Sir Lurksalot

Heroes Reborn: Prime Earth (Superhero/Urban Fantasy: OPEN)

January 11th, 7:32 PM
Docklands, Bludhaven, NJ.

"Well... that sucked." The Hound said flatly, exhaustion evident even through the mechanical growl of his voice modulator as he unceremoniously dropped the large, rune-inscribed and just slightly gooey magitech apparatus in his hand to the ground with a loud 'clunk!' and flopped down on his ass, resting his back against the shipping container with a long groan. "We've really gotta stop meeting like this, Detective."

Jericho, for her part, just offered her local costumed weirdo something between a chuckle and a sigh as he sat down next to her, pulling a pack of smokes out of her breast pocket.

"Right? Between the magic cannibal, half the police force trying to murder us and now that—" She agreed, pointing toward the colossal frame of the blue oni before them, slumped on the ground in a pile, out cold and oblivious to the world, even as the holes in her skull began mending themselves shut with a rhythmic crunching sound. "Reeeeally starting to think I should'a taken the month off."

A bit of weary laughter escaped the two of them as Sasha lit up her cancer stick. Very nearly dying horribly a couple dozen times in the past week having clearly brought the two past the point of trepidation and straight into a feeling of 'Well, I guess we're doing this now.'.

Constantly dodging death had a funny way of bringing people together, after all.

"So what's with that ugly looking doodad, anyhow?" The cop asked, thumbing toward the contraption her masked compatriot had so tersely plunked on the ground as she took a drag.

"Some kinda scartech; Far as I can tell it bores little holes into it's host's skull and pumps processed red dust directly into their brain. Saw the same thing on the big red fucker from last week..." The hero explained, with a tired wave of his hand. "...Aaaand, apparently if ya rip it out, it puts the big angry oni it's attached too on the ground. Would've liked to have known that last time."

"Yeah, been meaning to ask about that; how did you manage to make that big damned block of modern art that's been thawing out in my station's jail the past week?"

"Magic murder bird."

"What?"

"Nevermind that." The Hound cut her off with a little wave before she could dig too deeply at that particular landmine. "The hell were you doing out here anyway?"

Fixing the shorter figure a suspicious glare that wasn't at all hindered by the fact that she only actually had the one eye to do so with, Sasha nonetheless let the smoke out her lungs and explained.

"Welp, remember what Muller said about The Sardinian showing up in a big damned container ship? I finally had a night where you weren't around and the whole damned universe wasn't trying to fucking kill me, so I thought I'd come down and take a look. See if he left anything behind I could get a lead out of." Said the near-amazon, before pulling the cigarette out of her mouth and waving it in the direction of the massive, blue-skinned woman that had been up until recently trying to murder them. "Instead I found that in a container bound for New Orleans— Because fuck my life— and, well..."

She then motioned to the scene around them, with shipping containers and machinery thrown about the place like children's toys, some of them smashed or in pieces due to the oni's fists. Many of them cut cleanly into halves and thirds due to the pair of massive, magical machetes she'd been swinging around like a fucking lunatic. And a whole lot of them covered in a layer of ice and/or paradoxically also on fire due to... well, a whole bunch of other things that had made their night very exciting.

"...I think ya know the rest."

To that, the Hound could only respond with a quiet nod and leaned his head back against the container behind them; it'd been one hell of a night. But not so much that it'd keep him quiet.

"Speakin' of 'leads', now that we've got a minute alone where we're not about to die, you finally wanna tell me what the Aquila wanted with ya?"

Detective Jericho frowned a little at that, she had promised to fill the little weirdo in a mask in about all that, but she really would've preferred not to, as some part of her took the whole scenario just a little personally. Even after he'd spent the past week on a seemingly endless cycle of saving her ass.

She sighed.

No getting out of it now.

"There's... a P.I. down in the Melville district, a guy named Maxime de Caen. We served together in the marines." She started, just a little hesitantly. "Vanguard hired him to poke around the Aquila's shit. And I guess he must have found something, because not long after that, the Sardinian's goonsquad started trying to get me to put him down. Guess they figured our... history... would make it easy."

"You were close?"

Sasha shot the so-called hero a little glare.

"We were married."

She gave a satisfied little grunt when that shut him up. Or at least stopped him from prying any further into her personal life.

He wasn't the only one allowed to hold secrets after all.

"So... where's this guy now?"

”Well, after you went ahead and saved me and my… our son, I swept by Max’s agency and took him into protective custody— Probably going on remand for that, kicking down my ex’s door and hauling him into the back of my car after the mob tried to get me to kill him and all.” She continued, looking just a tad displeased by the memory of it all. ”...That lasted a good three days before one of Muller’s boys tried to strangle him to death in his cell and wound up on the ground gargling around the remains of his jaw instead. So my bosses—through gritted teeth, mind you— handed him off to the GCPD for better protective custody.”

Tiredly, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. Trying to ignore how the figure seated beside her seemed to stiffen at her words as she carried on.

”And that lasted until this morning, when one of their own dirty cops had the dumb idea to put a knife in his belly instead of his throat. That guy was lucky a less dick-headed cop heard him screaming from the hallway and managed to pull Max off of him.” She continued, having the decency to look away from the hero who had gone dead silent by now. All but glaring a hole through her skull with those glowing eyes of his.

On some level, she did feel a little guilty about waiting until now to tell him all this, and could understand just why he'd be a bit pissed off about the whole deal, but, well... there wasn't any changing it now. So she bit her lip and kept going.

"After that, Commissioner Jasper had him moved to an off-the-books safehouse and around the same time, Vanguard looked in on this immense tapestry of failure that is both our Departments and started petitioning to bring de Caen into their own care." She finished, casting an uncharacteristically timid glance back the vigilante's way. "...Rumour-mill has it that he's to be moved to their HQ within a week, once the paperwork clears."

For his part, said vigilante wasn't screaming or cursing the woman out... just glaring at her in silence.

Though a sudden, sharp inhale from the smaller figure let her know that that was about to change really goddamn fast.

"Itai..."

Ah, but just her luck, there was a big blue oni waking up with a bunch of holes still in her skull to distract the hero from giving the chewing out she was both too tired for and just might have deserved.

...Wait, hold on.

Suddenly realizing what was wrong with that statement, the woman's head snapped right back to her front to lock in on the sight of the not-so-unconscious-anymore killing machine on the ground before them... which suddenly looked a whole lot less like the brutal engine of death and destruction she had seen not too long ago and more like... a kid who just woke up on the cold ground with a bunch of holes in her head as she whimpered, curled up into a ball and began to cry.

"Itai... Itai... Itai..."

Oh, shit. That was a kid, wasn't it?

She felt her face drop to her palm as that one hit her.

"...Christ."

A moment of... almost silence passed between the two erstwhile heroes as the big blue girl just sobbed there on the pavement, until the Hound's shoulders visibly relaxed and he finally spoke.

"Don't suppose you know any Japanese, do ya?"

"I, uhh... a little from my time in Oki, why?"

"Good." The flak-clad hero very nearly growled out as he got to his feet and carefully made his way over to the very scared, and still very large and freakishly strong teenager before him. "Mind saying something to calm down the big blue non-human that could still turn us into hamburger meat by accident?"

"Wait, yer not mad?"

"Fucking livid, actually, but we kinda got other things to deal with right now."

---

January 18th, 11:32 PM
Vanguard Plaza, Gotham, NJ.

Gotham was... different, Malcolm had to admit. And he wasn't entirely sure he liked it. Then again, this was the first time he'd ever actually ever set foot outside of his particular 'hub of urban decay', as a certain magic murder bird he knew often called it, so he guessed a bit of culture-shock was inevitable.

It was the little things that got to him the most; Gotham was... a whole lot less grimy than his home on the other side of the Avalon— Not to say it was particularly clean, mind you, but it did remind the boy just how much the roads of his town could use a bit of paving and the buildings some serious rehab.

And on those buildings, the sort of Neo-Gothic style that dominated the local skyline was a far cry from the glowing holosigns and improvised, disorderly urban sprawl he knew and loved, where magitech had been so widely and somewhat forcefully adopted out of necessity that it turned the whole place into something that'd make a cyberpunk enthusiast wet in the pants and a city-planner's eyes bleed just served to further reinforce the notion that this simply was not home.

But that wasn't the weirdest thing.

No, that honour went to the fact that, while you couldn't take a piss on a Bludhaven street without hitting at least three different species and a gaggle of mages, Gotham was... somewhat barren in this regard. Very literally, for the former, simply having less in the way of demons and non-humans as far as he could tell, with those that actually were in town either hiding away in backalleys or dressing themselves to hide their otherworldly features as they ducked their heads and tried to keep a low profile. The latter? Well, he'd been here two days now and hadn't seen a single mage openly walking around in their traditional attire— Though honestly, it was a little harder to tell if that was just a fashion thing or them trying to keep mum about their true nature. Either way, he figured just walking up and asking would be a bad idea.

And only partially because he could be thrown into the back of a squad-car under suspicion of being up to something if the wrong person caught his accent.

The boy sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose a little through his mask, quietly freezing his ass off on a rooftop by his lonesome, as he had done the past two nights, across the plaza from Vanguard Headquarters waiting for... something to happen, before quietly pulling his face-cover up a bit and finally opening the box of pizza sitting beside him that'd been doing nothing but getting as cold as he was the past fifteen minutes to grab a slice.

He got about a bite and three chews in before he had to stop and just stare at the bloody thing between shivering and mentally dunking on this whole city.

"Wait, sherioushly?" The Hound managed, almost sounding pleasantly surprised around a mouthful of Gotham pizza.

He didn't have much time to think on that though, as he caught sight a column a GCPD cruisers pulling into the Vanguard parking lot, evidently unmolested by whatever designs the Aquila might have had for it.

Honestly, it was the only good thing Mal had seen in two days... discounting the slice of pie in his hand that is.

But then the power abruptly went out. For the whole city block. And the back up generators he damn well knew Vanguard had, simply didn't cut in.

And then the ground began to shake.

And there, sitting way up on his rooftop perch, Mal heard something that made him freeze even more than he already was.

"CHUGGA-CHUGGA-CHUGGA-CHUGGA-CHUGGA-CHUGGA..."

"Awww, hell..."

---

Isaac McKinley was... not having a fun time.

Which in itself, was kinda odd. Usually a night out in the marauder with the boys and his boss, Styx, the legendary Arcane Cowboy was a simple little adventure. They did their job, got their take, got their pay from the Don, then maybe had a few beers and went the fuck home. Sometimes with a few laughs along the way, sometimes without, but it was always an easy, efficient operation.

