darted in to open his stomach.

He snatched the forearm away from his throat and whipped himself into a throw, sending one enemy thudding into the other. This was life or death, so he kicked both hard until they didn't get up, muttering apologies and mentally wincing while he did.

Movement out of the corner of his eye..the driver peering out from around the truck's door, the glint of gunmetal in the night.

*twang!**shnk!*

Putting arrows in gun barrels just kept getting easier.

But the driver started to get out of the truck...

"Oh c'mon! I just jump-kicked a man clear off a speeding motorcycle! I literally beat a guy over the head with another guy right in front of you! Can we just not! Please?! I'm so sick and tired of hurting people tonight!"

...The truck door slammed closed.

"ugh, freaking thank you!"

He took a calming breath, tried to center himself and walked toward the big shipping container hitched at the back. The one containing the doomsday device, the earthquake machine that'd destroy the city-

"Wait, you did what?!

"Overwatch, please. City to save, really long night.

"Fine but we're coming up with a way for me to see you doing this stuff next time."

Right, it was time to finish this. He reached to throw open the container door-

only for the whole metal door to smash right into him as it got torn off its mountings.

---

Connor's head was spinning even as he kicked the big hunk of scrap off of himself. He kipped up, swaying a little. The gaping truck trailer's insides were lit up with floodlights and a bunch of guys with heavy weapons were piling out of the container instead of a doomsday machine and...

...forming up behind the biggest, scariest looking guy Connor had ever seen. Maybe seven feet tall, so wide he practically had to squeeze through a door that could fit like three guys. Of course, he had white dreads and reddish-brown stone instead of skin, but that was like, the least terrifying thing about him.

Connor knocked an arrow and drew on him out of pure desperation and a whole crowd of gunmen leveled bigger-than-his-arm guns at him in response.

Before anyone could fire, Brick held a hand out and spoke up, smirking.

"So, you're the little bitch who thinks he can play hero and mess with my business? A tiny green punk actin' like he's never seen a trap before?"

He turned his back on Connor to address his hitsquad, not even caring about the arrow pointed at him. Connor's draw-hand was trembling a little, despite his best efforts. Things were looking bad.

"You should all be fuckin' ashamed of yourselves! He's wearing a goddamned Halloween costume and I can't even tell if he's too old for it! You know how bad it makes me look to hafta take care of this myself!?"

He backhanded the nearest thug hard enough that Connor was sure the man was dead, then turned back to regard the young vigilante as if nothing had happened.

"Guns down boys. Kill him if he tries to run, but I want him to know just how fucked he is, before the end."

"GA? GA, what are you going to do?"

Connor didn't answer. He didn't have any answers to give.

"C'mon now, boy. Let's see 'em. Show me them ninja moves that have my best guys wettin' themselves."

Connor slung his bow, stowed the arrow. He charged brick, wound up a big roundhouse kick that he knew could shatter trees...

and screamed in agony when his leg became one giant bruise. He recovered quick, blocked out the pain, but Brick barely moved an inch.

"Ha! Come on! You can hit harder than that! You can't take this city from me with one weak kick!"

Connor launched into his attacks one after another all in the blink of an eye...

Right palm strike, face.

Front left elbow thrust, solar plexus.

Spinning right side forearm strike, floating ribs.

Muay Thai Flying Knee, face.

...But by the end of it Connor was the only one bleeding and defeated. Brick actually caught him at the end of the flying knee, a hand bigger than Connor's whole head wrapped around his neck surprisingly fast. Choking off his air as he looked at Connor, almost pitying

"Don't feel too bad Baby Arrow. I fought the real deal before, and truth is you hit harder than he does. But you're dumber than he is too, or maybe just less experienced. Either way, you're gonna pay for it tonight."

Connor struggled hard. He kicked, tried to pry the stony fingers off his neck, fought for air, but it was no good.

"Connor?....Connor!"

He squeezed his eyes shut, drifting off into the abyss.

T H E H O M E O F H A N K P Y M & J A N E T V A N D Y N E

---

^{Present Day | Manhattan, New York}

Ted had woken up alone and fully dressed on his hotel bed after a night of drunken debauchery on the town in New York city with his good friend. A night which involved a lot of drunkenness, but minimal actual debauchery. None, if you’re looking for an exact number. His head had a dull ache and his mouth had been so full of fur he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t been licking rats.

