He awoke with a start.

His breath seemed to catch in his throat. He bolted upright, head on a swivel, as the environment around him was alien. All around him were smooth, reflective surfaces. The light seemingly diffused as if through crystal.

This was not the Buddhist Monastery.

Shifting his legs, the boy slid down from the slab on which he had awoken. As he got his feet under him, he looked back and saw that the bed upon which he had been lying was an altar or table. Simple in form, but it glowed -- as though it were made of light itself.

As if to confirm the ethereal nature of that construction, the table of light seemed to flicker and dissolve. Sticking a hand out, the boy’s hand pawed at where, just a moment ago, a solid object had been there.

...and was then struck at the fact that his hand was in some kind of white glove. Looking over himself, the boy marveled at the fact that his body was clothed in something different from anything he had ever worn before. The gloves and boots were white, with the arms and legs black and the torso green. A circle on the chest seemed to contain a sigil or rune of some kind.

Glancing up, the boy caught his reflection in the crystalline walls of the spartan room. The logo on the chest seemed to stare back at him.

Had he... seen that symbol before?

“Do you remember how you got here?”

A voice.

...but, it wasn’t a voice?

Turning to his left, then circling around to his right, the child did a complete circle. His eyes scanned the room and found only his reflection staring back at him no matter which way he turned. The only other object was a...

...a plant?

Craning his head to one side, the child took a step closer to look at it. It was a pumpkin? On a vine? Did pumpkins grow on vines?

Being from the mountain of Tibet, he’d only seen them in photographs.

But, something in the back of his mind seemed to recognize that he was not alone. “Kham sang?” the child uttered, the Tibetan leaving his lips even before he could have stopped it. Then, he remembered, there had been police.

Was this a Chinese interrogation room? Switching to Mandarin, the boy then offered, “Ni hão?”

“I believe the polite phrase is ‘tashi dalek.’’”

It was as though Kai-Ro was wearing headphones. The voice seemed to speak directly into his head. Almost instinctively, the boy’s hands came up to either side of his head, as though to confirm that he wasn’t wearing ear buds.

At the same time, it confirmed the feeling that he was not alone.

“Yes,” the voice said, though Kai-Ro heard it in perfect Tibetan. “I am in this room with you.”

The boy’s head started to turn, before he instead stared down at the pumpkin-vine. His mind was wrestling with a question, which seemed to come to a singular conclusion.

“Good,” the voice uttered inside his mind. As it spoke, the pumpkin and its vines shifted, as the plant raised itself up in the air.

It drifted forward, toward him.

Kai-Ro took a step back, away from it.

“You accept the reality that there are things which exist, even if you do not know of them,” the voice in his head remarked, as the vines seemed to undulate and curl in mid-air. “Now, do you remember how you got here?”

“There was a light,” the boy recalled aloud. Pausing there, his eyes darted from side to side, as though he were questioning his memory even as he recalled, “...and a... ring?” Had that been where he’d seen this symbol before? “And... and I was flying?”

“Flying where?”

The boy pursed his lips. He opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to doubt himself. “There was all this black... and stars..?”

“It seems impossible doesn’t it?” the pumpkin-vine-being spoke inside the boy’s head. “And yet, you know that you are no longer on your planet.”

The boy’s head craned up sharply as the suggestion cut straight to the well of doubt that he had been wrestling subconsciously with. “This is another...” he began, stopping himself before he could say something...

...well, frankly, something stupid.

The fact that he was talking to a plant seemed to throw that notion out the window though. “...another world?” he uttered finally, the intonation making clear that it was as much a question as it had been a realization.

“This is Oa,” the voice stated, before adding, “Which is different than the planet that I am from. Like you, I was chosen by a ring and brought here.”

“Chosen,” the boy echoed, as the word seemed to resonate. Taken aback for a moment, the boy seemed to hesitate for several seconds of awkward silence before he finally asked, “Chosen for what?”

“That, my young monk, is the right question.”

_{Location: Central American Monorails}

Post #1.01: Proposals I

---

"Rose Irene Forrest, will you marry me?"

Standing on his knee on the floor of the train. They were in first-class, the train heading towards Gotham City. They were currently somewhere outside of New York. The trip was supposed to be for business. Alan was going to Gotham to work for the broadcasting company, working on the 6G-masts that would bring on a revolution of communication. Rose tagged along to go see her parents in Gotham, at least that was what Alan convinced her to do.

The blonde man was sweating, his pulse was beating in his ears and his hands were a little shaky. Rachel had known him as the most confident and headstrong man in the world, and seeing him this scared to ask her to marry him was perhaps the most surprising thing of all.

The coming six seconds of anguish and uncertainty, of hope and love were perhaps the longest in Alan’s life. She looked at him in shock first, and then her face cracked into a smile, and he felt his heart burst with joy. His stomach fluttering like butterflies and a big-dumb-grin on his face as he said the best three-letter word in the English language.

“Yes.” Tears falling down her face as she hugged him. Putting the golden ring onto her hand, the ring Alan had gotten from his mom after his father had died. They kissed and all seemed well. The passengers that overheard them cheered them on and Alan ordered a bottle of champagne for the two of them. This was the best day of Alan Scott’s life. The train was reaching the bridge, that lead into the Gotham Tunnel, making them about 40 minutes from their destination.

That’s when he heard it. The brakes of the train failing, followed by the ear-shattering explosion in the Train’s front, echoing all of the way to the very back of the train, where they were seated.

The coming nineteen seconds of carnage were among the longest in Alan Scott’s life. The train car in front had derailed, and the rest of the train followed suit, getting off the rails, down the gap between the two cliffs, where the bridge they were travelling on had been a minute ago. Falling into the great empty. Alan saw the cart ahead of them fall, and with it, things started getting blurry. Time slowed down. Yet, his memory would fail him here. Their train cart would hang over the edge, as he and Rose were recovering from the hit. Screams, cries and the foul smell of fire - people burning - tinted the air. His pulse was fast, his heartbeat heavy. His head had hit the window, and Rose had broken her right hand. Alan got up, and walked towards Rose, lifting her up, to try and get out of the train cart, to the one behind them.

Another explosion, this time right behind them, split the cart in two, leaving Alan on his stomach, hanging off the ledge. Holding Rose by her hand, her body danging down into the ravine, nothing but a maw of flames below her. He held on to her, but their grips were slipping. First by the wrist, her nails digging into his, then he slipped,holding her by the hand. Rose mouthed the greatest three worded sentence in any language, as Alan's hand slipped, holding her by the ring on the finger, only thing giving him enough texture to grip on.

"Hold on!" He shouted, his other hand trying to grip after her, but as he shifted, she slipped out of the ring. His other hand chasing after her, but it wasn't enough. He watched her fall into the flames, leaving only the golden ring in his hands, tears streaming down his face and a yell so loud he couldn't even hear it escaped his lungs.

But then it all faded to black...

_{On the Road Again in Texas - Present Day}

Issue 1.01.02: Stagecoach

---

_{Interaction(s): None}

Previously: Issue 1.01.01: Taste of Violence

The van continued to speed down the lonely highway, fields flanking the left and right of the two outlaws. Jason was behind the wheel, his foot pressed firm on the gas. The only people who lived out in these parts were farm workers, and none of them cared much about some shitty van careening down the road. Of course, those farm workers were certainly a ways off the road. Especially as the sun was lowering down over the horizon. The two men in the van remained almost deadly silent, until a strange noise could be heard from the engine. It was a slight rattling, and as Jason looked at the dash, the string of swears he listed were rather crude and specific. All the while, he pulled the steadily drifting van over to the side of the road as it began its natural slowdown to a complete stop. Jason seemed to calm down for a moment as he sat there with his eyes closed and his hands firmly grasping the steering wheel.

"Fuck."

Roy raised his eyebrows, his amused and cocky grin evident by his smug tone that began boiling a rage inside of Jason's chest. "What?"

Jason grunted out through gritted teeth, "We're out of gas."

Roy gave a slow nod, his hands rising to begin a very painstakingly drawn out clap. "Good job, Jason. I told you-"

"Don't you fucking-"






Jason practically ripped open the door of the van as he fumbled to quickly get out of his seat belt in his frenzy of rage. He slammed the van door shut, it not properly shutting as he heard the frustrating sound of the seat belt getting caught in the way. So, Jason did the logical and polite thing: he opened the driver's side door again, flicked the seat belt back into the interior of the car, and then continued to slam and bash the van door open and closed as he screamed an incoherent and soul-wrenching wail. After an uncomfortably long time spent indulging his anger, Jason finally stopped himself mid slam to gently close the door and walk around to the back of the van, where Roy was sitting in the open bay doors with a sport's drink in hand and a cooler. Roy lifted the drink from his lips and motioned it towards Jason, who quietly nodded. The red-haired outlaw wordlessly opened up the cooler and handed his friend a drink, and the two sat there quietly for a minute. Unsurprisingly, Roy was the first to break the silence.

"So do you want to talk about-"

"Nope."

Roy nodded for a moment up and down, making a clicking noise with his tongue. "Didn't think so."

After an awkward moment of silence, Jason sighed. "My last mission went sideways. Some dude in a red mask beat me into a coma... last thing I remember him saying was something about... Vertigo."

Roy tilts his head for a moment, raising an eyebrow. "Vertigo... You afraid of heights or something?"

Jason shot an annoyed glare to his partner. "I halo jumped to infiltrate Ducal while you sat on your ass covering a mountain pass in the Urals. Do you really think I have vertigo?"

Roy sighs, shaking his head. "Hey, I'm just checking. I don't know what it means either."

The two stared out at the rapidly darkening sky. They didn't have much time until they were left on a fairly deserted road in the middle of farm country with no clear sign of traffic passing by. So, Roy finished up his drink and placed the plastic bottle in a small recycling bag mounted on the inside of the van. Roy looked out over his current home: The left wall of the van when looking in from the back had a pull down bed that, while uncomfortable, would allow for two people to sleep there. The ceiling contained a strange metal contraption that acted as a sort of picnic table with benches. The right wall contained metal cabinets that were locked up fairly tight. While a normal eye wouldn't expect them to be super special, Jason was able to identify the metal as heavy armor plating: the kind of stuff you use on a tank, not a van. Hell, the more Jason looked over the van in his few hours being a passenger in it, the "defensive durability" was more clear. The entire van was covered in the same durable plating, and the tires were the same kind of blow-out resistant tires that Team 7 used on their vehicles. This van wasn't just some hippie van that Roy was living out of: it was a compact mobile fortress. Roy packed up the cooler, climbed into the back of the van to talk towards the front cab, and looked back to Jason. "It's cozy, but it's somewhere to stay for the night. We can figure out our plan in the morning."

"Fine. But no spooning."

_{Location: Central American Monorails}

Post #1.02: Proposals II

---

He was back on the train, as if the last five minutes hadn't happened. As if Rose wasn't gone, and as if he wasn't about to be turned into a charred piece of meat from the spreading fire. Yet, the train was different. It was moving, sure. But it was... Different. Diffused. Strange, almost as if it was lacking it's color and... Well, to be frank, it's life. The train felt grey. He peered out of the window, and he could tell that they were passing things, but he couldn't make out what they were passing. Like a hazy dream. He looked to the passengers, to Rose's seat, thinking he had been dreaming.

Empty.

He thought he could hear people talking, but once he shifted his focus towards it, all he found as silence and emptiness.