No it was the... extra baggage this time around that was causing him such concern. Well, him and everyone else in that damned armoured truck, if how his boss's hand had been on his revolver as he kept his eye on the extra body in there with them the whole time through the rearview was any indication.

Though between the quadruply-possessed girl in the back who kept rapidly alternating between snickering, muttering curses, crying and just generally foaming at the mouth as the four demons in her head went at eachother like ravenous dogs, and the out-and-out power-armoured monument to derangement that was the big red guy running in front of their vehicle, tearing up the street beneath his heels and screaming train sounds at the top his lungs as her charged toward their destination... he felt just a bit justified in that.

And was really starting to understand why the so-called Fearsome Five always seemed to do their level best to stay as far away from eachother as humanly possible.

Still, unlike the rest of his crew that opted to suffer all this in silence, he, to his own horror felt his mouth beginning to move.

"What the fu-"

And nigh instantly, he felt a hand clap down on his shoulder from the passenger seat.

"Son..." Came the familiar Texan drawl of his boss. "I strongly recommend you do not finish that sentence."

It didn't take Isaac very long to figure out why, as every fibre in his being screamed in protest as the deranged-looking blonde that had been strapped in at the far back of the vehicle was suddenly leaning over his shoulder and breathing into his ear through four mouths that, though they occupied the same place, were not at all synchronized.

"Lllaaaaanguage, Miiister McKiiinleeey...."

And that was about was about when four separate prehensile tongues a varying thickness and texture began snaking their way along his neck.

"Eyes on the road, Son. Eyes on the road."

---

"CHOO-CHOOOOOO!"

And not a second after those words echoed through the Gotham air, did the titanic frame of Bludhaven's Red Terror come slamming through the solid concrete walls of the Vanguard building and into the main lobby, arms behind his head in a classic 'Mr. Universe' pose as he skidded to a stop before all the armed Gotham cops and Vanguard security that'd been hiding in cover, guns drawn when they saw and heard him coming from half a damned mile away.

"DADDY'S HOME, KIDS!" The armoured maniac cried out to absolutely anyone who would listen in a sing-song voice. Either not knowing or just not caring about how much firepower was pointing at him at that moment as he began thrusting his hips in the general direction of everyone involved. "NOW WHO'S READY FOR SOME LOOOOOOVE~?"

In response, he only got three words out of whoever was in charge there.

"Fuck him up."

And enough firepower to damn near evaporate everything around him, though it all merely bounced off his magitech hull as he stood there polishing his armoured fingertips with a silken rag. Clearly not giving a damn about, or even feeling any of it as it failed to even scratch his race-car red shell.

In fact, as the gunfire slowly came to a stop, he opted to laugh instead and wave his now very shiny digit at them chidingly.

"NOW, NOW, NOW, KIDS... IF YOU START ACTING LIKE THAT..." He giggled out, slowly closing his mechanical which began to come apart and change shape. "DADDY'LL HAVE TO SPANK!"

And just as his fist seemingly reached it's final shape, a Vanguard scientist hiding behind one of the lobby's many columns poked his head out and quickly came to a bonechilling conclusion.

"That's a wave-motion gun... that's a fucking wave-motion gun! Everybody! RUN!"

"YEET!"

And that's about all the warning they got before the world became both very bright, and very loud.

---

Styx and his boy's entrance to what was left of the main lobby of Vanguard HQ was a lot less... thematic than the Red Terror's- The whole place now laying abandoned as whatever resistance there was had either been vaporized by the armoured psychopath or had retreated further inside with him hot on their heels, if the distant, but unmistakably familiar maniacal laughter and occasional tremor that rocked the whole place was any indication.

"Well then, can't say this is unexpected." The Arcane Cowboy observed with a low whistle as he adjusted his hat. "Not exactly what we're actually here for, though, ainnit?"

"LaaaaFayette drifts cloooser to perfection by the daaaay..." Came the... also not at all unexpected response from his erstwhile teammate...s "Iiiit is a beautiful thiiiiing..."

Styx just clicked his tongue at this and unholstered his weapon.

"Well, be that as it may, Quartet, Some of us actually have to work for our money." He said, just a bit of an edge working it's way into his voice. "So I don't suppose y'all'd mind fanning out and havin' an eye for anybody not invited to our little party? I'd rather not have to deal with anyone wearing a leather jacket or dog-shaped armour right now."

True to fashion, Quartet was on him in an instant, hovering before him to be just above eye-level and close enough to be nearly nose-to-nose and to push up the brim of his hat slightly. Apparently angry enough that all four instances of her mouth were finally moving in sync... though the four distinct voices that made up her warbling tone remained.

And three more rows of eyes suddenly opened up on her face.

"And just when did we start taking orders from you, mortal?"

"Why, when Firefly said ya did, ladies." Styx responded, not missing a beat. "Now git."

That seemed to do the trick, as the amalgam being known as Quartet snarled and complied; dividing and firing off her essence to the three other cardinal directions of the building in a flash of light.

...And also leaving one remaining blue-skinned demon in that spot their amalgam had been before, floating awkwardly in place while pushing the man's hat up with her now undisguised demonic forehead.

"I, uh... like your hat, Mr. Styx."

"Why thank ya, Darlin'." The masked man chuckled as he took a step back and turned to leave, motioning for Isaac and the rest of his boys to follow behind him. "Don't let yer sisters hear that though, it'd make 'em right angry, right quick."

"I'm really sor-"

"That neither!"

---

The Hound could only grimace as his night went from bad, to worse, to holy fucking wow in absolutely record time. Though he was, in some reptilian part of his brain, just a little astounded by what he was looking at; The Fearsome Five, as individuals, rarely did anything out in the open anymore. And the last any of them actually got together to do something like this, they were conquering Bludhaven.

Yet now, here three of five were, absolutely wrecking Vanguard's shit.

'Just what the hell does de Caen have on these people?'

That thought aside, a long exhale escaped the boy as he shook his head, stood up, pulled down his mask, and at least attempted to psyche himself up for the pure balls-out insanity of what he was about to attempt—

"Fucking hell..." He growled, raising his arm and firing off his grapple line toward the Vanguard complex. "I guess we're doing this now."

Taking on the Fearsome Five. With not much more than a grapple, a few knives and a handgun.

It didn't need to be said that this was probably not going to end well. Hell, he was very likely going to fucking die here. But even in the midst of all that, there was one other prevailing thought in the back of his head that now screamed like a klaxon and just wouldn't shut the hell up until it aggressively forced it's way out of it's mouth the moment where his feet left the rooftop he'd been camping out on.

"...Goddamn, I miss my magic murder bird."

And with those final words, Malcolm Talhaiarn plunged directly into what was most assuredly going to be the toughest fight of his life.

Heroes Reborn: Prime Earth (Superhero/Urban Fantasy: OPEN)

January 2, 12:05 PM
North-East of Atlanta, Georgia - Near US Highway 85

---

To say Duncan was a bit surprised about Verra's guarded reaction would be a bit of a lie; their last meeting hadn't exactly been... a fun occasion, and he'd had the distinct feeling that this whole thing wasn't going to go down with a chorus of sunshine, rainbows and happy funtime music. Still, it did make the man's shoulder's slump a little, as his own somewhat less finessed grasp of speeds approaching ludicrous allowed him the rare privilege of watching the woman plop her little sister's ass down onto the bench seat of a picnic table.

It did bite him a little that the woman's first instinct was that he was jumping her, truth be told.

In retrospect, he probably should've caught Lexi before she had launched herself at the famed Skirted Speedster. That would've been the smart thing to do, and that one was on him. But despite having not seen her in years, Duncan's gut told him she'd never actually hurt the poor girl and the thought that she could have just as easily put the small cyborg through the bench as on it only really occurred to him after the fact.

...And then the young'n in question began to tear up. Quite understandably so.

A little sigh escaped the man as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

This was turning into a very long day.

"That, Vee, is your sister." He finally said, looking the speedster dead in the eye. "She arrived at the crossing at Land's End this morning leading a group of refugees. And the only thing she wanted was to see you again, so I brought her to you."

His arms crossed. A very distinctly Duncan brow was raised.

"Seriously, when have I ever tried to pull a fast one on you?"

Whatever else the Champion could've said to his former teammate died in his throat as Nano abruptly stood up, electricity arcing through her body and asking for help... moments before launching herself at several times the speed of sound into the brick wall of the rest stop. For the briefest of seconds, Duncan just stood there. Almost dumbfounded. Eyes flickering red and homing in on the impact site of the teenager-turned-battering-ram to make sure she was alright.

"...Oh, fuck my mouth."

And in a heartbeat, the only trace the man had ever even been standing there was the divot his foot left in the ground as he all seemingly popped into existence crouching over the unconscious girl with a single step, gently lifting her up slightly to rest against what was left of the wall instead of laying face down in a pile of rubble and brushing some of the dust off with just a hint of a worried expression.

"I swear to God, Kid, you are just one heart-attack after another, aren't ya?"

Heroes Reborn: Prime Earth (Superhero/Urban Fantasy: OPEN)

January 1st, 11:15 PM
Smitty’s Fine Meats, Mealtide District, Bludhaven, NJ.

”Vistara mo tana lo?” asked Aelia, her hands hovering over the girl’s injured ankle. An orchid filament wrapped itself around the injured limb, conjured seemingly from thin air by the mage. Though it hissed like a raw steak that had been thrown onto a skillet, it didn’t seem to cause the girl any notable pain.

After roughly a minute, Aelia stood and dusted her gloved hands of the dirt that was never on them. “Volkra ton!”

Still eyeing the hooded figure with no small amount of suspicion, the tiny albino child nonetheless gave a few experimental swings of her leg. Eliciting just the most miniscule sigh of relief from the flak-clad (and still a little bloodied) figure behind the two girls— Frankly, between turning the oni into a modern art piece and that big damn red lightning bolt earlier, some part of his psyche was half expecting the poor kid to explode... or melt... or turn into a buncha friggin’ spiders or something at Aelia’s touch.

His eyes shifted slightly over to the hooded woman in question. Still not entirely sure what to make of her, but just a teensy bit more at ease now that he’d seen her do something that wasn’t absolutely wrecking a drug-fueled, magical berserker or dancing about a room filled with body parts.

A teensy bit.

That train of thought came to an abrupt halt, however, as the young one, apparently satisfied that her ankle was not completely fubar’d, gave the previous magic murder bird a curt little nod of thanks before kicking off the counter-top… where she stayed, hovering a solid two feet off the ground.

’...Okay, what?’

“It’s called magic, mortal,” said Aelia, smirking.

Before Mal could let fly with the particularly sarcastic selection of words he had for Miss Lumena in that moment in time, the half-pint albino had locked eyes with him and was now floating less than half a foot from his face. Staring into his own with grim determination.

The lad, for his part, just stared back.

