C H A P T E R O N E : T H E L O N G W A Y H O M ECAPTAIN MARVEL RETURNS
The red headed woman was sorting through laundry.
Not in the usual sense. With so many people transiting through the Xavier Institute, the mansion could rack up laundry like nobody’s business. But this was different. This wasn’t wrestling with the piles of dirty clothes left for the ubiquitous
someone else to worry about -- as if some good Samaritan existed that would magically make them disappear or transform them into clean clothes -- or even the stack of actual clean clothes that needed to be sorted and then distributed back to their rightful owners... assuming they could be identified.
No, this was the pile of clothing that was gathering for eventual delivery to a Goodwill donation center.
Eventually being the operative word.
She thought she remembered putting a few things of Sammy’s in there and, sure enough, she found them. Along with one of Calvin’s old
Wham! tee shirts. Luckily, the laundry room was a judgement free zone. If it wasn’t, then Victor’s underwear would definitely be the subject of more gossip.
Folding an old sweatshirt that looked to be Billy’s size over one arm, the Marvel Girl made her way through the school, crossing into the boy’s dormitory. Knocking lightly on the door, the woman peeked into the room occupied by the school’s youngest students.
Sammy was looking back at her, seated on the floor in front of a Playstation 3, with half a fruit roll-up hanging out of his mouth.
When she turned her head, she found him.
Billy was on the spare bed. Out like a light. The lighting and noise from the video game on the small television in the room not even disturbing him as he slept soundly, and it wasn’t even seven thirty.
Leaving the folded clothes on the nightstand, Jean reached out to telekinetically lift the boy up and tuck him into the bed. Then slipped back out of the room.
November 13th, 2017 | 5:22a.m. | The Xavier Institute of Higher Learning
The mansion was dark.
The tee shirt was too large for him. It was sized for an adult, the collar hanging off one shoulder as the garment reached down past his knees. Big, block letters on the front read
PROPERTY OF XAVIER INSTITUTE ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT. The signature X icon was in the center, slightly washed out and distressed.
It was an odd assembly of skinny legs, stick arms, and bed hair coming out of the dorms as Billy stumbled his way in the dark through the familiar-yet-always mysterious Xavier estate.
He found himself standing in the kitchen, but he was afraid to get himself something to eat. He didn’t want to accidentally wake someone up by making too much noise trying to remember which cabinets and draws held things like bowls or spoons. Plus, he didn’t like the idea of just helping himself to someone else’s food.
He found himself out on the back patio instead. The sky was still dark. The sun an hour away from rising. Even still, in the persistent twilight, Billy’s breath formed a shadowy cloud in front of his face.
The cloud was illuminated, the snow and ice around his feet transformed to steam, as static energy crackled around the boy’s small form. Drifting upward, the mansion patio soon fell away from beneath his feet.
He ascended into the clouds, then further skyward still. The temperature and oxygen levels dropping as the atmospheric pressure soon feel below human tolerance.
Billy Batson was straddling the line between Earth and space. His eyes shut, the boy tilted his head back and just
listened to the world below.
They said his power came from six immortal elders. A titan, two Greek gods, two Greek heroes, and a Jewish king. Even so, Billy couldn’t have said if God existed or not. He’d met a lot of really powerful beings who could have easily fit the bill. Some benevolent. Most of them not. But, even still, he knew the people below were looking up at the sky and wondering if God heard their prayers.
Billy didn’t have that answer for them.
But
he heard them.
The sounds of the world below. Car crashes. Guns. Explosions. Sirens. A woman struggling as she took her last breath. The cries of a newborn. It was a symphony of death and life.
It was a world in which he needed to find his place.
“Costume on.”A wave of heat lightning shot through the upper atmosphere. In the blink of an eye, the tee shirt and underwear clad youth was transfigured into a red and blue hero. The white cowl and cape billowed behind him, as the child looked down at the world below.
He was gone in a flash.
The sun was up before Sammy was.
Coming down into the kitchen, the aquatic mutate stumbled half awake into the kitchen, fumbling haphazardly for a chair at the breakfast table. Someone had CNN up on the television. Sammy immediately tuned it out.
Judging by the look of the people gathered in the kitchen, he wasn’t the only one.
“Breaking news from our affiliate in San Juan this morning...”
Jean came by with a bowl of cereal.
“Did you see if Billy was up?” the woman asked, depositing the bowl down in front of him.
The aquatic boy just looked at her strangely for a moment.
“Billy was already gone when I got up this morning.”“...the hero Captain Marvel, not seen since 2015, appeared there in the early hours of this...”
Folding his newspaper closed, the bombastic Beast suddenly looked up from his untouched plate. Turning his head, Hank McCoy offered only,
“I may have located the lad.”A furred, clawed hand reached over to pick up the television remote, and dial up the volume further, as people started to gather around.
“Witnesses report that Captain Marvel appeared here this morning, removing debris from a playground and park that had been inaccessible since Hurricane Maria swept across the island. Unconfirmed reports are also circulating of claims by people in local hospitals of being helped there by the child hero from isolated pockets across the island.”
“He went to Puerto Rico?” Sammy uttered, somewhat in a daze and disbelief.
“It would appear,” Hank affirmed with a faint nod.
“Additional sightings were reported in Indonesia, where smartphone video appears to have captured footage of Captain Marvel rescuing a capsized boat in the straits of Malacca.”
“Just how long do you think he’s been awake?” Jean posed, rhetorically.
The sudden crack of thunder seemed to shake the mansion. When the group at the breakfast table had looked up, the tee shirt and underwear clad Batson was coming in from the back patio. Glancing up, Billy was taken aback by the attention, as everyone seemed to be staring.
“Oh, hey guys,” the boy managed weakly, drifting inside of the kitchen.
“I, uh, just felt like taking a walk this morning.”“We here at CNN don’t know where Captain Marvel’s been these last two years, but we’re glad to see him back.”
Tilting his head to one side, Billy’s attention shifted from the people at the table to the face on the screen. They were talking about him?
In rapid succession, Jean was hugging him. Then she was holding him out at arms length. And then she was scolding him.
“You could have left a note.”“I figured I’d be back by...”“What’s an Indonesia?” Sammy asked, flipping around so that he was leaning over the back of his chair as he asked the question. Then he seemed to think twice about the question.
“Or, like, where’s Indonesia?” he clarified a moment later. Before sliding down in his chair.
“That’s a place, right?”Billy just blinked, looking between Jean and Sammy. Then just blurted aloud,
“They know about Indonesia?”Seriously, he figured Mexico maybe. But Indonesia? That quickly?
“The world’s a smaller place now,” Hank offered cryptically, before picking up his tea.
Whatever that meant.
Half Pint
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