"Hello?" Alan's voice rang out, standing up. "Where is everyone?" His words fell on deaf ears. Changing his question, he found a more suitable one. "Where am I?" He walked the train, from the train he was in, towards the front. Crossing over to the next cart, he was met with the same view. And empty, quiet cart. No melody playing, no chugging of the rails. It was all quiet, numb, even. He turned his head to look into the baggage area in this cart, it was where he and Rose had put their stuff. The bags were gone, but in the peripheral view of his eye, he could see a man. One dressed in blue and gold. But as his eyes chased him, trying to see him, he was gone. As if he had never been there to begin with.
"What the hell?!" He spat, moving faster towards the next cart. Chasing the man he thought he saw. He opened the next door, and in it, he found yet another empty cart... Or so he thought.

Inside was a woman. Sitting comfortably in a luxurious chair, far too fancy to belong on a train. Hers was the only seat in that isle, separated by a small table from the rest of the seats. Her legs were crossed, she was dressed in all black and her face was covered by her black hair. A cigarette decorated her lips as she huffed deep breaths of smoke.

"So, you're here." She spoke, calm yet demanding. The voice echoed in Alan's head. He held his temple for a second, feeling the vertigo from the impact of her voice. Things stopped spinning, and the woman got up from her seat, and stared at him.
"Do you know where you are?" She asked, exhaling more smoke. Alan nodded.

"Train 4013, headed to Gotham. I'm here with my fian-" He was cut off by the memory of seeing Rose fall into the firey cavern created by the train wreckage. "Wrong," The woman responded. "that's where you were."

"You know how unlikely it is to survive a train crash, even more so an explosion on a train?" The woman asked and Alan blinked, recalling a math equation he had solved back in school 11 years ago. "A derailing's got good survival rates. But something like this is more like a plane crash. One in a hundred, maybe." He calculated quickly in his head, surprised he had that information available to him already. The woman smirked under her hood. "This was more like a nuclear bomb." Alan felt his face get cold at the notion. "What do you mean?" He prodded, she took another big huff of the cigarette that seemed to be never-ending.

"You're dead. Or, at least very close to. This is what's called Limbo. The realm between life and death." Her voice was somber, serious. Cold. She offered no comfort in those words, and no glimmer of hope was betrayed.

"I don't believe in an afterlife." Alan would protest, the woman chuckled.
"Yet it would seem the afterlife believes in you, Alan Scott."

"That's a horrifying thought." Alan folded, shifting nervously at the way the woman's voice had echoed in his entire being.
As their conversation carried forward, Alan heard another whisper, something more akin to a caress in his head, it wasn't words. It was intention. "So who's the man?"

"The man in the blue and gold?" he continued. The woman bit onto the butt of the cigarette, clearly not amused by the question. "You saw a man in blue and gold?" she seemed almost bothered by the prospect, and Alan nodded. "Yeah. He was right here, I thought. I followed him to this cart." Alan felt a sudden urge growing inside of him, almost pulling him forward. The woman stood wide in front of him, blocking his way.

"The man in blue and gold is just a reflection of your dying mind. Ignore it. I'm here to guide you to the other side, Alan." She promised, her voice suddenly softer, and Alan shrugged. "What, so this train is a manifestation of my imagination?" And the woman nodded. "People don't usually take to abstract metaphysical concept quite so easily. Yes. This is how you perceive the afterlife. In the ancient days, I was a skeleton rowing a boat down a river. Now, I'm a young woman in a train."

"You're death?" Alan asked, and the woman shook her head. "No. You're not quite that important. I'm middle management, for now. I'm a reaper."

"You forgot the scythe at home." Alan joked, his urge getting stronger and he felt something calling for him. The woman let out a scoff at his humor. "Deflecting with jokes doesn't work anymore, Alan. There's nowhere left to run. This train will stop."

"But there's something else for me here." The would-be dead man claimed. And the reaper protested, getting pushed aside by Alan who walked to the next cart, seeing a faint glow behind it. As he opened the door, he saw the man in blue and gold again, he couldn't make out the face, but he had his hand reached out for him.

The gold-clad hand reached out for him and Alan heard a man's voice echo the words "Help me" to him. Alan pushed forward, ending up at the back of the train again, which was the complete opposite direction of where he was going. The reaper appeared behind him.
"The train's getting shorter, Alan. Your brain is dying, and soon, there won't be anything left of you."
"What happens then?" He asked, the reaper pouted her lips and told it to him straight. "You become a spirit. Demented, scared and without direction. With time, you will turn to anger and become a vengeful ghost. Cursed to forever walk the world with no chance at redemption."

Alan nodded. "If you had told me ghosts and afterlife were real yesterday, I'd ask you what you were drinking. But for some reason... I believe you." He turned around, his words hanging in the air, almost in anticipation for what he was gonna say next. "I can't go. There's something here." He said, walking towards the storage shelves. Finding the only object in the train that didn't look like it was fading. It was a chest, a lockbox, rather. Ornate. As he touched it, it opened without him finding a locking mechanism. The reaper got agitated, sprouting two massive black wings from her back, her hood flying off, revealing her dirty blonde hair and pale face.

"Don't touch that!" She shouted, loud enough to shake the entire train, her voice echoing like a banshees. Alan opened the chest, a green glow washing over him, the reaper appearing behind him, and as she touched him to stop him, he touched the green glowing mass. A green light erupted from him, burning away the reaper. The train filling with color again, focusing around him. He felt alive again.

Suddenly, he was holding a massive green lantern in his right hand and his engagement ring in his left. The lantern melted into the ring as Limbo faded away, fought off by the light as Alan was brought back to life.
A voice echoing in his head, in a language he couldn't comprehend, yet, he understood what it was saying to him. It was a contract. A proposal.
The green ring appeared on his middle finger when he spoke the most terrifying three letter word in the English language.

"Yes."

---

^{07/10/2020 - Gotham City - Bertinelli Estate}

Helena first mentioned the idea of her uncle taking a trip back to Italy her first week back in Gotham. It had taken nearly a month for him to actually heed her advice, and a week from there to actually call an official meeting of the five families. It was an arduous task, but if there was anything Helena had learned in her years away, it was patience and attention to detail.

She stood at the head of the mahogany conference table, the same high-back leather chair her father commanded from behind her. From her briefcase she retrieved five display tablets and placed them on the table as someone knocked softly on the door.

"Come in."

"Ms. Bertinelli," It was Micheal, her uncle's- and temporarily her- personal assistant. " everyone has arrived, but they seem displeased."

She waved him away as she pressed the power button on the display-pad in front of her. "They can sweat it out another three minutes. Offer some water then let them in." She took her own seat at the head of the conference table and leaned back. When she was alone again, she placed the remaining displays at each of the four empty seats at the table.

Exactly 180 seconds later, Inzerillo busts through door, pushing past frail Cassamento in the process. Having already bullied his way to the front, he made a point to walk the longer path around the table only to sit at the seat furthest from Helena's own at the head. If he was surprised to see Helena instead of her uncle, he made no mention of it. Without a word, Helena pressed a button and sent the image of a police officer on a morgue table to the tablet in front of him. For a moment, his blotched-red face paled.

Santo Cassamento, the eldest don, shuffled his way into the seat left of Helena and closest to the door.
"Helena? What a lovely surprise, I haven't seen you since you reached my knees." His introduction was surprising enough that it took a moment for Helena to return his out-stretchered hand. She did so with a forced smile, only to send his tablet an unfortunate file regarding one of his shipping yard's recent purchases and distributions.

Third was Galante. A fat middle-aged man that had trouble committing to anything, he barely grumbled a greeting before taking a place beside Cassamento. To his display, Helena sent files received from the mans accountant. Just numbers to the untrained eye, but in the right hands could be used as damning evidence for dozens of money-laundering businesses all owned under the Galante name.

Finally, young Beretti came stumbling in. A boy of barely 18, he looked like he wanted nothing more than to melt into the carpet. With a calculated slide of Helena's finger, the display at his seat showed a rather stunned Charlotte Rivers sitting with a newspaper scrawled with the Bertinelli name.

For a glimmer of a moment, there was a complete silence. The Dons studied their own dirty laundry and came to terms with the fact that they were at the mercy of one of their own. At least, it was silent until Inzerillo opened his mouth to give voice to the growing discontentment in the room.

"What is this? Where is Luca? We have already tolerated this delusion long enough. You-" He was standing, jutting a finger at Helena as he approached her at an alarming rate. "-are not our compare, and are in no place to make demands."

"More importantly" Galante joined, "What you are threatening is completely forbidden. We do not threaten our own, whatever the cost. The mere act of doing this is obscene."

Beretti finally piped up. "I'd like to know how these documents were obtained. Have you put spies in our homes?" This sparked a fire that caused the conversation to devolve into a hurling of both resentment and insults in every direction. Here lay the mighty Cosa Nostra, the oldest crime families in Gotham, bickering like children. Helena's ancestors would have laughed before having them all killed. Their plans had been sloppy enough for her to discover after a mere month being in Gotham; hiring police to spy on other family members, sloppy arms deals, flaunting ill-gotten wealth, and finally the kidnapping of the mayor's daughter. The great five families, fighting over scraps as clumsily as starving dogs while Cobblepot watched them from the wings.

"This is something we should have Mandragora handle." It wasn't a loud proclamation, but it quieted the others and drew Helena's attention.

"No. This involves only the families." She interrupted with as much finality as she could muster. Mandragora was a problem for another day. For now, she only sought the attention of the four men in front of her, which she unequivocally held. Even Inzerillo backed away a few inches when Helena rose from her seat.

"Some near two-decades ago one of you ordered a kill on my family." The captivated silence quickly turned uncomfortable. "Yes, I know, such an awkward subject, but it can't be helped."

"Worse still. Three people at this table stood by and watched. There was no trial, there was no investigation, there were no questions asked. The tenets that each man here is sworn to were broken. Omerta. You broke it with my family once, and now I do the courtesy of warning you before I do the same." With a touch of her hand, each of the displays briefly flashed a letter, worded to the commissioner, before all going completely dark.

"From now on, the Upper East side is enforced Bertinelli territory. There will be no trespassing, there will be no selling, or fighting in our area. I don't care if you don't respect my authority, but if you don't listen to my instruction those files get released. You contact a buyer on our side of town. You're finished. One of your men gets too drunk and so much as trips in Bertinelli territory your family is finished." She took one more brief moment to appreciate the silence that had fallen over her guests before excusing herself from the conference room.

"I will give you gentlemen some time to consider."

---

_{The Return Of The West}

A Man Came Walking...

Bevis Neadle picks up his phone and checks the local public alerts. The main one today is an excessive heat warning, cautioning temperatures in excess of 108 Fahrenheit, worse deeper into the desert with no cloud coverage and minimal winds to carry the heat away. The alert has been active for two days, and warns of a further four to come before some kind of relief; those who can are advised to remain sheltered from the sun, and hydrate with a steady of supply of water, avoiding salty foods. Bevis’ AC is running full kilter, and still when he sits he can feel drops of sweat beading down his face. The water from his taps comes out lukewarm at best, and is unpleasant and un-refreshing to drink, but he drinks anyway, sometimes filling up a few glasses and setting them in his fridge for an hour or two just to have some cool water in the house. His dog has not moved from in front of the unit, and Bevis had had to move the food and water bowl closer to his spot so that he would eat and drink. The curtains are all drawn to block sunlight from entering the house, and he moved his pillow downstairs two nights previous to sleep on the cooler wooden floor of the living room, no blanket required.