”...And this is?” The increasingly tired-sounding hero asked, around the same time the girl’s expression went from ‘determined’ to ‘downright constipated’.

Apparently dissatisfied with the effort from… whatever the hell it was she was doing. The girl placed a hand on his forehead. And then both on the sides of his head, looking increasingly frustrated as she went.

“Ta… vad… siorchaedh!?”

”Uhh… sure?”

Aelia tilted her head as she observed this exchange, stepping between the pair. Quirking a brow at Malcolm, she then turned to the girl and smiled, lowering her head slightly as if to offer it up to the child. ”Kava mo vad na? Makala ‘English’ so vana nas.”

At… whatever Aelia had just said, the child relented in her efforts to do whatever it was she was trying to perform on the boy’s skull and, after a moment of sighing, gave the hooded figure a little rap on the noggin’ with her knuckle, clearly still a little frustrated about the whole affair, if her face was any indication.

“Pray tell, is there something wrong with your brain, Peasant?”

A beat of silence passed after that. Save for yet another sigh from Malcolm.

’Oh, great… Stereo.’

“You needn’t touch him to reach that conclusion, ohoho!” chortled Aelia, covering her mouth. “But levity aside, we really ought to free the other prisoners here. I’m sure they’ve had their fill of the scent of their peers’ freshly carved backsides.”

For the first time in the fifteen minutes he’d known her, Malcolm and Aelia were actually on the same page, as he nodded and retrieved his knife from the hand of that hobgoblin he’d made acquainted with the table earlier.

”Agreed.”

---

January 1st, 11:45 PM
Corner of Fifth and Keele, Mealtide District, Bludhaven, NJ.

’Well, that was a new sensation…’ Mal thought, just staring down at the street below, where the odd blend of Bludhaven’s finest, parts of the fire department and even a few lay-sisters of a local, but familiar coven of white mages were tending to the at least four-dozen terrans— human, non-human and mage alike— he and that crazy woman who was occasionally a bird had rescued about twenty minutes prior. Even though she’d vanished into thin air immediately afterward.

He was… somewhat unused to that kind of attention. There was a hell of a lot more eyes and cameras pointing at him the moment he’d walked out that door, Sasha’s boy in his arms and everyone else in tow, than there had ever been in the past seven years… There was also that split second where he honestly thought he was going to be abruptly evaporated by all those guns and magic pointed his way the minute he walked out the door, but that was beside the point.

It was… odd. So odd in fact that the minute he had put Bobby down, he had fired off his grapple line and got scarce as quickly as he could, simply out of impulse. But now, sitting there on that same water tower as earlier and staring down at Sasha sobbing uncontrollably and clutching her boy and all the other good things below, it felt kind of… right.

...Whatever fuzzy feelings were going on in his head at that moment, he shunted them off to the side as some more pressing concerns came to him at that moment-

Namely, that after all that workout he’d had tonight, he was covered in sweat. And it was frickin’ freezing out here. And he was just realizing this now.

”Okay, I think that’s enough for tonight.” The boy said to himself, rubbing his arms for warmth and turning from the scene.

There was a warm subway station somewhere with his name on it.

---

January 2nd, 01:30 AM
Caernarvon Central Station, Old Bludhaven.

Tired, half-frozen and still all bruised and bloodied, Mal was only halfway paying attention as he meandered into his subterranean home- a subway station long since abandoned after an ammunition ship caught fire and detonated in the harbour during the Great War, levelling Blud and about a third of Gotham as it went up.

A relic from a much happier time in the city’s history, with walls decorated with marble and old fashioned stained-glass that still shone on some days with what little light filtered down here through both the ruins of Old Blud and the city above, he’d made it work— The city never really got around to cutting off the water supply, being a quagmire of red tape and corruption even before the Aquilas took over, after many nights spent in the library and spying on the city’s utilities department, he’d managed to figure out how splice back into the power-grid. Getting his hands on free cable and internet was pretty easy after that. Building his own shower and some of his own furniture? Less so.

Still, it was home.

His nice, quiet little refuge from the outside wor-

“Welcome home, Malcolm!” said Aelia, standing before the closest equivalent of a dining room table he had, a large spread of food strewn across it. Where she had obtained this food was a mystery only she held the answer to. “I have prepared for you a minor banquet to congratulate you on your conquest of the vile man-eaters that dared to prey upon their betters!”

Mal just stared at the blonde before him. Then at the big mahogany boardroom table before her. Then at her again.

”...Come again?” Was all he could manage, head tilting to the side slightly. ”I… what?”

He removed his mask. A look halfway between incredulous, confused and somewhat disturbed adorning his features.

”How did you…? Why are you…?”

A bit more sputtering followed before the boy finally managed to catch himself.

”You know where I live?”

Aelia nodded. “Difficult as it may be for you to accept, I am indeed not a ravishing figment of your forlorn mind!” She gestured to the food spread across his table, smiling. “My cooking abilities are unfortunately one of the few areas of expertise I’ve yet to master, but I suspect you’ll nevertheless find it an enjoyable meal when compared to the meager sustenance you’ve been forced to endure up till now.”

Pulling out a chair for him at the “head” of the turntable, she circled around it to take her own seat, unfolding a napkin beside the silverware that she had also obtained through unknown means. ”It shall also offer us a splendid opportunity to finally converse in a quiet and calming environment!”

The boy just stared at the woman for a long moment afterward, still not entirely sure how he felt about her, nevermind how he felt about her in his home.

The loud rumbling of his stomach, however left even less room for argument than the ludicrously powerful interloper in his dining-room ever could— He’d only managed to get a leg and a few bits of popcorn chicken at the shelter earlier before Mog consumed the whole lot of it, after all.

So, removing his flak vest, gloves and rolling up his sleeves, he complied… albeit cautiously and still keeping his eyes on the woman the whole time.

...Something that became increasingly difficult the closer he got to this ‘minor banquet’.

’’Yet to master’, my ass.’ Mal couldn’t help but think, trying his level best not to gawk at the veritable pile of culinary perfection before him… or salivate at the scent of it.

A herculean feat in itself, even without a brain and sensory system as high-tooled as his.

Licking his lips slightly, but managing to keep himself under control, the boy’s eyes crept back up towards his impromptu guest’s again, effecting a half sheepish, half still very confused expression.

”Thanks…” Was about all he could manage at first, fidgeting in his seat slightly at the new, rather alien sensations of both having someone over and having a decent meal on his table. Nevermind this woman who brought both. ”So, uhh… what did’ja wanna talk about?”

Among all the things he’d been through that night, this was perhaps the one thing he was unabashedly un-equipped for.

Big flaming oni included.

Folding her hands neatly on the edge of the table, Aelia watched him eat with some apparent interest as she spoke. “Your captivating abilities, for one. From my observations of you over the past month, I’ve been forced to conclude that you are neither a mage, nor does the blood of this world’s titans flow through your veins.”

“Yet it is undeniable that what I sense within you bears a strong resemblance to the Arcanum that I wield,” she continued, never breaking her precise and upright posture. “It is, however, the differences between them that intrigue me. There is...a rawness about your power.”

Mal choked a little on his… lobster thermidor? Is that what was in his mouth right now? How the hell did this happen?

That was a question for another time, it seemed. As he took a swig of his drink, ice-wine to his further surprise, in an attempt both clear his throat and his head to respond to that particular bombshell.

”Pardon?” The boy finally wheezed out, wearing a face of pretty well-earned surprise now. ”So… you’re saying you think I’m some kind of mage, but not quite?”

That was a bit much to take in, after all. Especially after seven years.

Aelia smiled, pleased to hear that he had been able to follow everything she had said up till this point. “Precisely so! I’ve never witnessed any power quite like your own in my nearly two centuries of life. Why, if I didn’t know any better, I would say you were utilizing harmonics.”

Aaaaand, she lost him again. Leaving Mal to just stare at this woman who was both completely dominating this conversation and nonchalantly upending everything he thought he knew about himself over the span of a few minutes. He did pack away that bit about her age in the back of his brain, however, as it was one of the few things the blonde had actually told him about herself- Though he found it a lot less surprising than perhaps most would, this girl was still a toddler compared to Mog, after all.

Still, he had a lot of questions.

”That… isn’t exactly a term I’m familiar with. And I’ve spent a fair amount of time around magical beings on both sides of the hypothetical magic fence.” He finally stated, after a moment of mulling over the words in his head. ”And, before that, you know so much about me, but…”

He put down his knife and fork. Propping up his chin on his hands as his eyes lit up again.

”Who are you, exactly?”

“I am Aelia Marcella Lumena, as I said before,” she continued to watch him, her smile never dropping. “The daughter of Lilith, Queen of the Succubi, and an unknown titan of fire. The adopted daughter of Avaerus and Faulia Lumena. I am a representative of the Consortium, the foremost military power in the universe, and the original and rightful rulers of Gaia.”

Gauging his reaction for only a brief moment, she pressed on. “I came to Bludhaven to investigate a string of murders committed against the mage population that had, for some unfathomable reason, taken up residence here.”

Daughter of the Queen of the Succubi and... a titan?

As in, those things from Greek myth? That Wonder Woman occasionally went on about when she was on the news? A freaking god?

He was having dinner with a goddess?

That was… another thing he was going to tuck away in the back of his mind, as his face fell slightly and the glow in his eyes receded. He wasn’t entirely sure he’d be in his right mind to actually believe that statement (though honestly, who would?), but it did sort of explain just what he saw when he looked at her with his full range of vision, so he kept mum about his skepticism.

Partly because it’d be impolite to call the self-professed goddess a liar after she’d gone through the trouble of (probably) saving his life and then making him dinner.

Partly because, goddess or not, he was absolutely certain she could kick his ass.

Still, getting back to the topic at hand, and stiffening just a little at the particular subject matter involved.

”Firefly.” The boy finally said, sitting up a little straighter and, if at all possible, suddenly paying even more attention. ”You’re looking for Firefly.”

“Firefly, hm? Is that what he’s calling himself now? I suppose even demons can be influenced by the bizarre ‘costumed heroics’ trend that has consumed the mortal population,” said Aelia, seeming almost bemused that he had adopted such a name for himself.

”No, that’s just what we call him… it.” Mal corrected, with a sharp wave of his hand. ”Mostly on account of all the fire… and the flies he feeds the charred meat to.”

Pausing for a moment, the boy leaned back in his chair, knuckles rapping on the table a bit as he thought.

This was… a bit of a touchy subject for him, after all.

”Nobody’s even sure what it is… hell, nobody’s even seen the damned thing and been around to talk about it afterward, as far as I can tell.”

He took another swig of ice-wine and finished his thought. Much quieter now.