It had been 5 AM and Ted had decided he could probably have a quick shower and then still have had enough time to walk to Hank and Jan’s complex. A brisk walk in the cool Manhattan morning air would probably be the best thing for his hangover, and he wasn’t wrong. Getting out of the shower he started to put on a shirt, before he remembered the tone of Hank’s original messages. He sighed, unbuttoned his shirt, before he went to his bag and took out his Blue Beetle suit, putting it on before he got dressed in a full suit over the top, just in case it took too much of his time prior to the Expo.

He had stepped out into the chill and immediately felt thankful for the added thermal layer of his other suit, before walking swiftly towards his friend’s home. He remembered the first time he’d been to the complex. “The complex” was the only suitable description for the place. The living quarters were in complete service the laboratory, almost as if to be an afterthought. And a less kind person than Ted might suggest that it was far from the only complex that Hank Pym had…

Last time Ted was here he had stayed a little late on Jan’s request. He could tell they seldom entertained, and she was clearly enjoying the fact that they had a visitor Hank actually liked and kept him sociable and out of the lab for a few extra hours of the day. Ted had gone to use the bathroom and sent his father a quick message that he wouldn’t be stopping over that night, because he’d been held up in New York. After washing his hands he’d passed Hank, and the squirrely blonde man jumped and made an expression like he’d just been caught.

He was struggling with the cap off a bottle of pills.

Ted had said “Do you need any help with that?” And that had only triggered more fear in Hank. He’d held the pill bottle behind him, as if to try and hide what Ted had clearly already seen.

“C’mon. I’ll open it for you.”

Hank had gone non-verbal from a massive anxiety spike, and held a clenched fist to the side of his head. He held the bottle out, almost in surrender. The fear on his face was palpable. Ted tried to break the tension with a joke.

“You’ve got a prescription for this, right? I’m not aiding and abetting you in using crank, or whizz, or fizz… Hank?”

Hank was still on a razor’s edge, but he seemed to be able to verbalize again, albeit in a limited capacity.

“Fizz..?”

“Yeah, you know how it is, Hank. All these kids out there these days… All hopped out of their gourds on... Fizz.” Ted smiled, with humour in his voice.

“No-- I-- I have got a prescription. PrescriptionS.”

“Well, good. You go get yourself some water, and I’ll crack this open for you.”

“Ok-- Okay.”

“People need pills, buddy. I’ll never think less of you for taking stuff you’ve got to take.”

Hank walked away to go and get himself a cup of water, whilst Ted looked down at the bottle. He applied the pressure to beat the childproofing and twisted the top off. He left the bottle of Lithium capsules on the counter and turned around.

Jan had been looking at him with a smile.



Ted got to the complex at 6:50 and waited out the front for a while. Hank had a thing about punctuality and tended to make a point of it if you arrived early or late when there was an agreed upon time. It was generally a lost cause to try and make it on the dot with whatever Hank’s own clock said the time was, but remembering the tone of the messages Ted decided to at least make a concerted effort to not start things off by agitating him.

A few minutes later he hit the buzzer.

“Hank, it’s Ted. I’m here.”

“It’s 6:58. I wasn’t-- Wasn’t expecting you until 7.”

“That’s OK. It’ll take me two minutes to make it up the driveway.”

“You’re early.” He said. Ted could hear some faint fast tapping in the background, before Hank shut the intercom off and buzzed him in, not expecting a response. So much for keeping him from being agitated, Ted thought as he pushed through the front gate. Ted took the opportunity to reset his watch to “Hank-Time” as he started the long walk.

Ted got to the front door and knocked.

The door suddenly burst open, taking Kord slightly by surprise, as his friend rushed through and hugged him.

“Whoa, Hey Hank. How’re you going?”

“Good. Good-good-good.” Hank said. “And it's good to see you, Ted. Thanks for coming.”

“That’s alright. Can we get off your porch though?”