With all this in mind, Bevis picks up his binoculars and looks out of the back window to watch the lone figure currently walking at a steady pace out of the desert towards his house. He has no idea who the man is, dressed in slacks, boots, shirt, vest, and a ragged but impressive hat, and Bevis can see from here the distinct shape of a pistol hanging on the figure’s hip, but he is sure the man should be dead. Bevis noticed him this morning, waking up as the heat began to rise and made sleep too uncomfortable to be possible, but he had been a distant blur dismissed as mirage then. Over the course of the day Bevis had kept checking though, and when the blur gained a solid outline, he knew it was no mirage. Someone was walking out of the desert in near-120 degree heat.

Bevis went out to greet him at 8PM, some 100-odd metres from his property line. This close he didn’t need the binoculars, and he could see the man was covered in dirt and sand, sweat staining his clothes and his boots covered in dust kicked up by the desert winds and his own feet. He looked old - not age wise, just not of the modern era - his garments battered and worn and not like any contemporary fashion Bevis knew about, simple but sturdy in their construction. He looked like a cowboy from the old stories. His face was...his face was a mess. Bevis averted his eyes as he called out to the man. He was nervous, knowing something unnatural was at play but not wanting to acknowledge or address it. The cowboy had long since spotted him, and came to a halt at Bevis’ fence, resting a single hand on the gate. Bevis allowed himself to be reassured by his rifle, leaning against the wall of his house just behind him.

“H-hello there, stranger!” Bevis began. The cowboy regarded him through his one good eye. “Been watchin’ you most the day. You come a long way there.”
The cowboy snorted and spat at the ground, Bevis glancing at how the horrific disfigurement stretched up and beyond his mangled ear as he turned his head.
“Might I ask where you’ve come from?”
The question hung in the air.
“The grave.” The cowboy’s voice was deep, gravelly. He spoke with a survivor’s grit. Bevis processed the answer and decided to discard it.
“Then you’re lookin’ pretty fine all considered. You need water?”
“I ain’t thirsty.”
Bevis swallowed, his throat dry. The whole situation was wrong, but his mind rebelled against the knowledge.
“Bread? Beef?”
“Ain’t hungry neither.”
“Where you headed?”
“To find some answers.”
Bevis was close to officially checking out of the entire circumstance. He eyed the pistol on the cowboy’s hip. The cowboy noticed.
“Ain’t got no reason to draw ‘less you give me one.”
“I ain’t lookin’ to give you one.”
“Then I reckon we gon’ be just swell.”

The cowboy lingered at the gate, surveying the landscape ahead of him beyond Bevis’ small house.
“We in Arizona?” He asked. Bevis stuttered, befuddled by the question.
“Y-yeah.”
“Then if you would be so kind as to point me in the direction of Armadilla, I would tip my hat in gratitude and be on my way.”
“A-Armadilla?”
“We are in Arizona?”
“Y-yes, but there ain’t no Armadilla ‘round here.”
“Arizona America?”
Bevis just nodded. The cowboy sighed.
“Then if you just point me toward the closest drinkin’ town, I’ll make do.”
“D-drinkin’ town?”
“Just tell me where in the goddamn hell I can get some liquor, boy!”
Bevis jumped at the cowboy’s sudden shouting, and took a step back towards his rifle. The cowboy slowly laid a hand on his holster.
“A-Ajo town’s 30 miles. T-Tucson’s another hundred after that.” He finally spat out, his voice shaking.
The cowboy nodded, removing his hand from his gun to tip his hat. “Then I hope Ajo’s got a reputable whiskey-slinging establishment.” He said, letting go of the fence and beginning to walk again.

Bevis watched him go, not moving from his porch as the cowboy slowly and steadily disappeared from view over the horizon, never wavering in his gait. When the sun had finally gone down, and the cowboy was completely lost from view, Bevis went back inside, drunk directly from the tap, wiped himself down, then fainted.

---

The sun was rising as Jonah walked past the first residences of Ajo, Arizona, and when his boots went from sand to the asphalt of the road, he stopped, and looked down. He’d seen brick roads and cobbled streets in his day, even seen a few buildings made from cement, but this was strange. He brushed a hand across the surface of the road and found it to be coarse; cracks ran deep, and where he’d brushed the desert dust aside it was deep black. He’d never seen anything like it, and while it was harder than the sand it felt smoother, stabler to walk on.
“Hmm. Alright.” He muttered quietly to himself, before standing again and surveying his surroundings. The houses around him were small and one-storey, with smooth, single-colour walls. Nearly all of them had chain link fences, and the one that didn’t had a fancy-looking mix of brick and iron that looked very out-of-place against the desert and its neighbours. A few houses had next to them what looked like second houses, but with wheels, and some kind of cabin at the front. Jonah didn’t want to think about that just yet.

Instead, he walked to the nearby intersection where the roads converged and looked down each street, checking the houses on either side for where the buildings became more frequent and better-repaired; that would lead to the town’s main street, and hopefully a saloon. It was quiet, save the desert winds pushing the sand along the ground. A small pack of coyotes trotted a little ways down the road, sniffing around but not finding anything. Jonah watched as one got up on its hind legs against a large metal bin and used its nose to push the top off; the crash-clang of the lid on the road spooked the pack and they all ran. Bright light sprung from the windows of the house; Jonah could hear movement from within, and quickly moved on, not looking for any unpleasantries with the locals. He followed the road, heading further into town.

From an alleyway Jonah heard someone tumbling to the ground, swearing and hitting metal. He investigated; a man stumbled to his feet, leaning on a large metal container to steady himself, and then threw back a swig from the bottle in his other hand. The man went to move, then tripped over himself again, and hit the ground hard. The bottle rolled away towards Jonah, and he stopped it beneath his boot. He picked it up, inspecting the label - ‘beer’ was about the only word amidst the barrage of adjectives that felt both familiar and necessary - and slowly approached the man, who had given up on getting up, and had merely rolled himself over to sit up against the container he had previously steadied himself on. Jonah handed the drunk the bottle, and then crouched down next to him.

“Son, you are just full as a tick.”
The drunk looked at Jonah and squinted, taking another swig of his beer bottle. He slurred his words.
“I ain’t no bug.”
Jonah raised an eyebrow. “I mean you’re drunk, boy.”
“Now...to THAT I raise a toast..!” The drunk swigged again and emptied the bottle, tossing it aside. He looked Jonah up and down. “You’re funny-lookin’, mister. Just roll in from the wild west?”
“I’m gonna let that slide on account of your being roostered, and ask you to point me in the direction of a saloon.”
“A...a saloon?” The drunk guffawed, hiccuping between laughs. “You really are a rootin-tootin cowboy, man! Yeehaw, ride ‘em!” He laughed again, and Jonah hung his head and sighed in frustration. He carefully undid the clasp on his holster and brought the barrel of his pistol up into the drunk’s chin. The drunk stopped laughing pretty quick, then.
“Listen here, ya damn drunk mudsill. I have had a long, dry, few days, and I would much care for a quiet place to bend my elbow and make sense’a what the hell’s goin’ on. Now I need you to understand you have woken up the wrong passenger, and you are gonna tell me where I can wet my whistle, or I am gonna knock galley west before I empty my six.” Jonah leaned forwards, his face coming into the light of the moon. The drunk whimpered as he eyed Jonah’s scars.
“Wha-what happened to your f-face…?”
Jonah cocked the hammer back on his pistol.
“Turn left at the end and 3 doors down! Jessie’s! It’s a dive, but it’s open 24 hours!”
Jonah nodded and holstered his pistol. The drunk sighed in relief, then gasped when Jonah instead reeled back and struck him across the jaw. He slumped over, out cold, and Jonah walked away following the directions.

Jonah found the bar quickly enough. He opened the door carefully but with purpose, and stood in the half-shadow of the doorway, the electric bulbs illuminating his front and the moonlight shining on his back. The bar was mostly empty, one or two patrons already collapsed across their table, sound asleep and snoring, and there was a single disinterested bartender at the far end. The bartender idly picked at her mouth with a toothpick, barely even glancing at the open door where Jonah stood. Jonah took two steps in, his boots landing heavy on the wooden floor and spurs clinking, and let the door swing shut behind him. The bartender looked up properly this time, and furrowed her brow as Jonah approached the counter. They eyed each other as Jonah stood silently. The bartender consciously ignored Jonah’s scars and odd getup. She’d seen enough to know what not to ask about.

After a beat, Jonah sat down.
“Whiskey. Cheap.”
The bartender turned wordlessly, selecting a bottle of something brown and unlabelled from the shelf and pouring a single shot out. Jonah took the glass and the shot quickly, showing no reaction.
“‘Nother.”
Same again. Jonah drank it like water.
“‘Noth-”
“Just take the bottle. I ain’t standin’ here and pourin’ it out for you eighteen times in a row. I’m busy enough.”

Jonah took a look around the bar. The fella in the booth had slicked the table with drool. Jonah nudged the fella at the bar next to him with his boot, and got only a snorting start before he returned to snoring.
“Yeah...flush off yer feet.” He replied, taking the bottle all the same and pouring another drink.
“You know what day it is?”
“Ma’am, I’m at sea to know even what year it is.”
“Saturday. Early hours of, in fact. Which means the night worker boys will be here soon, and then I will be busy.”
Jonah nodded, staring ahead, taking his fourth drink.
“Three dollars a drink, by the way, so the math is on you.”
Jonah almost spat out the liquor in shock.
“Three dollars for this damn swill? I said cheap!”
The bartender eyed Jonah quizzically.
“That’s the cheapest shit I got, and I ain’t even waterin’ it down.”
“Don’t reckon there’d be any whisky left if you did…” Jonah muttered, picking up the bottle and looking at it through the light. Same colour as piss, he thought. Even still, he’d had worse. Jonah reached for his pocket and seized what money he had, pulling it out and slamming it down palm-first on the counter. The sleeper next to him jumped, waking and frowning, but returned to sleeping quick enough. Jonah removed his hand to reveal his net worth.

“Two dollars?” The bartender asked, disbelief in her voice. Jonah considered the coins, the silver dull and dirty. Sand speckled the dark wood of the bar.
“Two dollars.” Jonah confirmed. The bartender sighed. She picked a coin up and turned it in her hands.
“Wait a minute...these are old. Really old. Does this say 1820?” She spoke in an excited, but hushed tone. Jonah looked at the other coin before dropping it back on the counter.
“Reckon it does.”
The bartender raised both of her eyebrows.
“Just where the hell are you from, mister.”
“Missouri-born, miss.”
“Uh-huh, sure thing, sure, so just how the hell did you end up in a shitty dive bar in the middle-of-nowhere Arizona looking like a damn gunslinger with 200-year-old coins jingling around in your damn pocket?”
Jonah shrugged, taking another drink, this time forgoing the glass to swig directly from the bottle.
“Walked.”
The bartender growled in frustration and put her head in her hands. Jonah watched her, faintly amused.

“Alright, look,” she finally said, a tone of finality in her voice, “here’s the picture. Some stranger, dressed up to the nines in his cowboy best, gravelly-voiced and battle-scarred, walks in to my bar covered in sand and sweat at god-knows in the damn morning. He doesn’t ask for water, or for food, he just wants the cheapest liquor I can give him, and then he pounds the bottle like a alky vet and then tries to pay for a 3-dollar drink with 2 silvers, both of which are worth over a grand, and yet he has no idea that they’re as valuable as they are. Then he says he walked across six states. Walked.”
Jonah leaned back, swallowing the image.
“That is about the all of it.” He concluded.
“You got anywhere you’re staying?”
Jonah shook his head.
“Alright. I’ll take these coins as payment, and you can drink whatever you want to drink. And I’ve got a room too. But if you’re gonna stay, you do me a favor first.”
Jonah finally chuckled slightly, though when he spoke, his voice was cold as the grave.
“Been a long time since I worked for free.”
“We’ll split what I get for the coins, then. Either way, if you need a room, I’m the only option, and I need something done.”