”Well, almost nobody…”

Aelia, sitting exactly as she had ever since she first took her seat, dipped her head. “I have met him. He is a Baron-class demon of fire. I encountered him some years ago on another world, but he managed to elude me through some rather dastardly and underhanded tactics.”

Malcolm’s eyes flipped back toward the woman, flickering back to orange again out of what was clearly habit when he didn’t have to actively suppress his abilities.

He was familiar with that terminology, having spent the past seven years in the frequent company of a (often naggy, occasionally cuddly, constantly mother-henning) demon. Long enough to pick up on a few things, at least.

”Any idea what a Baron-class demon is doing in the pocket of the mob?” The boy asked. ”Seems a bit beneath his paygrade, doesn’t it?”

“Oh yes, it is. His motive is perhaps the most baffling aspect of this mystery, given that this world has become quite a perilous hunting ground over the past decade,” said Aelia, at last pouring herself a glass of icewine. Rolling it about her glass thoughtfully for a moment, she drew a modest sip from the edge. “The only suitable explanation I have been able to offer is that he is perhaps working for another demon--one far superior to him in power.”

The boy just silently made a face at that statement, and indeed the entirety of this conversation.

”Well, then. This has been… enlightening.” He finally said. ”Any other bombshells you’d like to drop on me tonight?”

Aelia took another sip from her icewine, her smile broadening ever so slightly as she extended a hand towards him dramatically.. “Oh Malcolm, the only reason you’re feeling so perplexed and disturbed in this moment is because it is but our very first conversation! I assure you, the best has yet to come!”

If there wasn’t a big plate of fancy seafood in between his head and the table, Malcolm would’ve put his head into it. As it stood, he made do with just screaming internally with all the force his mind could muster.

”Oh God no.”

Aelia’s smile broadened still. ”Oh God yes.”

Heroes Reborn: Prime Earth (Superhero/Urban Fantasy: OPEN)

January 1st, 08:40 PM
Back Alley, Caernarvon District, Bludhaven, NJ.

It was the same old song and dance Jimmy Lau had been at for just shy of two years now; making his twice-weekly trek back to that same old alley, the frame of his dad's old alice pack clicking with every step along the way. Yeah, that'd be about right— Two years since that (very literal) ogre, Bloodtooth, and his goons showed up at his dad's restaurant one night right at the start of February looking to gently coax them all into giving their fair share for 'The Development of the Neighbourhood.' Two years since his old man, having not been prone to taking a lick o' shit from anybody in true ranger fashion, giant or not, responded by promptly knocking down and making a cool half-dozen of 'em regret a whole lotta shit via the end of his bowie knife when they didn't respond well to the words 'Fuck off'. Before the big green asshole managed to grab a hold of him and rip his fucking arm out of it's socket, before slapping his big sister around a bit and carting the girl off over his shoulder as a trophy. Two years since he was running for his life, scared absolutely shitless with the big bastard's goons hot on his heels.

...And two years since they chased him down this particular alley and ran into a fiery eyed nightmare. One who was very unhappy to see them.

Now, he didn't see much. Not in the dark, and certainly not while hiding behind a dumpster, hands over his ears to drown out the gunfire and all the panicked screaming and trying his level best not to piss himself on the off-chance that whatever the hell was in that alley with them would smell it. But what he did see, once all the screaming and sheer noise abruptly came to a stop, was the masked figure that approached him soon afterward, crouched down beside him even as he flinched away, put a hand on his shoulder and asked, in some deeply mechanical facsimile of a man's voice—

"Are you alright?"

It was at that moment that Jimmy realized he had just met The Hound. Not some horrifying monster or vengeful demon sent to punish the wicked those kooky little urban myths made him out to be; but some guy in a mask who'd just saved his life.

To be fair, though, he wasn't exactly sure what expect when it came to the Bludhaven Bogeyman.

...Well, someone a little taller, maybe.

They talked for a bit... or, it'd be more accurate to say the masked vigilante patiently asked him questions while he bawled his fucking eyes out, before he was led to the front door of a coven of White Witches (the concept of which was met by yet more terrified bawling which was only finally halted by a firm smack up the back of the head and a curt "They're good people. Stop that.") and the man simply vanished when he wasn't looking.

Two hours later, he was clinging to his sister like she was the most precious thing on the face of the whole fucking world while those white witches he so feared were in the next room putting his dad's arm back where it was supposed to be.

And though the local outlets never spoke an ounce of it, word-of-mouth over the next few days said that Bloodtooth had been found embedded a foot into the street, ass-first, having apparently been defenestrated from fourteen stories up. Very much alive, but doomed to never walk again without the aid of the kind of healing magics the super-max prison he was headed to was definitely not going to be giving him.

And so it was, that Jimmy Lau had been doing this same old song and dance for just shy of two years now; making his twice-weekly trek back to that same old alley, the frame of his dad's old alice pack clicking with every step along the way to change the batteries in the little wall-sticking lamp they'd got at a hardware store fastened above the mural of a dog's head his sister had painted on the wall in honour of the man they'd met that night. Taking it in shifts with his dad and the girlfriend he'd met at that coven back then to pick up any stray bits of trash around the place and to make sure that it, and the smattering of thank yous, well-wishes and even a few runes for luck scratched and painted around it from those who'd learned of this place and had such nights like theirs would never be obscured in the dark.

'Least we can do, pal.'

He thought with a tiny smirk as he pulled off his pack to get to work.

Because while the rest of the world could laugh it's ass off at the very concept of such a thing existing in this city, in this tiny corner of it, at least...

...There was hope.

---

January 1st, 8:45 PM
Factory Floor, Smithwick Textiles, Bludhaven, NJ.

"Oh, shit, that's right! Yer still new here, ain't cha?" Sasha managed, finally reigning in her raucous laughter enough to regain her composure "Ya haven't heard that one yet!"

"By all means, enlighten me." The Sardinian deadpanned in response. Somewhere between 'Curious' and 'Just about done with this shit'.

...The little half-snort he got in response severely slid that scale towards the latter. The continued shrieking through the radio wasn't helping things either.

"Oh, just... some kinda infernal creature spawned from the depths of hell itself to punish the wicked. If local legend is to be believed." Answered Jericho, with just a bit of a shit-eating grin and a little shrug, too. "Y'know, ravenous, utterly ruthless, inescapable. That kinda thing. Nothing yer powdered and pampered Tim Burton fever-fuckfest-spawned ass can't handle, I'm sure."

Sasha had never actually bought into any of that crap, truth be told. And in her mind, this was, best case, either that power-armoured jackass from the other side of the Avalon coming down off their high pedestal to bother to give a shit about the city that was about a fifteen-minute's drive over a bridge from their own, or worst case, some actual maneating species of monster and/or demon that would soon kill them all anyhow.

The latter, most likely. This was Bludhaven after all.

No, the only thing she could really be sure of in this particular moment was the fact that she was tied to a chair by some creepy old man who was in the habit of waving a magic friggin' cleaver in her face. And honestly, with her son in captivity and thing's looking increasingly like she was about to become the next meal of this outsourced Hannibal Lecter, she was more than happy to have something stupid going on in the background she could use to put the fucker's attention off of her and hopefully buy her some time and figure a way out of this. Preferably before the afore-mentioned 'something stupid' made it's way to her and put her in it's stomach.

Fuck this factory, fuck these guys and fuck this guy in particular. Her boy needed her.

For his part, that guy in particular just scoffed.

"A demon who punishes the wicked? I knew people from this city had a problem with education, but I did not think you were that ignorant."

If Jericho took offense to that, she made a point of not showing it; She had shit to do after all, like finally taking a few experimental tugs at the rope binding her wrists to the back of this chair now that there wasn't anyone else around who might see her do so.

'Silk. 'Course this fucker'd go for the weird bondage shit.'

"Well, if ya don't believe me, you could always ask your friends about the police reports they had to file about an ogre taking a fourteen story swan-dive a while back." Jericho responded evenly now and leaning forward slightly, eliciting a long and loud 'Creeeeak!' from her seat. "Oh wait, you can't. Because he's on every single channel ruining their collective shit."

Despite the abruptness of her tone, Sasha was grinning on the inside— The loud protests of her involuntary throne, both in her ears, barely heard over the pure pandemonium coming in over Amadeo's walkie-talkie and felt through her arse via the wood beneath it as she subtly shifted from side to side told her many things she wanted to hear about it... Namely that it was an old, termite-ridden piece of shit they probably pulled out of an old storeroom somewhere in here where it'd most likely been sitting since the seventies.

Even if she couldn't break the rope, she could sure as shit break this chair if she got a minute of not being menaced by a big magic cleaver.

She wasn't exactly a dainty flower of a woman, by any means.

"And you've got, what, twenty-something channels on that fucking thing? Little uncanny, innit?"

Now, her only real problem was getting this whackjob to turn his eyes from her and give her an opening. And that there would be the tricky part, as, with few exceptions, he'd been pretty dead set on staring at her with that big creepy smile of his the whole goddamn time they were here— Something she could still see quite clearly, even with the power out, those stormclouds outside blocking out the moonlight and the only real source of light in here being the red glow of the big fuck-off knife he fully intended to carve her up with.

Well, not right now, though. Now he just looked pissed.

"I'm getting awfully tired of your incessant rambling, Miss Jericho." The Sardinian said lowly and outright murderously as he did the exact opposite of what the bound cop needed him to do and stepped forward, raising that knife of his again. "I only barely tolerated your piddling attempts at wit earlier, and now I simply don't have the time. So if you do not mind, I think it is about time for us to part ways."

'Well, shit...'

Okay, now she really needed to think fast. And God help her, in that moment she was trying, but coming up rather alarmingly blank— More insults clearly weren't gonna do the job, and trying to talk down with a cleaver-armed psychopath sounded like it'd go about as well as fucking in the name of virginity. And if this guy was even half as quick on his feet as he was apparently strong, if she even tried what she wanted to do, she'd get a mouthful of cleaver before she even hit the damn ground.

The detective didn't want to admit it, but shit was starting to look a little grim... and, now that she thought about it, quiet.

...The hell happened to all that screaming, anyway?

Her answer came in the form of a knife suddenly plunking itself directly into the back of Amadeo's shoulder. Eliciting a chorus of screaming and, for the first time that night, swearing as he whirled around on his heels looking for whoever threw that. And perhaps more importantly, not at her.

'That'll do.'

Without further prompting or thought, she summoned up all the strength she had left in her beaten body to heave her and that shitty old chair she was in into the air to land on her side. Grinning ear-to-ear and cheering in her own head as the damn thing came apart. Something that didn't go unnoticed by the Sardinian who quickly turned on her again, blade raised and bloody murder in his eyes... just as the familiar 'clack!' and reeling of what she registered as one of those early grapple launchers some of the rangers were running around with during the war rang in her ears.