“Oh. Sure. Sure-sure. Come on in. You want chai? Coffee? Soup? Ovaltine?”

The pair went inside and closed the door.

“Not… just yet. How’s things? You sounded like you had a problem. Where’s Jan?”

“Problem? Ah. Need help. Yes-yes. Sure.”

“And Jan?”

“Gone to work. Part of the problem.”

“Part of the problem? Oh shit. What have I got myself into..?” Ted thought to himself, thinking the Blue Beetle suit probably couldn’t help with… whatever the hell this problem was.

“I’m trying to fix everything. I’ve done it, but she’s bee-- She’s been touching my stuff. Can’t work. Chaos.”

“Chaos?”

“Things have been moving. Disappearing. Can’t work. I need my things-- I need everything where I put it. I HAVE A SYSTEM.” Suddenly he spoke considerably louder. Not yelling at anyone, or with a sense of outrage. Just louder. As if he were emphasising a point, but without the change in cadence that would normally join it.

“OK, Hank. You have a system. First thing’s first though, I have to use your bathroom. It’s been pretty cold out there, you understand?”

“Oh. Ok. Sure-sure-sure. I’ll be here. Want anything while you’re gone? Chai? Coffee--”

“No, Hank. Just the bathroom for now. Then we’ll see what we can do. ...With all of this.”

Ted walked down the hall to the bathroom. He locked the door behind him, sat on the seat and whipped his phone out. Firing a message to Jan.

“Is everything OK with you and Hank? He asked me to come here yesterday. I’m here now and he looks like he’s off his meds, he’s blaming you for wrecking his work. He said you’ve gone to work. Is everything alright?”

He hit send. Decided he did actually need to use the toilet, got off the seat and flipped the lid. He rocked his head back, which still had the dull ache and nausea of his hangover, and let the stream flow with his eyes shut. He got startled by the sound of the Star Trek intercom whistle and lost control of his stream somewhat, swearing in the process. He re-gathered himself, finished and dried off the splash zone, before pulling his phone out and seeing what Jan had to say.



He cursed again at himself and the situation for making a mess over an unnecessary message. He quickly set his phone to vibrate and waited. He closed the lid and went to press the flush, before deciding to hold off in case Hank heard it and assumed he was done. He turned and sat down. Suddenly the phone erupted and he hit the button to receive.

“Hi.” He whispered.

“Hello. Where are you?”

“Bathroom.” Ted mumbled quietly.

“OK, well, he’s bee--”

“Ted, are you alright in there?” Hank suddenly asked from the other side of the door.

“Uh… Yeah. I’m OK. Kind of made a little bit of a mess.” He answered honestly.

“...you know how you asked me before if I wanted anything?”

“Yes. Chai? Coff--”

“Maybe we could have breakfast together. 7 o’ clock was pretty early, I didn’t grab anything to eat at the hotel before I left.”

There was an uncomfortable pause for a few seconds whilst Hank considered this.

“Hotel?”

“Yeah. For the Expo. All the plans get organized in advance through the company. I’ve been staying at a pretty fancy place uptown. But I didn’t leave myself enough time to get anything to eat before I came here.”

The pause was much shorter this time.

“Ah. OK. Cereal?”

“Ah, no!” Ted quickly responded. “Have you got any bacon and eggs?” Ted quickly started to scramble thinking for breakfast items that would take longer to cook and keep him busy during the phone call. “And waffles? Maybe some french toast if you don’t have waffles?”

Hank considered this. “Is that-- is it usual for that? I thought it was only customary to offer tea or coffee or some kind of beverage.”

“Well, we’re pretty close friends, Hank. And I haven’t had breakfast this morning… and you keep yourself pretty busy in that lab, so I’m assuming you haven’t had breakfast either…”

“I haven’t had breakfast either. I don’t often ha--”

“Yeah, see. We’re close good friends, and neither of us have had breakfast yet. Social norms that’s pretty regular. Above board and usual. All of that.”

“Hmm!” Hank replied, somewhat pleased, having formed a new conclusion about his understood social norms. “Ok. I think we have eggs. Probably bacon. I don’t know about waffles…”

“If there’s no waffles, that’s ok!” Ted called back. “You know how to make french toast?” Ted called back, trying to make sure Hank wouldn’t return to inform him of the household’s groceries list.