Jonah regarded her through his good eye.

“Alright. Shoot.”

---

Light began to filter through the drapes of the palatial master bedroom of the Kord Mansion, rousing Ted from a restful sleep. As he began to stir, pain shot through his head like a lightning bolt. His jaw throbbed with waves of agony, and the back of his head felt like it had been kicked by a horse. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, and was happy to note that outside feeling like his head was trying to escape his body, nothing else seemed injure.

"What's a little CTE in the name of justice?" he grumbled to himself as he got out of bed and made his way to the bathroom. Ted flipped on the light once there, and recoiled from the stars it made him see. He fumbled around for the medicine cabinet and found some ibuprofen which he quickly downed with some water.

"Good morning, sir," Kha's voice came from one of the small, disk-like devices Ted had installed across the sprawling house. "Shall I start breakfast?"

"Sure thing," he grumbled and turned on the shower. He rubbed his jaw as the pain medication began to work its magic, "Two eggs, some of that veggie sausage, and some fruit would be good. Nothing I have to chew too much."

The device beeped, understanding the command. Somewhere on the lower level, Kha's lone, physical body sprung out of its charging port and made its way towards the kitchen. While Ted realized the potential issues that could arise from artificial intelligence, he couldn't help but try it out. After all, if he restricted what Kha could learn, the AI would theoretically only become as advanced as Ted wanted it to be. The body came about when Kord got tired of making his own meals. The robot wasn't perfect, it tended to underseason things, not having tastebuds and all that. But it meant that he could spend more time in the lab.

After a hot shower that helped to relax his tired muscles, Ted made his way to the kitchen. He passed through the cavernous, ornate hallways of Kord Mansion, covered in mahogany and ornate windows. Priceless art his father had collected lined the walls, and very little signs a family had ever lived there joined them. Thomas Kord had never been a nostalgic man, and after the death of Ted's mother when he was only three, Thomas retreated from emotions completely.

Why they ever needed a house this big, Ted had never understood. There were only three of them, and the extended family only ever consisted of his uncle Jarvis, who was still the CFO of Kord Sciences. It turned out to be a boon now that Ted was on the road he was on, but for decades the big house just felt like an empty void that stood as a status symbol more than a home.

When he reached the kitchen, he found the robot had already plated his food, a new record. It was floating a few inches off the ground using some of the same anti-gravitational devices that kept the Bug in the air. The robot's body was little more than a meter-tall, thin column with four retractable, telescoping arms that came from the center. On top was a circular, ocular sensor so it could see where it was going. It was primitive, only an early prototype, but it was a start.

"Kha, what's my schedule for the day?" he asked as he finished off the last of his meal.

"Your weekly telecon with Dr. Olafsdotter is in one half hour," the AI responded. "Ms. da Costa has also requested your presence at Kord Sciences. The meeting invite mentions more media appearances to talk about your efforts during the recent pandemic."

Sighing deeply, he realized it was going to be a long day. Tora Olafsdotter and Beatriz da Costa couldn't be more different, aside from the headaches they caused him.

Tora was a brilliant environmental scientist from Norway who was working on a pet project of Ted's to re-stimulate the growth of glaciers across the planet as a way to fight climate change. Paired with Doctor Von Furth's prototype nuclear reactor, they stood a good chance at stabilizing the planet's climate. Both projects were Kord's most expensive, and Ted had faith in them. At least when Tora wasn't pushing to go faster than the tech allowed at this point.

Beatriz, on the other hand, was his Brazilian head of PR and marketing. She was always on him to get in front of television cameras to play up the company's efforts during the pandemic and for the climate change initiative. But Ted hated being on camera more than about anything else, much to her chagrin. Still, she believed in what the company was doing, and he valued that from a marketer. It was easier to sell what you believed in.

"Let them know I'll be in after lunch," he responded to the AI. "I want to do some work in the lab this morning before heading in."

"Understood, sir."

He did just as he said, and made his way towards the cavernous library of the home. Two stories tall, with the ridiculous bookcase ladders most people just think are from movies, the library smelled of old dust and dry paper. It was honestly one of Ted's favorite rooms in the house, even if he didn't get time to read as much as he liked. He used the home theater more, and he was slightly ashamed of that.

He passed by the plush reading couch and sidled up to one of the bookshelves. He reached for a copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel, and pulled. Instead of coming free from the shelf, however, a mechanism clicked and the bookshelf shuttered. The bottom portion slid back and then to the left, revealing a lift behind it, which Ted took down to the lab.

His father had installed this as a covert way to get down to his garage without anyone knowing. Ted had found it after taking possession of the house. He had the garage sealed off from the outside, and turned the garage into his personal lab. And only he knew of the secret elevator entrance.

The doors of the lift opened and revealed the cavernous lab. It held the Bug, his suit, and various lab stations he had set up for potential gadgets to use in the field. He plopped down into a rolling chair and scooted over to the large super computer station and fired up the system.

Almost, instantly, his video conferencing system alerted him to an incoming call from David Garrett, the son of his mentor and his best friend. David was working as head of security for Kord Sciences. Ted looked behind him to make sure none of his equipment was visible, and flipped on the screen, "Dave, what's up man?"

"Ted-," Garrett's green eyes widened at the sight of his friend. "Holy crap, dude! What happened to your face?"

"Ah," Ted pressed on his jaw where he had been kicked. "Lab accident. Tried overcharging one of the anti-grav generators I've been working on, and it punched me in the face."

"You gotta be more careful, Teddy," David shook his head, his long brown hair slung back in a man bun that Ted never missed an opportunity to make fun of. "All alone in that house. You could die and we'd never find you. You need a girlfriend."

Ted rolled his eyes, "Sure, with all my free time."

"Excuses, excuses, buddy," Dave shrugged. "Listen, mom wants to know if you're gonna come for dinner tonight. She made enough brisket for an army."

He had forgotten he was having dinner with Dave and Joan. Ted was completely wrapped up in his little project, and was glad that Dave called to remind him, "You know I wouldn't miss that for the world. I'll see you tonight."

The call was ended, and Ted brought up the data collected by his goggles' built-in cameras. After flipping through the images, he stopped at the best view he could get of the man who was clearly leading the other men. He attempted to run his face through the police databases. After a few moments, the computer came up with no results, claiming the face's swirling colors inhibited analysis.

"Damn."

With that outburst, he felt another wave of pain roll through his jaw and his neck. Rubbing it slightly, he called out to the AI, "Kha, open up a new Blue Beetle project file."

"Title, sir?"

"Crowd control."

"I am confused," I say, pausing in my action. "How am I supposed to place my garments of battle regalia in the machine of washing, if you do not want me to remove them first?"

My new friend the native girl Rachel, her hands still shielding her eyes, shakes her head. When the other natives-- the "ass-holes," Rachel calls them-- attacked us upon my arrival, they used a powerful explosive weapon in their attempt to incapacitate me. This weapon, which Rachel has identified for me as a "fucking bazooka" (although I do not see how the act of physical love applies to such a device), left my regalia-- as well as much of my body-- covered in soot and char.

Upon sneaking me back to her domicile, Rachel offered me the use of her facilities to cleanse myself and my garments, but as soon as I began to remove them, she demanded that I stop.

"Is this some form of riddle known to your people?" I ask.

"I just--...I meant give me some time to, I dunno, look away or leave the room before getting undressed," she says, sputtering her words with what sounds to be frustration or embarrassment. "Just stripping down in front of someone, especially someone you just met, it's.....it's weird, okay?"

".....if you say so," I say, though this explanation raises more questions than answers. "I will wait until you have averted your eyes to begin the clothing removal."

"I'll get you a change of clothes while you clean yourself off," Rachel nods and points to a small chamber on the far end of her small living quarters. "The shower's in there. The right knob is for cold water, the left knob's hot water. The faucet's a little tricky; you've got to kind of jiggle the handle a few times to--"

"I am unused to such a device," I say as I look into the room, seeing a stall with a hanging curtain closing it off, and a few metallic protuberances sticking out from the wall. "Perhaps if you could demonstrate, I will watch and--"

"Absolutely not," the native girl interjects.

"I see," I say with disappointment, before another thought comes to mind. "Friend Rachel......am I.....ugly?"

She stops and turns, giving me a quizzical look. "What?"

"You act with revulsion when I offer you gestures of affection," I explain, "And the sight of my body or the thought of me seeing yours seems to cause you a great deal of distress. By your people's standards, would I be considered ugly, then?"

Rachel pauses, chewing at the inside of one cheek as she considers the wording of her response, before answering.

"There are people on this planet," she begins, "whose entire life revolves around looking pretty. It's literally their entire career, just standing there in pretty clothes for people to take pictures of them and make everyone else feel bad about how much prettier than them they are. There are giant industries that pump billions of dollars into making outfits for them, getting their hair and makeup just right, finding the perfect diets and workouts for them, surgically enhancing their bodies and digitally enhancing their pictures, a monstrous international corporate machine which operates for the sole singular purpose of making these people look as pretty as possible. And you -- and I'm saying this purely from an aesthetic point of view-- by comparison, make those people look like diseased sewer mutants."

While her method of speech is strange to me, I get the general intent of her statement.

"So then," I say, my eyes welling up, "I am so ugly, that my very presence contaminates the beauties of your world and makes them ugly as well?"

"That's not what I said," she says, "I'm saying you're---....*sigh*.....forget it, just forget I said anything, okay?"

I nod, but I do not know if it is within my capabilities to intentionally forget something. Perhaps this is one of those riddles her people seem to engage in, like wanting me to place my garments in the machine of washing without removing them first. I do wish that I had a stronger grasp of her communication, but I was only able to share a psychic meld for a moment. While a connection of lips provides sufficient contact between concentrated nerve endings, it is not the most effective possible connection. However, while there are areas of the Tamaranian body that contain far more nerve endings, and the native people's anatomy seems near identical, I doubt she would be receptive to the suggestion.

"I....apologize for my inexperience with this planet and its customs" I say, before bowing my head. "If I have brought you shame, name my punishment and I will atone for it."

Rachel shakes her head again. "I don't want to 'punish' you for--.....look, just try to figure out the shower the best you can, and I'll get you some spare clothes and start making some tea or something. It'll help relax."

"But I am not in need of a relaxant."

"That's for me," she says, stalking off to the cooking area of her living quarters while muttering under her breath, _{"...have enough to worry about, going to develop a complex on top of all this...."}

It seems I cannot do anything right.

I step into the room of washing, and after closing the door so that Rachel is not offended by the sight of me, I disrobe, and begin to analyze the workings of this 'shower' device. Perhaps I can at least clean myself correctly.

---

"Look out there, D'orion," Queen Komand'r, the Blackfire, Scourge of Tamaran and Crusher of the Weak, said to her manservant as she gestured from atop the gaudy throne she had made from the old statue of the goddess X'haal. "Look out there, and tell me what you see."