And something vaguely human-shaped, with glowing orange eyes slammed into the crazed old man's back, knocking him over her and out of her view.

Not that she was complaining about that, not in the least. Even as she growled and hissed out every profane thing that she could squeeze out of her teeth while trying to work her bound wrists under her feet in an impressive act of gymnastics that probably would've been a lot easier without a bunch of cracked ribs and a shattered orbital bone. She wasn't sure what it said about her that she actually had an easier time focusing over all that scuffle and insanity going on just out of view, but she didn't really have the time to dwell on that right now.

The cleaver that whizzed by her head when she finally managed to get her hands to her front and sat upright, however. That gave her a moment of pause. Even moreso when it stopped in the middle of the air just passed her and went whipping back the way it came... Something that, despite everything she'd been through that night, still put a dumbfounded look on her face as her one good eye followed it all the way back to the fight she could only barely make out in the dark; looking more like one red streak trying really, really hard to catch a pair of floating orange orbs in this light. So much so that it was perfectly willing carve straight through anything that got in his way, old machinery, concrete pillars, a wall or two when it was doing it's boomerang impression again. The works.

It was at that moment that Sasha realized she just might've been in way over her head with this shit.

So caught up in all the pure pandemonium was she, in fact, that she actually had to remind herself that she should be running away now.

"Okay Sasha..." She growled, willing with all her might to peel her gaze from the demented lightshow before her and actually get to the all important business of getting the fuck out of dodge. "Time to go... time to go..."

She heaved her battered body off the ground and, to her credit, made it about two steps... before falling back down on her face with a muffled chorus of swearing. With all the adrenaline that'd been coursing through her that night, it was only when her chin smacked off the concrete floor that she fully registered just how badly these people had fucked her up.

She didn't have much time to ponder that, however, as a blood-curdling scream suddenly echoed off the walls of the factory floor... followed by something that sounded like an odd combination of meaty and metallic landing at a roll and coming to a stop by her head... followed by a loud 'CLANG!' and then, nothing.

"Hooooly fuck did that suck." A low, modulated voice came from behind her, followed by what she recognized as the clicking of handcuffs and the cadence of boots on approach. "How the fuck does a guy that old move like that?."

And like some terrible cliche, the clouds outside finally parted just enough for the light of the full moon to shine in through the big windows of the old textile mill allowing her to finally see what the hell was going on.

...Starting with the severed finger, bearing a rune-encrusted iron ring laying on the ground right in front of her goddamn face.

"...The fuck?" Came her immediate, gut reaction as she instinctively lurched herself away from the disembodied digit.

"Yeah, sorry about that." Came that voice again, sounding almost casual, despite it's mechanical growl. "Scartech— Let him boomerang his big fuck off cleaver back every time he threw it, so I had to get rid of it."

Rolling over onto her back, Sasha cast her one good eye back in the direction that had come from, finding a black-clad, mask-wearing figure in a flakvest approaching her with a knife in one hand, and what looked like a lead pipe he was lazily dropping on the floor with the other.

Her gaze fell upon the symbol painted onto his chest, broken only by singular horizontal cut clearly left by his previous opponent. And then rose to his eyes.

It took a solid half-minute for her brain to break out of it's incredulous haze to connect the dots.

"Holy shit, you're real...?"

To her surprise, that actually got a little snort out of her apparent saviour as he knelt down to start cutting the bonds at her wrists with his knife.

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

Which was just as well, because the woman was clearly too stunned in that moment to even try to supress the exact next thing that came to her mind.

"...I thought you'd be taller."

"That one too."

Heroes Reborn: Prime Earth (Superhero/Urban Fantasy: OPEN)

---

January 2nd, 01:15 AM
Sector 34, High Earth Orbit

Despite his best efforts to keep a lid on it, and having about a decade's worth of experience doing so, Duncan couldn't help but cringe just a little at being called 'The Champion' with such casual gusto by the young Lantern... Well, almost as much as he did when the voice called back on the other side and was, very clearly—

"Ooooo, it's a girl..." His mother immediately chirped in, now actually making a point of projecting a six inch hologram of herself over his shoulder to better keep on the pressure. Faux-elbowing at his cheeks and all.

Now she was just fucking with him. He knew that. But that still didn't stop the titanic facepalm that occurred right that second.

It was almost like they had a routine here.

"...God dammit, Mom. Can we not?"

And by the time his hand was clear of his face, the roughly Star Destroyer-sized craft that should never have existed in the first place was simply... gone.

'Okay, what?'

It didn't take him that long to figure out where it went though— The big, glowing green light behind him was kind of a dead giveaway.

Though it did give him a moment of pause.

'Moe, your kid is just a little bit ridiculous...'

And with that he rocketed off after the kid in question, easily catching up to his flank in less than a second and fixing him with a skeptical brow.

"I like your attitude kid, but do you have any idea where you're going?" He asked, just a little dryly. "There ain't exactly that many places to quietly put something this big down left."

A bit of a blanket statement, but true all the same; Any wide open space left in the Americas that wasn't filled with a screaming, rapey murdercult wasn't exactly prime land to be dropping a goddamn starship. And most of the less murder-rapey wildlands were not exactly prime candidates either.

He scratched his chin a little, mulling it over.

...

...Well, one came to mind. And some of the locals did owe him a favour or two.

Hitting a button on his gauntlet to hop on the open channel Preston had set up, the Champion asked only one thing.

"How do feel about Dwarves, Serene?"

---

January 2nd, 12:04 PM (EST)
North-East of Atlanta, Georgia - Near US Highway 85

It was around here, as far as he could guess as he slowed down to crawl in the air. Those subsonic footfalls, the obvious giveaway had come to a stop somewhere within about a mile of here. After that, it was all just memory, and tuning into all those little things he recalled about his old friend with his enhanced senses.

The sound of her distinctive gait led him east, over a bit of brush and toward the highway. That minute subsonic ringing of the speedforce moving through her, even when she wasn't actively using it narrowed it down even further.

The other subtle things he recalled? Her smell and even the familiar taste in his mouth? He made sure to keep that pretty mum, even as it led him to a small fruit stand beside the highway. Things were already awkward enough as is with the little eight-year-old girl he remembered from a simpler time riding on his back suddenly not much younger than he was physically, due to his inability to age without trying to figure out how to explain just how he comprehended the world without sounding like the kind of creepy anime girl who walks around with a knife and a big creepy smile.

Putting that as far from his mind as he could with a quiet shake of his head, the Champion's eyes locked onto one figure on the ground in particular.

And her peach.

...The fruit in her hand looked pretty tasty as well.

He shook that one from his head, too; between the hydra, his surprise encounter with a Nintendo copyright in orbit and having to cut through a kilometer of red tape at Land's End, these past twenty-four hours were clearly starting to get to him.

Touching down quietly and about ten feet behind the hero-in-cognito, not wanting to just ambush her like some crazy person (and, incidentally, inciting the wife of the standowner's other customer to abruptly buy up as many fruits as she could fit into her arms after a moment's staring), the world's favourite Canuckle-head let his passenger down. And cleared his throat.

"Vee. It's been a while."

Heroes Reborn: Prime Earth (Superhero/Urban Fantasy: OPEN)

@DocRock@pyroman@praxitilies@Mr Nim@Unknown100@Blazion

Forgot to add tags, buuuut...

Posted.

Heroes Reborn: Prime Earth (Superhero/Urban Fantasy: OPEN)

---

January 1st, 8:04 PM
Midtown Metropolis

Things were... looking pretty bleak in Metropolis.

For one, the traffic sucked, but that was to be expected on any given day.

Secondly, there was apparently a big damned snowstorm creeping up the coast towards them by way of Gotham and that other place no one cares about, so people were naturally in a rush to get home where it'd be nice and warm.

And... oh, yeah. There was the trifling matter of the leviathan beast of myth and legend rampaging it's way through Midtown, apparently not at all deterred by the fact that chunks of it's own seared flesh seemed to be falling off of it's body or that it's many heads were bound together by hardlight constructs. Which it savagely thrashed against both from the inside and from the out with it's colossal tail. Causing yet more mayhem in it's frenzied motions.

...Yes, pretty bleak.

The man responsible for managing to do that much damage to the titanic beast was down for the count. Most of the heroes present were battered, tired and running out of options. And the hydra, charming creature it was, simply refused to give up.

And somewhere in the midst of all this chaos, perhaps noticed, perhaps not, a tiny fissure appeared in the clouds overhead. And if one just so happened, by freak coincidence, to be pointing a highspeed camera up there at that exact moment, they'd catch something a little peculiar.

The Champion. Rocketing straight towards the Earth. Elbow first.

Before something from above slammed into the Hydra's body with enough force to send a column of rubble, concrete and bits of monster straight into the stratosphere and shatter every damned window in Midtown the fighting hadn't gotten around to breaking yet. As well as leaving one hell of a crater.

Suddenly, that hydra wasn't kicking up such a fuss. And as the dust began to settle, and the beast's now-inanimate heads began sliding out the back end of Preston's trap like some particularly nasty looking sausages to come crashing back down onto the ground, only to be intercepted and vaporized by a stream of red light before they could even begin their journey, there came the man responsible— Brushing off the still-smoking elbow of his jacket as he made his way out of his own crater.

"Well, scratch that one off the bucket-list..."

The Champion half-mused, half-grimaced, as he casually walked his way over to the rest of the gathered heroes. Sheepishly scratching the back of his head.

"Sorry I'm late. Everyone alright?"

---

January 2nd, 01:00 AM
Sector 34, High Earth Orbit

Duun Kad-El, last son of Krypton, Champion of Earth and all around guy who actually enjoyed being able to sleep in ocasionally was... just a little bit perturbed at what he was staring at right now— And it was only partially because his loyal and trusted teammate of the past decade or so had threatened to rob him of his junk via a pink space rock.

No, it was down to the fact that-

"That's the fucking Great Fox." Duncan deadpanned with sheer existential contempt that went unheard in the void of space. "Why is that the fucking Great Fox?"

"Duun, what are you so upset about now?" Chirped in his mother's AI from his gauntlet, just about the only thing that could catch what he was saying in the vacuum of space. "Do you recognize this vessel?"

A low growl rumbled in the Champion's throat. But he elaborated, though still casting a cynical glare at the massive ship hanging in the void a mile before him.

"It's... from a damned video game I played as a kid." He explained, dryly. "With starfighters, tanks, submarines, fuzzy animals and a big floating fucking monkey head."

"Oh..."

There was a long pause after that.

"...Well, weirder things have happened, I suppose," The artificial construct of Karna El continued, unabated "There was that time you and that 'Grim' woman had to pretend to be a married couple in Monaco..."