“Uhh…” Hank pondered, reluctant to try something new and foreign.

“French toast is easy. You crack some eggs. Whisk them all together. Dip bread in the egg on both sides and fry it. I’ll sort out everything in here, and then I’ll see how you’re going in the kitchen, yeah?”

“OK. Bread in eggs, fried, if no waffles. Sounds easy enough. I’ll get started.”

“OK, Hank! Catch you in a bit!” Ted yelled as he heard Hank walking away from the door.

Ted leaned into his phone with his eyes shut. None of this was comfortable.

“Are you there?”

“Yes. As I was saying, he’s been off the rails lately. I was going to suggest you go home. He often gets a bit obsessed when he’s working on something really big, but I’ve never seen him like this before. He won’t take his medication. He lashes out sometimes.”

“He-- he hasn’t hit you, has he?”

“No, no. Verbally. He’s never done anything like that. He’s only just been off his pills recently…” Ted nodded, as if she could see him. “...I feel guilty. I’ve been leaving earlier for work, because I don’t really know what to do. But at the same time, he’s off his pills and…”

“...and you know he probably shouldn’t be left alone off his meds. So, guilt. I get it. Alright. Well, how far away are you?”

“I can be home in about 30 minutes.” Ted heard her sniff. He suspected she had been crying over this, if not over the past few days, then at least was fighting it off now.

“Well, I’m going to try and get him to take his pills. And then, if I know Hank he’s probably gone into overdrive and made more bacon, eggs and french toast than he and I could possibly eat between the two of us…” Jan chuckled on her end of the line. “...and we’ll all have breakfast and talk this thing out. And it won’t just be you then. OK?”

“OK, Ted. Thanks.”

“Good.” He replied.

“Oh and Ted…”

“Yes?”

“Mr Clean is under the sink. Please don’t leave my bathroom a mess.” He could hear her smiling as she hung up.

Ted looked down at his phone.





“Hey Hank! All sorted in there. How’s everything going in here?”

Ted walked in the kitchen and realized he should probably have told Hank how he likes his eggs. There was a plate waiting loaded with eggs every which way but loose, and an empty carton which previously held 18. He was working on the bacon now, and had a loaf of bread on standby for when he finished this task. Like the eggs, the bacon was being cooked and organized in various levels of crispiness.

“Buddy, we’ll just set this to simmer, and you can go take your pills for the morning.” Ted said, turning down the burner.

Hank furrowed his brow.

“I don’t know. They-- they make things dull and fuzzy. They hurt my work.”

“Well, at the moment your work seems to be cooking all of the bacon, eggs and toast on Earth… so I think we could probably stand to shift down a gear.”

Hank thought about this.

“Besides, since I’ve gotten here you’ve been speaking a mile a minute. What’s going to help you more. Having to explain everything to me 4 or 5 times because I can’t keep up, or your pills? You’ve done fantastic work on your pills in the past. And you wanted me here, so you clearly want me to hear something.”

“You’re right.” Hank agreed. “Don’t-- don’t start on the french toast without me.”

“I won’t. I’ll just finish the bacon, then I’ll wait for you. You said you’ve never made it before. You take your meds and we’ll both make the french toast. It’ll take a while for the pan to heat up again, anyway.”



The pair put the fourth slice of french toast that passed Hank’s “golden brown” metric on the plate…

...which made for 14 slices of french toast total.

“So we’re done!” Ted exclaimed, as Hank smiled. They carried the plates over to the table just as Jan got home. Hank stopped and looked at her.

“Hi, Hank. I told work I’d be taking a home day. It’s my name on the door, they can last a day without me.”

“Ha!” Ted chimed in. “I say the same thing.”

“You called her.” Hank said, his face screwed up in displeasure.

“I did. No way we can eat all of this alone--”

“Don’t.” Hank cut him short. “You called her before we finished. The time doesn’t work out otherwise.” He exhaled quickly through his nose, realising he’d figured it out. “From the bathroom. You never made a mess in there at all.”