Her grand throne room opened up to a balcony which overlooked the once beautiful city of Tamarus, now a smoldering ruin. The Citadel had been particularly enthusiastic in their sacking of Tamaran's capital, gutting the gleaming towers of their treasures, slaughtering anyone who tried to fight back, and having their way with anyone who did not. Few had been left alive, so much of the slave labor now being used to rebuild the city-- and in particular the royal palace-- to Komand'r's liking, had to be imported from other conquered cities. Of course, the Citadel could merely deploy drones to complete the reconstruction more quickly and efficiently, but the use of Tamaranian slaves was to send a message.

"...I...I see...." D'orion, a jagged scar across his magnificent bare chest, considered his words carefully. "I see a city transforming. Transitioning from a weak old regime to a strong new one. I see the tired old ways being swept away for a glorious new era."

Queen Blackfire grinned at her manservant. Pure, placating drivel. She knew he did not believe a word of what he said. She could see it in his eyes; he hated her with every atom of himself. He wanted, more than anything, to lunge at her and bite out her throat, gouge out her eyes, find the nearest heavy object and bash in her skull. But she also knew that if he ever attempted such a thing, his children would be flayed in front of him, and so he remained her faithful, obedient pet.

Idly, she activated the electrodes on his collar, and D'orion toppled down the side of her throne, convulsing in agony on the floor. It was delicious.

"Pull yourself up, D'orion," she ordered, "And let me tell you what I see. I see a million Tamaranians, like you, who believe the fighting is not yet over. Who believe in ridiculous lies about a savior, a champion or a hero who will spark rebellion and overthrow me."

As D'orion struggled to his feet, crawling at the foot of her throne, Komand'r gave him a mocking smile.

"Do you believe in heroes, D'orion?" she asked, the sweetness in her voice a thin film over the venom in her thoughts. "Do you believe the Omega Men are still out there, waiting to strike against me? Or perhaps you believe the silly old legends about X'haal returning in Tamaran's darkest hour?"

With a surprising speed, she went from idly lounging to pouncing down on her servant like a jungle predator, pinning his body flat on his back.

"Or do you believe," she snarled, "That my miserable, honorless sister will come back and save you?"

D'orion avoided her eyes, but she knew the answer. He was one of her father's honor guard, and had been first to swear loyalty to Koriand'r when she assumed the role of Starfire. He would die before he ever gave up hope that the 'rightful' ruler of Tamaran would return to set things right.

"As long as my sister lives," she said, straddling the servant, "people like you will resist me, will hold out hope, will hate and curse and fight me. But only people like you, D'orion. Not you yourself. No, you will hate me still, but you will love me all the more because of it."

With a hungry growl, Komand'r's hands explored her servant, and she smiled at how much it humiliated him. He glared at her, eyes full of defiance and indignity as she degraded and debased him, and she reveled in it.

All of her life, the people of Tamaran had hated her, heaping all of their love and affection upon her sister instead. Now, Koriand'r was long gone, and she had them all to herself. Free to inflict the humiliation and shame upon them that she had felt since the day she was cursed enough to be born.

She loved how much she hated them.

And in time, they would hate how much they loved her.

Still, as she indulged herself, she knew her victory was a hollow one. Only once her sister was well and truly disposed of would her reign be absolute. As long as Koriand'r drew breath, or at least as long as the people of Tamaran thought she did, they would never fully be hers to torment.

The flames of the Starfire burn ever bright, their father would say. Blackfire, then, would be the shadow to finally smother it out.

---

Some time has passed since I determined the workings of the shower device and the machine of washing. The cup of boiled leaves that Rachel had prepared for me has grown cold, and the starchy edible shapes she calls 'cookies' sit half-eaten beside it. Rachel has gone to sleep, and I sit atop the roof of her building, staring out at a strange city, on a strange world, under strange stars.

This is not at all how I expected my first contact with the people of another planet. I had assumed I would be leading a diplomatic mission, forging some powerful new alliance for the glory of Tamaran. I would be at the head of an emissary fleet, the occasion marked with feasts and festivals and explorations of exotic delights. Perhaps I would find wondrous works of art and beauty to enhance our own culture, or work with their scientists to achieve some revolutionary breakthrough, or meet a gallant and honorable male to join my host of prince-consorts.

Instead, I come as a refugee, fleeing my own world in disgrace and defeat. Instead of a palace, the place in which I stay is little more than a hovel. Instead of melding the cultures of two mighty and beautiful worlds in glorious harmony, I seem to create only dissonance and stress. Instead of a muscular and heroic prince or knight-general to woo me, I am intruding into the personal life of an impoverished witch-girl who finds me revolting yet offers me protection like a stray animal.

Countless light years away, my people suffer. My sister, under the rule of the Citadel, is tormenting the living and defiling the remains of the dead. And there is nothing I can do to stop her.

I am close to giving in to despair.

"Oh X'haal," I call to the great Fire Goddess, "what am I to do? If you are truly there, I ask only for a sign so that I--"

CAWWW! C-A-W-W-W!!!!

A black, feathered animal appears from out of the night sky, its claws tangling in my hair as it beats its wings against the sides of my head.

"Away! Release me!" I shout, swatting at it with one hand as I charge a star-bolt in the other. However, after the confusion of a few seconds, it untangles itself from my hair and flutters down to the rooftop, where it snatches up one of the uneaten cookies. After realizing it was not an enemy, merely a creature looking for a sweet, I giggle, and let the black winged creature have the rest of them. I did not wish to say it to Rachel, but in truth I found them revolting myself.

My musing interrupted, I float back down through the window to the small loft, and prepare to sleep upon the futon which Rachel had prepared for me, when I hear a sobbing from her bed.

"Friend Rachel?" I whisper as I approach, "Are you all of the right?"

I look at my sleeping hostess, and see that she is tightly curled into a fetal position, trembling, her breath coming in gasps and sobs.

_{"....n-no....don't.....I'm n-not.....s-s-stop....."} she says in her sleep, her eyes wet with tears.

When I had established the psychic meld upon meeting her, I briefly saw her mind as we kissed. She had constructed thick, hard walls around herself, barriers to keep others out of her mind. Even so, I could feel the suffering behind those walls. Her dreams are painful ones, full of fear and sorrow.

She is an innocent, who is in need of help.

I may be defeated, disgraced, and hiding away in exile, but I am still Starfire, Light of Hope and Champion of the Innocent. If I cannot help my people at this moment, I can at the very least help her.

I lie down beside my new friend, and placing a hand on her shoulder, I send her thoughts of peace, of calm, and of loving warmth.

"You need not fear, Friend Rachel, I whisper my assurance. "The flames of Starfire burn bright. And no shadow shall ever smother them out."

“Mind you don’t pop your top, Rook.” The Sergeant warned.

The young officer heeded his Sergeant’s warning and kept his distance; he may have been young, but he knew well enough not to charge in and disturb the crime scene.

“So how do we handle this?” It was an unseasonally cool night. Steam rose from the subway grills and manhole covers and the first dead body he’d ever seen on the job lay supine on the cold bitumen.

“I just called in, we should have a detective car here ETA 10. Until then…” he tossed the keys to the younger officer, “There’s a roll of tape in the trunk, go get it and cordon off there… through to there--” He pointed at the wide entrance point to the alley “--and divert onlookers back through to the main roads.”

The young cadet caught the keys and nodded, with the task in his mind fresher than the body they’d caught down the dead-end street.

After he’d completed the task and other support cars had arrived, allowing him to put someone else on the menial work, he snuck back to watch the detectives and his Sergeant in action.

“Me and the Rook caught this about fifteen, twenty minutes ago. Anonymous tip from a pay phone. Body was as-is.”

“Sir, tape’s set up and Taylor’s taken over crowd control.” The young officer announced his return, the two detectives doing little to acknowledge him but a slight head turn and an expression of mild inconvenience.

“With all due respect, Sergeant, you ain’t caught shit. We’re the ones who are going to have to be working this.” The first detective vocalised that sense of inconvenience, throwing a cigarette butt back down the alley before approaching the crime scene. “Techs been called yet?” He asked, hunching over to look at the body, and cocking his head from side to side as old experienced eyes soaked up the environment.

“Yeah, CSI van’s on its way. Got told there’s a thirty five minute ETA there.”

“…so expect it in an hour or so.” The other detective responded. “Got it.”

The second detective pulled his phone out and started snapping off photos of the crime scene.

The cadet hunched down behind the first detective and watched, resulting in an audible sigh from the elder lawman.

“So what do you figure was the cause of death?” He asked the detective.

“Well, so far I think we can safely rule out ‘old age’ and ‘gunshot wound to the face’, but I think we might leave the rest up to the coroner to determine.” He sarcastically fired back to the irritating younger patrolman, pointing out the victim’s clear face. The sergeant shook his head at his younger partner.

The younger officer took the hint and stepped back out of the detective’s space. The victim’s face was indeed clean, but the scene was not without signs of a struggle, his breast pocket was torn and hung loose on his coat like a dog’s tongue, with a hole at the bottom of the point where the pocket used to join where it was torn through to the shirt.

The officer thought for a second and using his own finger he hooked his own breast pocket and furrowed his brow. Something didn’t make sense to him. The sergeant tutted him, signalling him to leave the detectives to do their work but something stuck in the younger man’s craw. He moved his finger and hooked the other side of his pocket and was no more satisfied at the result. Then his brow re-settled. He had his answer.

Considering the fall of the body he marked off an invisible path with his line of site to a dumpster in the alley.

He turned to the detective with the phone. “Snap some off of what’s under the dumpster.” He said brazenly.

“Eh?”

The young officer dropped down to his knees and pointed underneath. “I’m pretty sure that was on the victim.”

A few photos later and a gloved hand gingerly lifted a pen from under the dumpster and placed it in an evidence bag.

“His pocket was torn up. The torque didn’t match the hole unless whoever ripped it was pulling on either a pen or one of those mechanical pencils or something. Presumably the killer was pulling down on that, might be able to pull a print.”

“Huh… Got some hawk-eyes on you, huh kid?” The detective begrudgingly credited the younger officer for the pickup. “Still… too early to say ‘killer’ until the coroner can give us cause of death. Could be the deceased had a heart attack or stroke, clutched his chest at the pen, then his arm seized and he tore the pocket.”

“OK.” The eager younger officer nodded, absorbing the lesson and looking to push forward. “So has he got a wallet on him? Can we I.D. the victim?”

“We don’t touch the body ‘til the techs get here. Normally we just snap the photos off to cover our asses in case some lawyer tries to get cute and claim something shady. Pen’s still a good pickup though, you’re right there was a logical progression there and we lifted it clean. Tech’s get here, we’ll look for a wallet, or they’ll try DNA, prints - or at a push - dentals for a match on the deceased.” The other detective replied.

The rookie cop nodded, soaking up the procedure.

“All you need to know is, if you find another one, keep the crime scene clear and don’t touch anything.” The dourer detective added.

The sergeant walked over and put his arm around his younger partner. “Come on. Shift change is about to happen. Crime scene’s secured and they’ve got this under control.”

The younger officer acceded and walked back to their patrol car, but he looked back multiple times on the way...

The East End
Gotham City, NJ
8:22 PM Local Time

The night was alive.

A cop had been shot the previous night. Some sort of undercover sting gone wrong, the GCPD spokesman had been tight-lipped. Naturally, tonight they were following the next step in their playbook: the show of force. An officer being injured made them look weak. It made them look impotent. So the police raged and lashed out, filling jail cells to capacity. Some of it was retaliatory, directed to the mob, plenty of low-ranking members paraded through the front door of Central then quietly released out the back when the cameras weren't looking- the Five Families had deep pockets after all. Some of it was pointless aggression towards whoever happened to be in the way, paranoia that they might be next turning to violence.