If at all possible, Duncan's frown deepened even further.

"Can we not?"

"It was so cute though! You were holding hands, going to dinners, smiling..."

"One, it was just a cover. Two, Pretty sure Zo doesn't swing that way. Three, can we not have the 'grandbabies' discussion right now?"

"A mother can dream, Duun!"

And without further ado, but a whole lot of irritation, Duncan launched himself toward the bridge of the all-too familiar vessel, coming to a stop just outside the tinted viewscreen of the bridge, whereupon... he gave a little knock on the glass.

Though, despite his apparent outward grumption at the ludicrous situation he now found himself in, he couldn't help but do it to the tune of the Starfox 64 theme.

There are some things you only ever get one shot at, after all...

---

---

January 1st, 8:25 PM
Utility Room, Smithwick Textiles, Bludhaven, NJ.

"A magic cleaver? Are you shitting me?"

Julian could only stare back in silence at the... thing... watching him from across the room, sat there on a stool, leaning forward and staring right the hell back with eyes that quite literally burned like smouldering embers and gave off the only real light in this increasingly claustrophobic, dark room.

Perhaps it was some measure of indignation at just how easily he'd had his ass put on the ground that kept him quiet. The jolts of pain that shot through his face, knee and arm whenever he dared to move certainly weren't helping his mood, either.

Maybe it was how unnerving it was how downright... casual the creature became after it had disarmed him, disabled him and liberated him of his radio. Even going so far as to give an amused little 'Heh, always wanted one of these...' as it relieved him of his nightstick, holster and all and clipped it to it's own belt.

...Though, in all likelihood, it was probably down to that sudden and uncomfortable realization that, in all the past three years of working for these lunatics, not one of them had bothered to mention that the fucking Hound was real.

"Well, that explains a lot," The creature mused, it's eyes shifting over to what Julian very clearly remembered being a concrete fucking wall. "Sure as shit doesn't look like a mage..."

Despite the circumstances, the cop with less than rigid morals couldn't help but cocking a brow.

"The hell does that mean?"

...He also couldn't help but flinch a little as the being's eyes snapped back toward him, locking him with a silent glare juuuust long enough to make him regret owning a tongue. Before the being visibly relaxed again, and began fiddling with the radio, cycling through all of it's channels almost like a kid with a new toy.

"Iiiiit's a bit of a long story," The hitherto bit of local superstition answered dismissively as he pulled a roll of what looked suspiciously like electrical tape out of his jacket pocket. "But that's beside the point, what's the deal with the cannibal with a magic cleaver, anyhow?"

Muller, to his credit, only let out a little grunt as he sat himself up slightly to lean against the wall, the the effort still made him pant a little. Still, licking his lips as he gathered his thoughts, he answered.

The Hound had made it very clear what was going to happen if he tried to lie, after all...

"...Fucked if I know; But dude's old money— some kinda Sardinian royalty or some shit, I'unno— showed up about a month ago with a damned cargo ship looking for work and Phage hired him on the spot."

The Hound paused in the middle of unrolling a strip of tape.

"Cargo ship?" He asked, suddenly very intrigued. "What was he hauling?"

"I dunno, man. A million tonnes of soylent green or whatever the hell else a magic Italian cannibal would bring with him across the fuckin' ocean!" Jules reflexively snapped back at his captor... before finding his tact again and biting his tongue. "Look, I'm just a boot to these people. They don't tell me jack shit."

The Hound held that same silent glare on the man for a few more seconds.

"Yeah. I suppose you're right."

And then he stood up.

And very suddenly Jules wished he could just melt into that fucking wall behind him.

"Look man, I told you everything I know..."

"I guess you did."

The Hound took a step closer.

"A-and you said ya'd know if I was lying right? And I've been honest this whole time!"

The Hound nodded in agreement, giving the radio in his hand one last once-over as he stepped even closer.

"That you have."

"So... ya gonna let me go?"

The Hound only let out a soft chuckle at that.

"Heh heh... haaaa..."

...Even as he calmly taped the radio's push-to-talk switch down.

"Nope."

---

January 1st, 8:30 PM
Factory Floor, Smithwick Textiles, Bludhaven, NJ.

Amadeo Macellaio, was getting a little impatient, if the almost-twitch of his ever-controlled brow was any indication as he stood there, arms folded behind his back as he shifted his weight from the balls of his feet to his heels, almost like an antsy child.

He'd sent Muller out to deal with their little electrical problem a good fifteen minutes ago now. What was taking him so long? Julian was not a smart man, but up until this point, the Sardinian believed him to at least be a clever one. There was no logical reason he should have had to sit here in the dark this long.

"Well... this is nice..." Sasha piped up groggily, head rising again out of unconsciousness as she cast an eye about the now-dark room. "We havin' a fuckin' slumber party now, or what?"

The Sardinian didn't try to stop the twitch of his brow at that.

So uncouth...

"Just a little unexpected interruption before we start, my dear Miss Jericho." Amadeo explained, stepping over to her and placing a facsimile of an assuring hand on her shoulder. "But don't worry, I've already sent Mister Muller to go have a look at the fusebo-"

"Ya sent Julian for that? Are you really as fucking stupid as you look?" Sasha quipped right back over him without skipping a beat. "Man can barely tie his own shoes, nevermind change a fuse. So ya might as well get fuckin' comfy, because we're gonna be here a while."

No sooner had the words left her throat, there was something cold and metallic pressed against her cheek under her one good eye. A cleaver, if she was seeing right in what little light they had to spare.

One that quickly began to glow blood red.

"I suppose I will just have to take your word on that, Miss Jericho." Amadeo retorted, cheerily. "So we might as well get started, light or not."

"Oh, pound it up your ass."

That was, evidently, the last straw. As the Sardinian abruptly took hold the near-amazon's chin in a harsh grip, pressed his weapons against her skin, took a deep, excited breath and...

"Nope."

...Stopped.

His eyes flicked back over to his little 'work' table.

That... came from his radio.

Releasing his hold on Sasha's face, the older gentleman cocked his brow and walked over to the electronic in question. Picking it up with a curious expression, he pressed down the push-to-talk button to ask what that was about.

Only for it to immediately sound off with a loud 'BLOOP!'. Someone was still on the line.

And then the screaming began. Following what a man of his talents quite obviously recognized as the sound of crunching bones. Casting a quick glance back over at Sasha, who seemed just as confused as he was, he clicked over to the next channel to try and figure out what was going on.

...Only to find he couldn't get a word in through the panicked chatter of the rest of his men... which was quickly replaced by yet more screaming.

The next channel was much the same. Though this time he started hearing the din of gunfire from further within the old factory.

And the next...

-Click!-

"NO! NOOO!"

And the next...

-Click!-

"IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE!"

And the next...

-Click!-

"HELP MEEEEEE!"

And it was somewhere in that time that Sasha had apparently figured it out. Letting out as much as a laugh as her cracked ribs would allow.

"And just what the hell is so funny, Jericho?" Amadeo snapped, finally loosing his cool and wheeling on the woman who, for her part, just kept right on laughing in his face.

"Oh, nothing, just... I thought this night couldn't get any more crazy, yet here we are..."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Maybe it's the concussion talking... but I think you woke up the local bogeyman."

Heroes Reborn: Prime Earth (Superhero/Urban Fantasy: OPEN)

"Zoey, I swear to Christ, if you call me 'Captain Canuck' ONE more time..."

Basic Information
=========
Superhero/villain Name: The Champion
Civilian Name: Duncan Reid MacAodhan
Origin city/Planet: Born in the medbay of a clanky old star-freighter, because nothing in Duncan's life can be simple
Hometown: Halifax, Nova Scotia
Sex: Male
Race: Kryptonian
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 162
Age: 30 (though his Kryptonian physiology has kept him looking as though he's still in his early 20's)
Birth Date: July 1st, 1990
--------
Costumed Appearance: As perhaps befitting of what most consider the world's first costumed superhero, The Champion's working attire is somewhat more... modest than many of his contemporaries; garbing himself in a form-fitting, though thoroughly not skintight dark blue and grey jumpsuit of what many over the years have assumed to be some sort of Kryptonian battle-armour (but in reality, would be something more akin to a mechanic's coveralls on his homeworld, albeit an extraordinarily durable one) with a modified crest of the house of El emblazoned upon it's chest and a pair of black boots of the same material. On top of all this, Duncan wears his father's old, brown jacket made the same material as his suit in place of the usual flowing cape his people were apparently so fond of with his symbol sewn across the back as well as a utility belt in which he stores everything from his communicator to his mom's grocery list and a pair of gauntlets of some dark bronze-coloured metal, the right of which also houses a small ruggedised computer that connects directly to his 'Fortress of Solitude' (as some of his team insist on calling it) and perhaps more importantly, the uploaded AI consciousness of his biological mother that operates there to help him out with all those kinds of problems his tradeschool education didn't quite prepare him for.

And also, to nag.

A lot.

Civilian Appearance: To read what Duncan is capable of, you might picture some sort of hulking mountain of a man with bulging muscles, a jawline chiseled from granite and a smile that could charm a dragon from the other side of the planet... to actually meet the man however, you'd be disappointed and maybe a little confused- MacAodhan is not a large man. In fact, compared to most in the League he is downright tiny, standing at only 5'7" on a good day and lacking the bulging, vaguely v-shaped physique of what you'd expect of somebody the entire friggin' planet calls 'The Champion'. Closer inspection or just plain catching him without a shirt on, however, reveals that what Duncan's 'gains' lack in raw bodybuilder-style size, they handily make up for in sheer density; covering his broad-shouldered, lean frame with an almost inhuman looking amount of compact, but powerful musculature.

Now, if you weren't just staring at his ludicrously chiseled body like a creepy person or some kind of stab-happy anime girl, you might just notice that while he ain't some waifish prettyboy or chunky, hunky Mr. Universe contestant... he's still quite the looker, even with his usual working-class choice of fashion; with sharp, clever green eyes that've been known to elicit the odd swoon from time to time and an angular face awfully prone to warm smiles, the odd grease stain and sprouting a healthy amount of brown stubble by quitting time to match the short crew-cut he usually keeps stuffed under some old ball-cap or another.

All in all, pretty handsome... if you actually managed to notice the guy on the street through his age-old habit of keeping his head down, his hands in his pockets and striving as hard as humanly possible to just fade into the background. Something he's gotten particularly good at over the course of his life.