“Actually, I did.” He said to Hank, before turning to Janet. “Again… sorry, but yeah, the Mr Clean did the trick…” Back to Hank. “But yes, I called her from the bathroom.”

“Why?” He glowered.

“Because you’re my friend and I worry about you, and I figured if I was worried then Jan probably would be too.”

“I have been worried too, Hank.”

Hank stood sullen, before Ted broke the silence.

“Anyway, the food’s going cold. Can we eat and talk?” He pulled out a chair for himself.



The three sat eating and talking. Ted and Janet had been explaining their concerns to Hank, who mostly ate and listened.

“You get more and more obsessed on your work, and it’s a cycle, Hank. You start, then the obsession builds, then everything else comes second, then you miss your pills for a cycle because you’re so busy, then you decide your pills make it harder to do the work so you stop taking them, and then you become someone else. And someone who it’s very hard to live with, Hank.”

“Well, I finished now…” Hank justified.

“You finished?” Ted interrupted. “Wait, you actually finished. You ‘fixed everything’?”

“Yes. That’s what I was telling you before. I was up all night last night working, and I did it. I fixed everything.”

“What exactly do you mean, ‘fixed everything’?”

“The answer to everything. Poverty, hunger, shortage. Resource shortages. Probably greenhouse gas emissions too, with carbon trading probably even better than my nanite clouds to repair the upper atmosphere.”

“But… how?”

“Come look.” Hank said. The three got up from their table and walked to Hank’s lab.

Hank’s laboratory overwhelmed the complex, it was a brief walk through the living quarters and took up the vast bulk of the grounds. The trio were soon there, looking at Hank’s recent works.

“I worked all night, but finally I finished. The first four samples. Some testing is still required, but the mathematics checks out, Ted. And you know what it means when my math is sound…”

Hank put a helmet on and activated it.

“I took extra care with protecting my work, since Jan has been moving my stuff.” He said sullenly. Soon a slow moving stream of ants crawled out from a colony set in a transparent ant-farm wall and traversed the floor, going under a large set of shelves on the other side of the room.

“What in the name of..?”

“It’s the helmet. My own design.” Hank said, as if it were enough to explain what they were seeing.

“You can talk to ants?”

“Talk? No. Ants lives are not such that we could really comprehend. They communicate various basic commands via pheromones. Go here. Food. Predator. Rival colony. Dead to be removed…”

“Pheromones…” Ted muttered to himself, but apparently too loudly.

“Well, yes. But that would be too complex. We don’t understand scent that well as a species, Ted. What the helmet ACTUALLY does is tap into the electromagnetic wavelength that the ants sensors utilize and send messages to their major nerve center. Cut out the middleman. Forget scent, pheromones and chemical sensor readings. Straight to command.”

“So no, Ted. I can’t talk to ants. I command them. With the helmet.”

“This is amazing in and of itself, Hank!”

“Is it?” He asked, swivelling back in his chair again. “It has very limited practical use, I’d have thought. But it does come in handy when working with small tech… or hiding my recent work.”

The ants returned bringing back a test tube rack that barely fit under the shelves with three vials inside.

“There! She’s been touching my stuff again!” Hank cried. “What did I tell you! There’s supposed to be FOUR!”

“Me?! But how? I didn’t even know it was there.”

“I don’t think this was Jan, Hank. You just said it yourself before. You’ve been working all nighters, and Jan’s been leaving early for work. There wouldn’t have been any time between when you finished and she left.”

“But wh--”

“Lang.” Jan said, looking at Hank. “I know you’re not going to want to believe it Hank, but this has to have been Scott.”

“Who’s that?”

“We hire cleaners through Red Ant, but Hank likes to stick with people he knows. He met Scott and he always seemed like a very nice guy. But he did have a past. His background check did reveal a criminal record and he has served time for burglary.”

“Scott..?” Hank said glumly.

“Well, we probably can’t do anything about him right now, unless he’s at a Red Ant facility..?” Ted supposed, “No, the complex is a special separate assignment. We wouldn’t see him again until his next shift.”

“That’s what I thought. But what we can do is find out if what he stole is likely to work, or if it’s potentially dangerous. How exactly does it work, Hank?”