The man in the alleyway had been parked at the meter for too long, he would admit that. He had said as much when he came out from the laundromat to find the cop writing him a ticket. He had apologized, been respectful, kept his hands in sight, all the things pundits and gated community types say you should do. It hadn't stopped the officer from switching off his bodycam, from pushing him into this alleyway, from vigorously clubbing him with a baton. He did his best to avoid fighting back, to protect his head and neck from the blows, to avoid thinking of his family at home. He did his best not to wonder if he was going to die here.

There was a flash of red, grunts and shuffling feet, then the sound of a body falling heavily to the pavement. Somehow, miraculously, the blows had ceased. The man risked a peek up, blinking through the blood running into his eyes from the gashes on his head.

A figure in red coat and hat stood over the groaning, semi-conscious policeman, massaging his gloved knuckles. “Sic semper tyrannis,” he muttered to himself. Turning, he knelt down and check on the man. “Are you alright?” he asked in a surprisingly gentle voice. “Can you walk?”

“Yeah- yeah, I think so,” the man stammered as the Crimson Avenger helped him to his feet.

“You might want to head home before this guy gets up and calls his buddies,” he advised. “You'll be okay. Anyone gives you trouble afterwards, call the East End Legal Clinic. They'll help you with the cops.”

The man shook his head to clear some of the grogginess. “Okay,sure. Uh, thanks, man,” he said, confused by the Samaritan's strange clothing. “Appreciate you.”

“Sorry I can't stick around to see you home, things to do. Be safe out there,” the masked man said as he faded into the shadows.

The man stumbled to his car, rubbing at his more tender spots. This was going to be an odd story.

Ace Chemical Processing Plant
9:02 PM

So his tip had been correct after all. The Crimson Avenger hadn't harbored any doubts about the information, of course, Speed Saunders was worth every penny he paid him.

He squinted through the chain-link fence in the darkness, trying to make out details of the box trucks. They were plain white, no company logos or other identifying marks. You would never think twice about one if you passed it on the road.

What concerned the Crimson Avenger was what was being loaded in the back of the trucks. It was difficult to tell in the darkness, but the scurrying figures seemed to be rolling barrels up the ramps and disappearing into the back. Very similar to the incriminating leaking barrels he had seen a few nights earlier. Before the word had gone out in Travis Group publications, before online hashtags and petitions for Ace to allow an independent safety inspection had begun to circulate.

Of course, there was nothing sinister about barrels being loaded into a truck, even under cover of darkness. He'd have to get closer to be certain this was indeed an attempt at a coverup. For the second time that week he hoisted himself over the fence and set off towards the loading docks at a crouched run.

As he approached, staying clear of the few functional lights, he began to make out voices from the frenzied nocturnal operation. The occasional barked command from the people who seemed to be overseeing the loading- who all seemed the be armed, he noted with concerned. They weren't the uniformed rent-a-cops with .38s from the other night. These men and women were casually dressed but armed with rifles, submachine guns, shotguns. They looked disciplined and self-assured. The Crimson Avenger dropped even lower, crawling prone in the long grass- thankfully Ace's cost-cutting measures had extended to lawncare- and keeping well outside the circle of the parking lot illuminated by powerful floodlights. He stopped about twenty yards from the lot, hoping he was well hidden in the grass and the shadows, and listened intently, hoping to hear anything of value.

He could make out the shouts of instructions from the overseers more clearly now. Surprisingly, they sounded to him like accented Spanish and Mandarin, monosyllabic exhortations to work faster and stop being lazy. As he watched, the laborers were shoved, slapped, prodded with rifle butts.

It was adding up. The workers most likely weren't in the country legally, unable to get protection or make official complaints due to their status. In the eyes of a company like Ace Chemicals, who better to covertly handle dangerous toxic waste for pennies?

The righteous anger welled in him. He ached to rush forwards, engage the overseers, liberate these people from their indentured servitude. The Crimson Avenger was well aware that rushing twenty-five heavily armed people with only a pair of .45s would accomplish little, that an effort to be a “white savior” right now would end disastrously. He was only one man and he had to pick his battles. For now, he would have to be content with surveillance, learn a little more about the operation.

It took a full fifteen minutes for him to creep forward another ten feet or so, trying to make out more details. Conversation in lower tones was becoming more discernible to his ears, all of it between the overseers- the laborers were clearly not allowed to speak.

One man in particular seemed to be in charge of the operation. He did not seem to be armed and was dressed in a smart if rather old-fashioned suit. He was trim, dark-haired, with a pencil mustache. Something about him seemed familiar to the Crimson Avenger, annoyingly so.

The impression of familiarity was enhanced even more as he heard the man speak loudly to the guards with an exaggerated, almost stereotypical Southern drawl. “C'mon, y'all, let's pick up the pace here. The advance team is flyin' in from Naples tomorrow night and I want to be ready to go by then, y'hear?”

The overseers nodded assent, yelled some more to the already sweating laborers. Ears were boxed, rears kicked, insults hurled in an effort to squeeze more productivity out of them. The man in the suit nodded his approval, then idly scanned the darkness. Suddenly, he looked in the Crimson Avenger's direction and suddenly frowned.

The mystery man's heart began jackhammering as he tried to flatten himself even further. Surely the man couldn't see him. The shadows and the long grass must conceal him. He was just looking off into the distance. The Crimson Avenger held his breath as the man in the suit held that gaze in his direction. The longer he looked, the more familiar he seemed to the Crimson Avenger. Maybe if he were wearing a hat. . .

The man looked away, and the Crimson Avenger relaxed. No point in sticking around, every minute he did increased the likelihood of discovery. He had to take what he learned and get out of there.

As he crawled deeper into the shadows away from the loading operation, he kept thinking about the man in the suit's face. He had seen it somewhere before.

Perhaps on a cinema screen.

The Travis Residence
11:19 PM Local Time

“It's funny you should ask,” Cyril “Speed” Saunders said as he accepted the glass of beer Lee handed him. The private investigator thought nothing of being summoned to his client's at odd hours of the night and asked strange questions. It didn't even crack the top ten of strange client requests, and for a man who was valued for his knowledge he was able to make a profession of ignorance when needed. “Normally asking about a European city in connection to toxic waste would require further research. I must have a soft spot for you because I'm not even going to bill for your time on this one. Naples and pollution says 'Camorra' to me.”

“Camorra?” Lee asked quizzically. “Who's that?”

“An Italian organized crime syndicate based out of Naples. Western media often confuses them with the Mafia, but I trust you won't make that mistake in your papers,” Saunders said as he indicated the legal pad Lee was using for notes. “They started out doing all the traditional stuff- protection, prostitution, narcotics, and so on. Still do to some extent, but they found a new untapped market: trash. Brings a new meaning to dirty money.”

“Pecunia non olet. How does it make them money, though?”

“Simple. They go to companies and undercut the prices of legitimate disposal services. They don't worry about unions, safety laws, transportation restrictions, environmental concerns, any kind of overhead. They just dump it in a lake or field somewhere and call it a day. There's whole regions of Campania where animals die and crops won't grow.” Saunders shook his head in disgust and took a gulp of beer.

“Do they run operations like that in America?”

“Not to my knowledge. The EPA is usually pretty good about shutting down anything like that, but in this post-pandemic confusion, there might be a chance of getting away with that,” Saunders speculated.

Chance. The word rang in Lee's head. He sat bolt upright in his overstuffed chair as he made a sudden realization.

“You alright there, chief?” Saunders said in mild surprise at his change in posture.

“Tell me, Speed,” Lee asked, covering his start with affected boredom. “You know anything about Slim Chance? The actor?”

Saunders looked a little nonplussed, drained his beer in confusion. “The guy from the Westerns? That's a hell of a segue. I can look into him I guess.”

“Oh, sometimes I just say whatever silly thing comes to my head. You know us playboys. An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur? Anyways, I'll see you out, I'm sure you've got plenty of work to do tonight.” Ever the diligent host, he walked Saunders to the door, shook his hand goodnight.

After seeing out his guest, he was immediately curled up in his chair on his tablet once again, scrolling through whatever information he could find online. Louis “Slim” Chance. A genuine Texas cowboy who broke into acting a while back during the brief Western craze- his real-life skill in shooting, roping and riding coming in handy. He had had the sense to invest his money and retire once the public had stopped demanding films about the weird and wild west and now lived quietly.

It took an hour of reading and scrolling through repetitive entertainment magazine fluff pieces to find the things he was looking for, usually buried deep in amateur detective forums. Rumors about ties to organized crime, participation in human trafficking and providing undocumented workers for unsavory projects for pennies on the dollar. Nothing substantiated, of course, but enough to make Lee realize why Slim Chance had been supervising the loading operation at Ace Chemicals.

He lifted his phone and sent a polite text to Wing.

“Wing, any chance you might be able to teach me how to fight someone wielding a lasso? I have an odd feeling it might come in handy. Semper paratus!”

---

The industrial district of Gotham had grown over the years. Rather than sprawling any further into the city it has instead eaten up the dingy divisions once used to house it's own workers. For politicians the expansion meant cleaning up bad neighborhoods, for businesses it meant more money coming into Gotham. For Pamela Isley, it meant staring at the new waste pool of Ace Chemicals that had taken the place of the row of run-down townhouses that had once been her home. She wasn't sure what she'd expected to find, but at least the fumes weren't making her ill. She kicked a loose piece of gravel into the open vat and watched it bubble as it sank.

There was nothing here for her. But still she hovered for a few moments longer. A part of her had maybe hoped that something had survived. The magnolia tree her mother had nurtured inside for years before transplanting to their small yard, or the rose and peony bushes they trimmed each year together. Pamela reached out with her arm over the pool trying to sense something, anything, that might have remained of her past deep below the earth. But there was nothing, no stirrings of life. For a sense she had possessed for such a short time, it was strange how uncomfortable its absence made her. Just as she was about to turn away, her phone vibrated in her pocket.

S.O.S. -H

The location sent to her was the other side of town. With an exasperated sigh, Pamela got into her car, the toxic waste that had taken the place of her childhood home quickly forgotten.

Helena was already in full swing - quite literally - by the time Pamela arrived. Several men had her nearly surrounded, when Pamela cracked opened the door to the Bertinelli estate cellar. It smelled of dust, wine, and aged wood.

"Took you long enough." Helena grunted, confusing the attackers close enough to hear her as she floored the man attempting to grapple her with a swift kick. At least she wasn't wearing that stupid pointy mask. Pamela hesitated before entering the room completely. What exactly did she expect her to do? As Helena ducked, countered, and leveled the thugs, Pamela took a moment to better survey the scene.

Helena was preparing herself for the next wave of thugs to pour into the dimly-lit wine cellar. Broken glass and shallow pools of wine were scattered across the floor surrounding a large hole in the wall that appeared to have been opened by explosives. Pamela realized that it wasn't just wine flowing between the cobblestone, but also blood - hopefully not Helena's. In fact, judging from the number of bodies strewn about, it seemed that Helena was in fine form.

"Did you come to help or - " A single shot interrupted Helena mid-sentence, and with a string of curses she launched herself at the attacker, grabbing the weapon and cartwheeling in one fluid motion to twist it out of his grasp, while breaking his wrist in the process " - or for a free show?" Still winded but stealing a smug glance at Pamela before the next attacker met his fate. She had them nearly pushed back to the hole they'd been streaming in from.