Icon:

Hider

Costumed Personality: The Champion, as the whole world has insisted on calling Duncan these past ten years is... well, something of a paradox, really. Possessing an almost bottomless reserve of good-humour, compassion and carrying an easygoing nature, but still terrifyingly sharp enough of both tongue and wit to lay a downright visceral verbal thrashing if need be and bearing no small reserve of genre-savvy sarcasm. Relentlessly stubborn and strong-willed enough to stand tall against impossible odds and invincible foes with naught but a plucky grin and a fiery glint in his eye, yet modest and humble enough to be embarrassed by, and even downplay his heroic antics while passing on the 'glory' to someone else when grilled about it by the press. A being so powerful he could sunder mountains with a slap and burn entire cities to the ground with a look... but not at all above shoveling an old lady's driveway or putting a bandaid on some kid's scraped knee while cracking jokes and telling old war stories to make them feel better.

All in all, Champ is a... very confusing man. But a good man nonetheless. And though he never really wanted this kind of life in the first place, it does seem to suit him well.

Even if being called a 'Hero' by so many still causes him to feel a twinge of sheepishness whenever it's brought up.

Civilian Personality: In contrast to the wit, charm and raw courage of The Champion, Duncan himself is a bit more... subdued. Though perhaps a youth spent desperately trying to hide the fact that he could fly and tank bullets to the face without flinching all while balancing a bus on his little finger for fear of drawing unwanted attention to his folks or getting somebody hurt miiiiight've had something to do with that. That's not to say that he's a wallflower, mind you, as many who've borne the brunt of his specially dry blend of humour or seen how excited he gets in the stands of a hockey game could tell you, but he is noticeably more... distant, though still generally friendly, to all but his family and closest friends- preferring to fade into the background in most situations to let others soak up the limelight while he just goes about living his life beneath their notice.

To those lucky few that actually have that unrestricted access to what's going on in his head, however, Duncan is an indelibly stubborn, hard-nosed but otherwise affable and caring kind of guy who'd move heaven and earth for those closest to him, even at his own expense.

Super abilities:

Skills:
-Master mechanic.
-Handyman.
-A Polyglot, fluent in English, Acadian French, Scots Gaelic and Kryptonian (though he rarely gets to use the latter)
-Is a ludicrously good cook, despite what he'd tell you.

Powers

The Photonucleic Effect: Despite what you might think, Kryptonians... ain't that much different than your bog-standard human truth be told; Sure, the Upper Castes had a penchant for gene-tailoring and selective breeding to such a degree that almost every single one of them had blue eyes and either blonde or black hair and a weird, almost fetishistic obsession with wearing ludicrously tight bodysuits- But all in all the average Kryptonian, and especially amongst the Lower Castes weren't particularly dissimilar from your average (non-magical) Earthling.

...There is one exception however.

The Photonucleic Effect.

Via some strange bit of science, intelligent design or twisted cosmic joke that Duncan can still barely wrap his head around, even after over a decade of absorbing scifi-ish technobabble from both his mom's AI construct and Zoey, it's apparently a perfectly logical and natural fact that the native fauna of Krypton experience some radical physical changes at the molecular level when under the influence the light of a yellow sun that only increase in intensity with prolonged exposure... and our man Duncan, of course, has spent his entire life under one- Granting him a few little perks such as incalculable strength, nigh-invulnerability and speed only really outmatched by a speedforce user. And that's not even going into his ability to fire beams of concentrated solar radiation (affectionately called 'Heat Vision' by many), see through walls (from orbit, occasionally), hear things going on from the other side of the damned planet or his uncanny ability to fly at speeds approaching the damn near ludicrous.

...Also, the ability to freeze things with his breath. He still hasn't managed to wrap his head around how that one's supposed to work either, but his mom and Zoey assure him that that's quite normal, too.

Gadgets:
-That afore-mentioned utility belt and computer gauntlet.

Vulnerabilities:
Kryptonite- In much the same way the light of Sol effects him, the photonucleic effect makes inorganic material aggressively toxic to the Champion, with even limited exposure being enough to cripple him and prolonged exposure proving fatal.
Red Sun Radiation- In contrast to the effects of Duncan's abilities under the yellow light of Sol, being exposed to the radiation of a red star, like that of his homeworld, will rapidly rob Duncan of his powers, rending not much more powerful than an average human. This, however, doesn't nullify out the changes to his atomic structure brought about by three decades of life on Earth. And being exposed to yellow sunlight again will quite rapidly recharge him back to where he was before.
Magic- Though not inherently harmful to him in the way Kryptonite is, magic has a much easier time making it's way through his photonucleic invulnerability than more conventional attacks.

Civilian Occupation: Shipyard Mechanic

Biography---------

Character History/Origin:

Optional information
----------
Nemesis: Many.
Allies: Grim, Velocity, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Kraken and a whole lot of others.
Team: The Justice League
Other:

Heroes Reborn: Prime Earth (Superhero/Urban Fantasy: OPEN)

January 1st, 7:25 PM
Smithwick Textiles, Bludhaven, NJ.

'Okay, that one hurt a little...' Sasha had to concede internally, even as she grunted and wheezed to shove as much oxygen as she could into her lungs as she possibly could. Partly because of the speeding fist that had forcefully emptied them for her.

...And partly to brace for the other one headed for her face at that very moment, which struck with an echo that reverberated around the factory floor.

To her credit, despite having been tied to this friggin' chair in a dingy old factory straight out of some cliche for what must've been a few hours now and having the absolute shit kicked out of her by this guy, she still remained, well...

"Shit, Julian. If yer cock's as limp as yer wrist, I suddenly understand why Molly left ya... well, that and yer lumpy-ass face."

Sasha. She remained Sasha.

Maybe it was the fact that they had her kid. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that this was a uniformed officer she'd worked with for over a decade kicking her head in. Or maybe she was just really goddamn angry right now... but the fact remained, she wasn't giving anything to anyone present but her purest contempt from start to finish.

Which is precisely why she met the next oncoming extremity with a big damned cheeky grin.

"That is enough, Mister Muller!"

...Not to say she was too broken up about that same fist abruptly coming to a stop about an inch from her face at that shout either, mind you. But the point remained. As did the look on her face as the newcomer, a portly, Italian man in a resplendant tuxedo and dress shoes polished to a mirror-sheen approached at a brisk clip, arms folded behind his back.

"Surely, there is no need for such... barbarities." The sharp-dressed man lectured with a decidedly mediterranean wave of his hand "We are all civilized people here, after all. We can talk this out."

"Oh, look, the Cliche Italian Mobster has arrived to say Cliche Italian Mobster things!" Sasha ouright laughed, grinning from ear to ear out of spite and around a mouthful of blood. "Now all we need is a cat, a bowl of oranges and some automatic gunfire and we have ourselves a fucking blockbuster!"

To her irritation, the object of her mockery just smiled. Almost warmly, even.

"Ah, Miss Jericho, it lightens my heart so to see that Mister Muller's hospitality hasn't at all dimmed that fire i have heard so much about." He stated simply, with a downright jolly little chuckle to boot. "But I would advise you to... exercise some tact. For the time being, at least."

The chair-bound woman just affixed the man with a blank expression. Followed closely by a raise of her brow.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Tact." He answered cheerfully and without skipping a beat as he pulled up a chair and sat down across from her "Discretion, thinking things through before you act or speak. That nebulous thing that has managed to evade you all day today."

Again, Sasha could only meet this strange, cheerful man with another deadpanned expression.

"...Who the absolute fu-"

"Alright, I suppose I shall have to elaborate." The man cut her off quickly with a single enthusiastic clap and sprung to his feet with energy rare in a man his age, pacing a circle around the bound woman and enunciating with his hands. "We approached you for assistance with a... small matter. Nothing beyond your particularly prodigal set of talents, if today is any indication and offered no small amount of compensation for your trouble... and, oh... what you told our representatives again?"

"To take a flying shit."

If anything, that just seemed to make the man happier, putting a little spring in his step as he came up on her right.

"Yes, that! That wonderful, charmingly Bludhaven response to someone offering you money for very little effort! Brilliant!" The man continued with a charmed laugh, before crouching down next to her and suddenly donning a decidedly unpleasant expression as all that honey and joviality in his words abruptly ran dry. "But ill advised."

Even Sasha had to admit, now that she was seeing this man up close, suddenly seeing all of the cold, dead nothing behind his eyes...

It scared her. In an almost primeval way she hadn't felt since the war.

"But your lack of judgement doesn't terminate there, no, we approached yo a second time after that. This time, at work. And what do you do? Why, you grab our men by the collar and throw them out onto the pavement. Very disrespectful of you. Also Ill-advised." The man continued, gently squeezing down on the woman's arm with frigidly cold hands. "So I then took more aggressive measures to try and make you see some modicum of reason. To which you responded by gallivanting around the city like some Hollywood action hero hospitalizing fourteen of my men— half of them into intensive care, no less— until your good friend Mister Muller here was able to lure you into his patrol-car and hit you with a taser."

If Julian was at all ashamed of his role in all this, he didn't show it. Offering Sasha only a smile and a blown kiss as she turned to fix him with a cold glare. Smiling even harder as his unnamed friend gently cupped her cheek to guide her attention back toward him.

"And now, here you are tied to a chair and rapidly running out of paths to a happy ending." The man in the black concluded, easing his grip on her arm and caressing her bruised cheek in some bizarre pantomime of a father reassuring his child "So yes, Miss Jericho, I do advise you show some tact."

With that, the man stood, and circled around again until he was behind his captive, making a deliberate point of tracing a finger up her arm as he went, before resting it upon her shoulder as he leaned down to whisper into her ear...

"After all, is all this really worth it?"

There was a long, dragging couple of minutes following the man's tirade as Sasha sat there in silence, her brain churning in instinctual alarm at something she'd just noticed when the 'civilized gentleman' had gotten that close—

An overwhelming stench of raw meat.

For his part, the figure just pursed his lips a little in thought, stood up and began adjusting his bowtie.

"Well, I suppose it matters not."

...Before violently and looping the thing around her neck and wrenching backward with speed and strength unbecoming a man of his apparent age, easily overpowering the thrashing woman.

"After all the headache you have caused today, they were going to have me kill you anyway. I had merely hoped you would convince me to make it easy for you"

His eyes then flicked back up to his accomplice, shining malevolently as he spoke over the woman's muffled screaming.

"Have Mister Gabriel take young Robert down to that place on Fifth and Keele, see what the Fleshmongers will give you for him."

Upon hearing that, Sasha's eyes nearly bulged out of the sockets as she thrashed even harder, something her tormentor allowed for not more than a few seconds before just releasing his hold and driving a fist into the back of her skull to knock her out.

"And fetch me my toolbox, I have much work to do."

---

January 1st, 7:27 PM
St. Mary's Community Shelter, Bludhaven, NJ.

WHAP!

"GAH!"

And very suddenly, Mal was hunched over clutching the back of his head.

Again.

Though that didn't at all stop him from casting a sharp glare over his shoulder at the apparent source of his current cranial woes.