“The-- they’re a new particle I discovered, which are capable of traversing between dimensions and carting mass. Using these I should potentially be able to grow - or hypothetically shrink - different objects by increasing or decreasing the space within molecules and shunting missing or surplus matter across dimensional lines as required.”

“Hank… that sounds a lot like you’re telling me that you can grow and shrink virtually any object infinitely or infinitesimally” Ted said, rubbing his head, “--which I would tell you is impossible and insane if it weren’t for the fact that you had what you claim is the means to doing just that brought to you by ants that you can apparently talk to.”

“Comm--”

“‘Command’, yes Hank. I’ve got that. Thank you.”

“Well, I guess we have to test it on something. Any ideas?” Janet asked.

“I think we have to jump straight for the worst case scenario.” Said Ted. “Organic material. What if he uses it on himself? So who else says we get to making some bigass bacon? I’ll go get the plate…” Ted went back to the kitchen and left the husband and wife alone together.

Hank looked down at his shoes. “I’m sorry I blamed you for touching my stuff.”

“It’s more than that, Hank. You scare me when you get like that. I get scared because I don’t know what you’re going to do. I get scared because I don’t know if you could do something so bad that I wouldn’t love you anymore. And I get scared because of the thought that something could happen that might make me not love you anymore. I need you to take your medication. Everything else, we’ll be able to get though. But when you don’t, you get-- you wind up in places where I worry I can’t even reach you.”

“Ok. You’re right. I’ll-- I’ll make sure I take my meds. In fact--” Hank smiled. “In fact, I think I might start working on something, something that I think might be able to help me with keeping organised and on top of things like that...”

“Ok. Humongous ham, bigass bacon, prodigious prosciutto, Comin’ right up!” Ted said, as he returned with the plate of bacon.

“You already used ‘Bigass bacon’.”

“Well, I’m proud of that one…” Ted replied. “Now where do you want this?”

“I’ll have that.” Hank said, taking the plate and setting it down near a large device.

“This is a particle projector. It’s one of a few devices I created to infuse the particles into an object…” He said to Ted, pushing in a vial of his special particles, before sneaking Jan a worried look.

“‘A particle’… ‘The particles’. I think it’s about time we stopped pulling punches and name them what they are Hank. Pym Particles. After their discoverer. The alliteration alone makes it...”

“Scien--”

“‘Science is it’s own reward’. ‘We don’t get into science for the honours and naming rights, but to further the quality of’ blahblahblah I’ve heard you say it all before Hank. This may be the single most important discovery in human history. It may end hunger and poverty in our lifetime. So let’s stop mincing words and project those Pym Particles already, Hank!”

Hank Pym’s cheeks flushed a deep shade of red, and he shrank beneath the console, figuratively. He flicked the power switch and waited for it to warm up. A few seconds later a light on a button glowed green. It was ready for use.

“Wait…” Halted Ted. “This is the time, where somebody here should probably say something profound, and of significant weight to match the moment’s importance in scientific history… However I can think of no such words that could possibly be equal to the boon for mankind that is making bacon more plentiful.”

Jan smiled, but rolled her eyes.

Hank poked his blonde head around the console. “Can I go now?”

“Absolutely.”

T H E H O M E O F H A N K P Y M & J A N E T V A N D Y N E

---

^{Present Day, Midday | Manhattan, New York}

The bacon was indeed bigass. And preliminary testing was looking good so far. The bacon’s molecular structure appeared to by stable. Hank had said, there were theories out there where attempting to shrink or grow an object beyond its normal capabilities would likely render that object unstable and liable to explosion. But as he suspected the use of Pym Particles - a name he was still loathe to use himself, despite Ted’s continued pressing - seemed to prevent that instability. The theory being that similar matter that would make up the bacon was being diffused from across dimensional lines and had been infused in the now much larger bacon, allowing for its continued stability.

Or something like that. It was all very new to Ted and the science may as well have been magic, as far as Ted’s limited grasp of the new fields in particle physics that had just been birthed on this very day went.

“Should probably make sure he gets some sleep.” Ted suggested to Janet.