With a sigh and sense of dread, Pamela pushed open the door and entered. It didn't take much time for the one of the attackers to set upon her. She managed to duck the first clumsy swing but the second quickly knocked her to the ground. What the fuck had Helena been thinking, she wasn't a natural-born fighter; she wasn't even trained. She did her best to keep moving - she rolled to the left, just trying not to get hit. A nearly silent whistle passed through the air, and the man standing over her fell flat to the floor. A quick look showed Helena glaring, with her wrist-mounted crossbow aimed in Pamela's direction.

Pamela stood and brushed herself off, refusing to offer an excuse as the few remaining assailants started to retreat.

"We need to stop them." Helena directed without explanation. Pamela rolled her eyes, but followed through the destroyed wall.

The tunnel they had been ambushed from looked to be ancient; definitely not made for just this single attack. Pamela couldn't guess at what it was doing there, but could tell from the tell-tale smell ahead that they were headed straight into the Gotham sewers. Isley's Saturday had gone from standing safely over refuse to wading in it.

"I can barely see shit." Helena cursed, still managing to land an elbow in a mans back as he tried to run.

Pamela only hummed in response, and reached out with her senses. There was maybe something she could do. "Have that mask I gave you?" Without a word Helena pulled a black specialized air-filtering mask over her face.

There really was no stopping nature. Life could be found just about anywhere that wasn't glowing with toxic waste. Gotham's lax sanitation regulations with its sewers helped of course. Pamela closed her eyes and tried to tune out the echoing wet footsteps in the tunnel. Mold. Not much, but she could work with it. Within seconds it was doubled in area, and then the spores became airborne. Black mold, judging by the near instantaneous coughing and wheezing it caused. The rush of panic to escape was immediately slowed as the goons began to succumb to the mold's toxic effects. Helena didn't even have to lift a finger to bring them to the ground.

"Thanks," Helena said, barely even winded despite the mask.

Pamela shrugged "What the hell happened here?"

"One of the fucking families." There was a brief pause before Helena broke into a long string of curses and gave an impressive kick to the still body at her feet.

We may have killed these men. The thought was surprising to Pamela, but somehow that possibility wasn't horrifying. After all, she knew what she was signing herself up for when she allied herself with the mob.

"I don't understand. Haven't you spent the past month building a case against them specifically to prevent this?"

"I was hoping they weren't stupid enough to force my hand." Helena was rubbing the bare patch of skin not covered by the mask. "I reveal one of them, the others will - " She stopped, realizing that Pamela was neither particularly interested or listening.

"Who cares? When are you going to help me with Legrand?"

"Who?" Helena was picking over the bodies, but looked up to meet Pamela's icy stare. "Right, look. We can deal your ex next week. Just let me find a way to handle Inzerillo first."

Without Pamela's urging, the mold had stopped growing, and slowly settled onto the damp floor and walls of the tunnel. It was hardly safe to breathe, but wasn't enough to immediately kill it's victims. One of the bodies began to stir, grabbing the attention of both women.

It was a young man, attempting to crawl away. Miraculously avoiding the worst of Helena's attacks, he'd been brought down by the mold. Helena was on him in a heartbeat, stomping on his back and flattening him into the damp mud of the passage.

"Are we done here then?" Pamela asked, not protesting, but also not exactly wanting to witness a murder.

"Just a minute. Help me get this one out of here." With a bit of maneuvering, together they managed to drag the body into the safety of the Bertinelli cellar. Safely away from the mold, Helena peeled off her mask, sweaty hair sticking to her face. She didn't allow any time for recovery, pressing her boot on the man's chest even as he began choking and coughing on the clean air.

"Who do you belong to?"

Pamela backed herself away from the interrogation as the man began to wildly look around the room, desperately coming to terms with the company and situation he was in. When his pleading eyes landed on her, she only shook her head slowly. Not her problem.

"I work for myself."

Helena's laugh was a short and hard bark, hardly sincere, and quickly interrupted with a scream as she moved her foot to the man's hand where she pressed her heel. It wasn't much after the violence she'd witnessed moments before, but still Pamela found herself oddly unperturbed by the scene.

"Try again."

"Wait wait wait! You can't kill me!"

"Oh? I didn't have much trouble with your friends back there."

"No , I - " He licked his lips and looked to Pamela again, she gave him no reaction. "My name is Gianni Inzerillo - " His sentence gave way to screams as bones crunched in is hand under Helena's heel.

"Bullshit - I know every Inzerillo in this city by face and name. Try again."

His next words were garbled between blubbering sobs and panicked gasps. "I'm his bastard son - doesn't want anyone to know - please, I'm telling the truth!"

Apparently the words held enough merit for Helena, and she lifted the pressure to allow Gianni to cradle his mangled hand as he shrunk into a ball on the wine and blood-stained floor.

"Helena?" Pamela asked after a moment of near silence - save for the quiet moaning of Gianni. "What are we doing with him?"

Helena turned, an unsettling smile on her face. "I'm going to use him to deal with Inzerillo. Thanks Pam, I'll talk to you in a week."

Eager to leave, Pamela wasted no time with questions. "Make sure to have the tunnel cleaned and sealed, unless you want that mold to spread further." Was her only farewell, and with the briefest glance back at the unfortunate young Inzerillo's pleading eyes, she left the way she came.

"...haa....it wasn't easy, you know...." she tells me, her head lolling from one side to another in a state of drug-addled delirium. "Ingredients hard to come by....heee, ohhh....especially here. But I did it, Rachel. My little black bird, my, aahh, my Raven. I did it. I, ah.......I've got it all in place. Almost....almost done."

Arella Roth, age 34. Admitted to the East Los Angeles Mental Health Center two years ago for displaying acute symptoms of schizophrenia. She had been a member since age fifteen of the Children of Azarath, a new-age religion (the board is too polite to call them a cult) that believes in bizarre mixtures of occult practices, with the intent of contacting and eventually ascending to a higher plane of reality. A true believer in the Azar and their otherworldly teachings, Arella began taking psychedelic drugs and participating in elaborate rituals-- many of which were explicitly sexual in nature-- at age sixteen. At age seventeen, she began a brief but passionate romance with another member of the Children of Azarath, a wealthy and powerful man named Sebastian Blood.

At age eighteen, she had me.

"What did you do this time, Mom?" I ask through the phone on the other side of the plexiglass. "Align the vibrational frequencies of the equatorial ley-lines to make sure I had a happy birthday? Because I didn't. Or did you project with your third-eye into the dimensional weave to send me positive thoughts again? Because I haven't had any of those in--"

Mom begins to laugh, barely more of a laugh than a cry, and I hate myself for saying those things as soon as I say them. Her mental health had been on a slow decline for as long as I can remember-- sudden bouts of depression or anxiety attacks, night terrors so bad her screaming would keep me awake in the other room. Then she started seeing things, "shadow men with six eyes," following us around. It was frightening, then it was dangerous. And now, it's just sad.

"I, aaaah, I asked the Azar," she starts to say, a vacant smile on her face, "I....I asked them to.....to send you an angel. Someone to protect my sweet little black-bird from......well......."

The Children of Azarath weren't any help with my Mom's condition. They first tried their own remedies, lots of crystals and incense and so much mystical bullshit when all she really needed was a doctor and some rest. By the time they sought actual psychiatrists, the damage was done, and all Mom could ever think of was more magical solutions to the problems. More magic, more crazy. More crazy, more magic. Over and over, further down the slippery slope until it became a cliff, and she wound up all the way down here at the bottom.

"Mom, I've read the same books you have," I tell her. "The Journals of Coman, the Great Door, all of it. And the Azar don't have 'angels.'"

"Oh, I know," she nods, "but they can find someone who does and get one from them. But she'll come soon, and you'll never have to face it alone, my little Raven."

"Don't call me that," I all but spit. "and face what?"

Mom turns her head away. "The darkness, Rachel. You'll never have to face it alone, like.......like....."

She begins to sob, and I feel that burning ember of resentment again. The Children of Azarath, their stupid empty mysticism, their drugs and emotional manipulation, they did this to her. It isn't fair. Not to her. And not to me.

"Oh! I nearly forgot!" she suddenly says, the surprise shaking her body. "The, aah, the thing I've been working on for you. It's, ah, it's nearly done, black-bird. I, ah, I'm nearly ready. For the ritual, you see."

"What? No, please, Mom," I hear myself begging, "No more rituals, no more spells, no more sigils or scrolls or crystal matrices or Tarot decks or any of it! It's ruined your life, it's made you....sick. Just rest for a while, and take your meds, and--"

"Rachel," she stops me, "I know I'm not....well. I know I haven't been....been what I should have been for you. But this is the only way I know. I can give you something to protect you. Something to give you the strength you'll need. Something you can use to fight him! Please, just....let me give you that. It's......it's all I can do. And....and I promise, no more spells or magic or foolishness after. This is the last one."

".....the last one?" I ask. "Mom.....you're not going to....to hurt yourself, are you?"

She starts to shake her head.

"I....I never wanted to hurt anyone," she says, before she begins sobbing again. "I n-never.....never wanted t-t-to....."

"Mom? MOM?" I start to say, as a pair of orderlies approach to take her back to her room.

She stands, and the orderlies suddenly release her.

"Rachel?"

She looks at me like someone who has woken up from a long and frightful dream. Like someone who's been lost in a fog who can finally see clearly.

This doesn't happen. I know what happens.

The orderlies take her back to her room, where she has somehow snuck in a shard of broken glass. She completes her ritual that night. I never see her again.

Instead, she's looking me in the eye, the thoughtful, caring, powerful, and completely sane mother I never had.

"I'm so sorry, Rachel," she says. "I never meant for any of this. But you need protection. You need strength. You need power and weapons for what is coming. And in my state, I only knew of one way I could provide them to you."

The grimy tile floor, the plain white plaster walls, the awful fluorescent lighting, all fades away. Everything except for the plexiglass sheet separating me from her, now stretching out as far as I can see.

"....what? Mom, no, this is--....you're not---.....what's happening?"

"I could not resist him," Arella Roth says, her voice heavy with shame, "And now you must face him. But I promise you, you will not face him alone."

A black wind whips around us, wisps of smoke and shadow becoming arms and tendrils of darkness that whirl and grab and claw at me.

"Mom?! Wait, no, what's--"

"You will not face him alone, my Raven," she repeats, her voice drowning out in the deafening black wind. "Remember the keys to open the Great Door. The three sigil words to unleash the Soul....."

The grasping, groping, choking tendrils of darkness are suddenly chains.

I am no longer floating in the void, but chained to a table in a basement somewhere in Hollywood.

My mother is gone. In her place is the man I had been told was my father.

"Your brood-mare of a mother is just as wrong now as she was then," he laughs, throwing back his head, which in turn opens up the blood red cloak to reveal his body covered in runes, sigils carved into his naked flesh. "I was merely a vessel. Your father.....your true father.....wields power far beyond your comprehension. Power which he has promised me, in return for opening the door to this paltry world."

"HAIL THE DESTROYER!" a chant erupts from the rows of hooded figures behind him. "HAIL THE DEFILER! HAIL THE DESPOILER! HAIL THE DOMINATOR! HAIL TRIGON!"