"Okay, what the hell was that for?"

His assailant, to her credit, slothfully sprawled across the other end of the couch and shoveling popcorn chicken into her purple-skinned facehole whilst simultaneously slurping some no-name brand cola off the coffee table before them via a series of bendy straws taped together somehow found the dignity to look almost offended by the question... Even in the middle of dutifully getting bits of greasy food all over the bright red trenchcoat she now used as an ad-hoc pillow.

"Ya've got food, ya've got yer Shweedart on TV and ya got tha incomp'rable pledjer of muh comp'ny... yet ya keep shtaring off in'na shpayshe." She half-answered, half-gargled around a mouthful of chicken and soda before swallowing the combined fastfood slurry in one forceful gulp. "What's on your mind, Pup?"

Malcolm visibly flinched slightly at that... And only partially because of the combined assault of the embarrassing nickname he could never seem to outrun and the umpteenth (loud) reminder that night that he once had a crush on a friggin' Disney Princess— This was technically the longest he'd spent around Mogarra in months. And as much as she liked to conceal it beneath her usual antics, he didn't need his computer-like brain to figure out that she was probably getting just a liiiitle bit upset about it.

Never mind what must've been going on in her noggin at the state he always seemed to be in when she did see him these days.

...Frankly, the boy was beginning to suspect the he might just be an asshole.

Yet still, his hand was on his duffel before he thought about putting it there.

"Nothin', just remembered I got somethin' to take care of, is all" Mal lied through his teeth, getting to his feet with a sorry little smile "'Fraid I'mma haf'ta call it a ni-"

"What? Oh, c'mon Mal, we're just gettin' to the good part!" The succubus cut him off quickly as she abruptly jolted to a sit with enough force to spatter crumbs and bits of chicken off her old Led Zeppelin t-shirt and across the couch as she latched onto his arm. "I mean, look! She's shaking her ass and everything!"

"Sorry, Mog, but I—"

The boy's train of thought paused for a moment as he cast a quick glance over at the old box television confirming that, yes, everything the succubus had just said was emphatically true.

''Make that work', indeed...'

Having to physically shake his head to get himself back on track after that, Mal, to his eternal credit managed to collect his thoughts enough to throw the sling of his duffel over his shoulder and pick up where he left off.

"...It really can't wait."

The ancient demon met that with an indignant glare... that slowly, but surely softened into a frown... and then finally something that suspiciously resembled a pout as she relented and sat back, hugging her knees and wrapping her tail around herself.

Though she didn't say a word.

'Yup. Confirmed. I'm an asshole.'

"Look, I'll take you out for-"

"Just fucking go, Malcolm."

The boy's breath caught in his throat at that, but he lowered his head and silently complied.

Mogarra K'Orathys, for her part, just sat there in silence as he went... well, mostly.

"...Damn right you're taking me to dinner."

And that's about when some squirrely kid on the TV rushed the stage screaming like a lunatic and spouting red energy all over the damned place.

---

January 1st, 8:15 PM
Smithwick Textiles, Bludhaven, NJ.

"That took you an awfully long time, Mister Muller." The senior man growled out with just a tinge of impatience, as he calmly took the shiny, chromed toolbox from the man's hands and placed it down on the table beside him. "Just what, pray tell, kept you?"

Julian only shrugged at that.

"Kid's got a lotta of his mum in 'er, Mister Macellaio. Kicked Paul right in the pants an' ran for it soon as he went to grab 'im. Thought it best ta catch 'im first." He explained, making... a whole lot of sense for a glorified henchman, in retrospect. "It's a big place, and there ain't exactly a shortage a' places to hide. And if he gets out and flags down a cop who ain't playing ball-"

"Yes, yes, I understand. I didn't mean to speak so tersely to you." Macellaio relented with a little wave of his hand and an apologetic smile, even as he cut him off. "I'm just... very eager to get to work. That's all."

The younger man just straightened slightly and nodded at that. Not particularly hung for any further details beyond that; Don't get him wrong, Julian loved the extra income he got through this guy, but he really didn't want to know what was going on in that creepy little head.

Though luckily, any opportunity the man might've taken to elaborate on what he was thinking came to an abrupt halt as what little lighting they had chose that singular moment to go out. Leaving the two to just stare eachother down in the near pitch-black of the old textile factory.

"Julian, could you check the fusebox? I'd quite like to be able to see what I'm doing, if you don't mind."

"Sure thing, Boss." said the cop as he spun on his heels, more than happy for the excuse to be moving away from that guy in a dark hallway.

---

"'Julian?' When the fuck did I get on a first-name basis with the goddamn magic cannibal?" Muller couldn't help but grumble, his nature forcing the words from his lips but his fear ensuring they never carried further than a whisper as he fumbled his way to the utility room, guided solely by his dollar-store flashlight.

Not that he'd need to, he figured, Mister Macellaio was on the other side of the damned complex entertaining his guest, and as for everyone else on their little escapade, well... he was pretty certain it was kind of a shared sentiment.

Hell, they actually had to draw straws about who got to be the unlucky fuck who had to talk to the guy.

...Which had now led to him being on a first-name with a fucking magic cannibal.

'Should'a gone into carpentry like Dad wanted.' He lamented inside, as he rounded the last corner to his destination and pushed the old steel door to the utility room open. 'Well... 'least we're almost done here...'

'Krnsch!'

Julian paused. That sounded like... glass. Flicking his light to the floor confirmed that. Specifically, glass from all the old fuses someone had ripped out and smashed into the floor.

His hand went for his radio. But before it even made it halfway there, a hand was on his wrist, another on the back of his head, a boot slamming into the back of his knee and quickly soon afterward, his face was being driven into the glass-covered floor.

"So... 'Magic Cannibal', huh?"

Came a low, modulated growl from above him as he struggled to get back to his feet, an effort that only saw him rewarded by the loud, sickening 'SNAP!' of his arm and wrist breaking in rapid succession echoing off the concrete walls and the door which neatly shut behind him under it's own weight.

"Do share."

Heroes Reborn: Prime Earth (Superhero/Urban Fantasy: OPEN)

"C'mon, Kid. One more time." Jack ordered, leaning forward slightly on his milk-crate as he did so and at least trying to look a little authoritative as he directed his boy. "Ya almost had it."

The giddy excitement gleaming in the back of his hazel eyes told an entirely different story. Something the object of these commands might have noticed had he not been trying his level best not to avoid his haze while sat on his upturned bucket, hunched over slightly and clutching his dad's guitar in a deathgrip as his face grew redder and redder.

"I, uhh... I dunno, Da-..."

His sputtering did him no favours either, eliciting yet another disorderly chorus of snorts and giggles from the other alley kids that both silenced, and made him shrink even further. Hell, the way he was going, he may well have shrank directly into the cracked concrete below had his dad's hands not abruptly landed on his shoulders to catch him with a gentle squeeze.

Jack spoke again. Voice soothingly warm, despite his abruptness.

"Malcolm. One more time."

A helluva feat for a near-giant with half a Chelsea grin.

Looking up at his old man, Mal could only comply. And started playing again.

WHAP!

---

January 1st, 4:15 PM
Lower Caernarvon Street, Bludhaven, NJ.

"GAH!" Mal cried out and shot upright in response to whatever the hell that was that just slapped him in the face.

"Oh, so you are alive."

Instantly, Mal's eyes locked on the familiar figure standing over him in her signature red trenchcoat, scarf and beanie 'modified' (read: haphazardly attacked with scissors) to make room for her horns.

"What the hell, Mog?"

The succubus' eyes narrowed dangerously. That was clearly the wrong response.

"I could ask you the same thing, Dumbass." She all but snarled in response, grabbing him by the collar, hauling him to his feet and aggressively brushing him off "Yesterday, Eddie gets hauled off by a med-coven, thrashing about and foaming at the mouth he's so fucked on red dust, so of course you just fucking run off without a word and now I find you a day later here, with a split lip and a big damned shiner, smelling like shit and passed out in a fucking bus shelter in the middle of a snowstorm!"

At that, Mal blinked the last bits of sleep out of his eyes and took a look around. Finding that, aside from him and irate demon, the only thing surrounding them were four and a half glass panes and a whole fucking lot of blowing snow outside.

Shit, wasn't doing that outside when he stopped for a nap on his way home.

Bludhaven, go figure.

The boy grimaced slightly at that and pushed himself away the worried/angry chaos-realmer so he could lean against the railing and get the rest of his bearings. Even as the succubus in question automatically closed the gap to brush the last bits of ice off of his jacket.

"Alright, alright! I get it, I'm sorry!" The boy finally exclaimed as he lightly pushed the currently aggressively angry-mom-moded demon away and rubbing at the growing welt on his cheek "Just lemme breathe, dammit!"

The red clad woman acquiesced to this, taking a step back. Though she still found it in her to cross her arms and fix the teen with an absolutely withering glare, still clearly mad.

To his credit, Mal had the decency to actually look away at that.

...Well, for a good fifteen seconds, anyway.

"...Did you hit me with your tail?"

"Worked, didn't it?" Mogarra responded with a slight, dismissive shake of her head as she stepped out into the blowing snow. "Now come on, we're going to the shelter."

Mal cocked a brow at that, but picked up his duffel and followed anyway.

"Dare I ask why?"

"Mostly because you really need a fucking shower." Mog replied with a deadpan, and just a tinge of sass. "And also because your Sweetheart is playing in New York tonight and her charity's paying for a free broadcast of it and a fried chicken dinner. You get to be my plus-one."

Mal's eyes narrowed at that as he trudged along behind the demon.

"Sweetheart?"

"Oh, don't give me that." Mog dismissed with a wave of her hand. "I know you boy."

"I do not have a crush on Karen Friggin' Hernandez if that's what you're getting at."

"Oh?" The demon paused for a second, before continuing forward again, a perilous amount of smug working it's way into her voice. "That's funny, because I distinctly remember sneaking you into the last concert she had here. On your birthday, no less."

"I-"

"You were so fucking cute, bundled up and just bouncing where you stood."

"Mog-"

"And then she signed that playing card for you, I swear you were smiling for a week."

"I WAS TWELVE!"

---

Officer Sasha Jericho of the Bludhaven Police was having a bad day.

Though, to be fair, not nearly as bad as the trio of men now laying bloody and mostly-toothless at the mountain-of-a-woman's feet. Though, in all honesty, they could've had it much worse at that moment. They were still alive, after all. Though, if the way the woman was wiping her bloodied hands off on her shirt and unholstering her gun was any indication, that luck was probably not going last much longer.

"I gonna ask you boys one last time..."

The brunette all but spat as she racked her sidearm with purpose.

"Where. Is. My. Son?"