“I will.” She said. “I’ll let him at least set up his larger tests, and then I’ll tell him to get some sleep. Once there’s not so much for him to do but wait for the results. You know Hank…”

“Yeah. I know Hank.”

The two were sitting in the living room with the television on, whilst Hank was hard at work in his lab, running a full battery of tests.

“So, do you think Hank will be alright?”

“As alright as we both can expect.” Janet grinned. “Thanks for coming and doing this.”

“You know, if you’re ever need help like this, you BOTH have my details.” Ted replied.

“I know. I just-- Things like this feel like they should be our problem. I didn’t want to go dragging our friends in.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better about any of this, consider me family, and drag me into this kind of stuff. Kicking and screaming like the annoying little brother if necessary.”

“OK. But you’ve no idea what you’re in for. How long are you in the city for?”

“Well, the Expo’s on tonight but-- Wait, is that Stark? Turn this up.”

Janet had the TV on an Entertainment News channel, Tony Stark was making a red carpet styled appearance, with jaw-droppingly stunning women on either shoulder, as he spoke to the interviewer looking debonair with perfectly manicured facial hair and wearing a full tuxedo.

“Are you kidding me?! He’s wearing a tux like it’s a Gala Ball to a goddamn Expo? Well, that’s that I suppose. I can’t pull of a tux at an Expo. At least I don’t have to worry about competing for style anymore, he’s blown me out of the water before I’ve even shown up.”

Jan turned to Ted. “Did I really just hear the C.E.O of Kord Omniversal say he couldn’t compete with Stark and was planning to give up without even trying? Ted, I’m stunned. What would your shareholders say?” She said, feigning shock. “Besides, you now happen to be family with one of the most stylish fashion designers and models in New York City, and therefore the world. And SHE is saying you absolutely could pull off a tux at an Expo!”

“Hey, that’s right! You are big in fashion, maybe you can help me!” Ted replied. “Can you find me three of your model friends who could blow those two he’s standing next to out of the water?”

Jan hit him. Repeatedly.

“No, you jackass. But what I can do is get you fitted for an even better tux and put you through to someone who can maybe do something about that hair.”

“So I’m not going to get a JVD original tux?”

“I can’t say I make too many tuxedos in high women’s fashion. But…” she turned around and grabbed her purse, flicking through the pockets for a specific business card. “...these guys DO owe me a favour, and they’re the best in town. They’d probably also take it as something of a challenge.”

“Oh come on, the hair wasn’t enough of a dig?!”

“I meant, to out-big Tony Stark on this kind of stage at late notice…”

“Yeah… nice save.”

“I thought so too.” Janet smirked. “I’ll measure you up here. You give them the figures, they’ll sort you out free of charge.”

“Wait, what?”

“Get up and spread ‘em.”

“You’re being very forward with new family members and I don’t know that I’m feeling very comfortable with this…” Ted laughed, and stayed seated.

“Or is it because you’re wearing the suit underneath?”

Ted sat slack-jawed.

“I’m in fashion, Ted. I can tell when someone’s wearing something thick under a business suit. It’s affecting the way it sits. Beyond which, you’ve flashed it through your sleeve a few times today already. Can I see it?”

“How did--?”

“I’ll level with you. It wasn’t all me, Ted. Hank actually noticed that Blue Beetle character in Boston was using your tech. He keeps an eye on the new products your company announces they’re working on out of interest. I just put the pieces together to get that it was you. I think it’s good, what you’re doing. Adventurous, bold, brave, whatever… honestly, it looks fun. So whip off your suit and let’s see it.”

“Hank knows?” Ted asked.

“He knows. He’s my husband. No secrets and all of that. But he’s the only one.”

Ted sighed, reluctantly flipped his tie over his shoulder and undid a few of his shirt buttons, revealing the Blue Beetle suit underneath.

“Oh you know how to tease a girl! Barely giving her a glimpse!”

Ted did his buttons back up, only offering a glare to her mock whoops of delight.

“Is there any chance at all I could be fitted for this tux without them knowing? Maybe we take the measurements here and I just pick it up from there?”

She pulled a tape measure from her purse, and her eyes flashed. “When I’m finished with you Ted, nobody's going to know a thing.”