"You, my dear," Sebastian says, letting his robe fall to the ground as I struggle against my chains, "Are born of two worlds, and in so being your flesh and spirit form the bridge between both. Tonight, I claim both of them as my own, and will use you to bring my master's reign on Earth!"

"HAIL THE DESTROYER! HAIL THE DEFILER! HAIL THE DESPOILER! HAIL THE DOMINATOR! HAIL TRIGON!"

"Don't squirm, girl," he says as he approaches, a dagger in one hand, his weapon of a completely different kind in the other. "Before this is over, I promise you'll learn to enjoy it."

An explosion. Green fire blasts Sebastian apart, reduces the hooded figures to mist.

This doesn't happen. I know what happens-- or I think I do. Black shadows erupt from my body, tossing Sebastian and his followers aside and allowing me to escape. That's what really happens.

Instead, they are obliterated by bolts of brilliant green light, and the darkness that envelopes me isn't a cruel, cold void.

It's....everything. It's a sea of possibilities, unknowable depths holding secrets and wonders.

In that infinite black, points of light emerge. Stars, nebulae, whole galaxies begin to glitter and play.

The darkness that surrounds me, that is me, it's.... it's the space between limitless wonders, that holds them and keeps them afloat. Just as the brightness of these lights puts the darkness into sharp relief, so does the darkness make the light seem that much brighter.

It's.....it's the most beautiful thing I've ever dreamed.

Distantly, I hear a voice in the glittering dark, an echo from somewhere I can't sense.

_{"You need not fear, Friend Rachel. The flames of Starfire burn bright. And no shadow shall ever smother them out."}

I feel warmth, and comfort, not just surrounding me, but embracing me, and I allow myself to drift, at play in infinity.

I have the best sleep of my entire life.

---

Ted leaned back in his chair and peered out the floor to ceiling windows that lined his office. While Kord Sciences didn't have the largest building in New York, he still had one hell of a view of the city he loved. Buildings lined his vision like impeccably drilled army ready to march. Well, an impeccably drilled army made up of soldiers with hilariously differing heights. The thought made him chuckle, and then he was embarrassed that he laughed at his own internal monologue.

He was proud of what he had here. It wasn't the largest building, but it was his. Made by the efforts of him and his scientists, Kord Sciences had become a true force for good in the world. No longer was his name tied up in the military industrial complex, and he could be secure in the knowledge that would be a permanent fixture.

Before he could get too comfortable with everything he had helped build here, Beatriz da Costa came bursting into his office. The tall, tanned woman had her long, curly hair pulled back into a bun, and wore a suit covering her thin frame. Dark, piercing eyes stared at him with the intensity she brought to her work, and which scared him just a little bit. Beatriz was a whiz when it came to marketing and PR, but Ted always thought she missed her call as a model due to the striking looks that were probably considered stereotypical when considering a Brazilian woman. Of course he had never said that to her. That would be crazy. In fact, he probably should never have thought that. It'd probably get him in trouble one way or another.

"You know you run this company right?" her eyebrow cocked at him, a playful smile hidden behind faux annoyance. "Coming in halfway through the day is not how CEOs usually do things."

"No?" he asked. "I thought that was part of the whole appeal of it. That and the oodles of money, of course."

"Very funny," she shook her head. "I set up an interview with USNN for tomorrow about the climate projects."

Ted twirled around in his seat with annoyance and groaned, "You know I hate interviews."

"Mhm," she responded condescendingly. "I also know that every time you do one our stock price goes up a few points."

Nodding with approval, he responded, "I do like that."

"It's almost like I know what I'm doing," he face morphed into a mask of mock surprise. He liked her, if he was being honest. She was fun, and brought some much needed life to the office. Kord loved being around other scientists, but even he had to admit they were far from the best company when it came to water cooler banter.

"Yea, yea," he wave her out of the office. As she was at the door, he teased, "You're a pain in my ass."

"Excuse me?" she turned back with fire in her eyes. "What did you say about my ass?"

"I-I...no...I didn't-"

"Oh my god you should see your face," she cackled as she left the office.

"That...that was not funny," he sighed.

Before he could actually get down to work, his computer alerted him that Dr. Olafsdotter was calling in from the Arctic Circle. He patched the call in, and a holographic screen popped up from his desk displaying the Norwegian scientist. The striking blue eyes and so-blond-it's-almost-white hair that were her most striking features hit Ted like a stiff breeze, "Mr. Kord, it's been a few weeks."

"Dr. Olafsdotter," he smiled, always being entranced by her Scandinavian beauty, "I'm sorry about that. I've been busy."

"So have we," she smiled broadly. "The machine works."

That made Ted sit a bit higher in his chair, refocused on business and not the beautiful woman, "It works? Like we thought it would?"

Tora had come to him with a theory that through a natural chemical procedure she could recover Arctic and Antarctic ice that had been loss from climate change. He had worked with her to develop a solar powered machine to facilitate the chemical process without the need for an operator. For the past three months she had been experimenting with it.

"Better," her eyebrows raised. "In fact, the issue we're running into now is that it runs too well. We almost froze over the entire bay before we shut it off."

"Woo!" he slapped his desk in triumph. "Working too well is better than not at all. Tora, you've made my day."

"Yes, I think I will return to New York to work on the levels for now. I love my home, but I could use some warmth," she shivered, drawing her blue parka closer to herself.

"Great, can't wait to see you. I'll have everyone over my pool to celebrate your return to livable latitudes," he responded, and instantly realized that was a highly, highly inappropriate offer.

She was slightly taken aback, but didn't seem offended by the idea, "Oh. Well. That would be nice. I look forward to seeing you as well, Mr. Kord."

Mr. Kord...I am totally getting a sexual harassment suit

---

"Ted, would you talk some sense into my son?" Joan Garrett asked as she served Kord a big plate of her brisket, Ted's absolute favorite. He wouldn't have missed this for the world. Growing up as the second Garrett son more or less, it was always his favorite. No one could make brisket as tender as Joan's. Still, he missed Dan every time he was here for dinner. It just wasn't the same without the family's patriarch. "Allison is just waiting for a ring and he keeps dragging his feet."

Joan wasn't wrong on that end. Dave's girlfriend might have already killed him if she wasn't so patient. And it wasn't from a lack of Dave's desire to be with her, more his own ineptitude in reading social situations. If Ted constantly put his foot in his mouth when it came to talking to the opposite sex, Dave just missed every hint ever laid at his feet.

After chewing and swallowing his first big bite, savoring every note of flavor he could, Ted laughed lightly, "Joan, if he ever listened to anything I said you'd have a few grandkids by now."

"Yea, but not any legitimate ones," Dave quipped, earning a light slap on the back of his head from his mother. "Hey, lighten up, Mom."

"She's not wrong, buddy," Ted shrugged. "It's time to settle down."

His eyes narrowed at Kord, and with a point said, "I'll propose to Allison when you ask Tora out."

Ted's eyes widened with horror as Joan turned her attention to him. Kord damned his friend's innate ability to turn any sticky situation he was in around on someone else.

"Who is this Tora?" Mrs. Garrett's eyebrows perked up.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, "She's that environmental scientist and engineer working on our Arctic ice project. And if you really want to know, she's coming back to New York next week...and I may have invited her to the mansion pool because she mentioned how she wanted to get back to the warmth?"

"Oh buddy you are so bad at this," Dave winced with sympathy.

"Well, what did she say to that?" Joan attempted to be positive, but it was clear even she felt he probably made a mistake with that one.

"She...didn't seem offended? Seemed like she'd be for it? Crap, I have to have a company-wide pool party at my house, don't I?" Ted groaned.

"Yes. Sounds like it, dude," Dan laughed through a bite of brisket.

Issue # 1.01: Meat and Greet

---

The weather was perfect for driving around serene San Diego. The sun was shining, the cool Pacific breeze was blowing in from the ocean to the city, and the out-of-state tourists weren’t back in full swing yet because of that big pandemic everyone just went through. This would have been the perfect day to bust out Buddy’s old 2006 Daytona Charger from his parents’ garage and it was all he could think about. Just a carefree day spent cruising around. In fact, he wondered how many of these perfect days that he missed out on while he was still stu-

“Baker, light post!” telepathically shouted his feline familiar.

Crash, bang, boom. Socks and Buddy were both lunged from their seats towards the nearby hard cement of the sidewalk. Luckily, the cat construct’s chassis cushioned the crash. No such fortune could be found for the fellow who fell flat and face first. Perhaps it was a good thing they weren’t in his dream car, or any car for that matter.

“Baker, it seems the bicycle has not suffered any significant damage though my basket carrier seems to be dented now. I request you buy a new one after our business at the haruspex.” reported Socks after a quick rundown of the frame, handle and wheels.

“Glad to hear it, dude.” Buddy would state with a muffled voice while give a thumbs up, still lying on the ground. He soon picked himself up and noticed his nose had become bloodied and his lip had been cut. While both of these were superficial wounds at worst, they were certainly damping the mood of what should have been a perfect day out.

“Explain to me again why we’re not taking my car to the whatever-pex. I wouldn’t have been daydreaming about it and we’d be there by now for sure!” inquired Buddy as he started wiping the blood off his face with his shirt’s sleeves. Instead of a straightforward answer, Socks had decided a visual would help the new champion of The Red understand his plea as he seemed to like dreams even when he’s not asleep. The blood he was wiping off started to pool together towards Buddy’s eyes, obscuring them before completely blinding him in crimson. He tried to scream but a loud roar from a distance had drowned his voice out. Over the horizon of pure red, a large shadowy figure in contrasting black had emerged and started rushing towards him. It projected a strong sense of tyranny on to Buddy which left him feeling paralyzed. The closer it got, the more of its full form and majesty were being revealed. There was no denying it: This was a T-Rex charging towards him! However, before the nightmare could reach him, the vision had stopped and Buddy had suddenly found himself in front of an unfamiliar butcher shop with Socks curiously staring at him by his feet.

“Baker, your automobile runs on the desecration of our mighty champions of old.” the cat would state before entering the establishment.

"Hey, no more voodoo blood dinosaur zombie magic!" Buddy would protest before following Socks in.

---

As they entered, a sense of calm that should not come from a butcher shop enveloped Buddy. It felt alive and nurturing though the slabs of cured meats on display were anything but. Behind the shop’s counter was an odd-looking fellow whose arms were covered in patterned scars as if they had become the newest trend in tattoo alternatives. His face was partially obscured by a hygiene mask but his eyes shone a bright yellow. Buddy’s initial thought was that he probably sucked at being a butcher if kept cutting himself. This thought was immediately backed up by the fact that he not once took the time to acknowledge him, even as he and Socks were the only customers in the establishment.

“Hey guy, we’re looking for some goats guts or something. Preferably ones in judge robes that speak in English.” said Buddy, immediately looking at Socks with a wry smile. His companion merely meowed in response.

The butcher did not respond, choosing to instead ring up an order on his register: a mystery meat wrap. Hungry and confused, Buddy nonchalantly accepted the snack though he really wanted a drink to go along with this. As he removed the foil covering the wrap, a voice entered his head.

“Champion, consume me and enter our domain.” it spoke with great authority.

“Um, I don’t really like the idea of knowing that my food is sentient but if you say so.” A big chomp into the wrap was followed by a big thud unto the floor as Buddy’s physical form collapsed. Before he knew it though, Buddy was back in The Red with Socks and magic meat wrap in hand. Something felt different this time but before he could deduce what it was, the wrap had floated away from his grasp and materialized into the goat-being from his dreams.

“You finally come to visit when you’re awake, boy.”