[CENTER][img]https://static0.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Dr-fate-kent-v-nelson-feature.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=740&h=370&dpr=1.5[/img] [h3]&[/H3] [img]https://i.imgur.com/J2p1lxg.png[/img] [/CENTER] [b]New York City[/b] [b]January, 1942[/b] “I’d rather die than talk.” The German man stared at Wesley and Ted through swollen eyes. Heavy rope kept him tied down to the chair he sat in. A single naked lightbulb hung overhead and cast the room in harsh lighting. They were in the Queens industrial park. This seemingly empty warehouse was where they’d found the headquarters of the Fourth Reich. The man tied to the chair was SS Colonel Hans Mueller, the German war machine's foremost expert in covert operations. Wesley and Ted were dressed in full attire as The Sandman and Wildcat. Somewhere outside, there was a loud crash. “Time’s running out, pal,” Ted said, hitting the guy with another one-two punch. The German howled as a tooth broke off in his mouth. “Where’s the bomb?” “Let me gas him,” said Wesley. “Just a little to get him to talk, not too much so he falls asleep.” “We got orders from Green Lantern. He stays awake.” Orders, thought Wesley. Like they were soldiers and Alan Scott was their general. Wesley didn’t recall signing up for that. Another thump from outside, this one closer. Wesley’s hand went to the gas gun on his hip. “There’s not enough time. Whiz may have made light work of the Baroness, but I’m not sure Starman could handle--” The thick metal door leading into the room groaned as it collapsed in on itself. The twisted metal door fell to the floor hard and a figure stepped over it into the room. [img]https://comicvine.gamespot.com/a/uploads/scale_small/8/84205/3420271-1333091-captain_nazi.jpg[/img] “Guten tag, my American friends,” Captain Nazi said in heavily accented English. “Or perhaps I should say ‘gute nacht’ to the Sandman?” Ted entered a fighter’s stance while Wesley pulled his gas gun. He already knew the gas had little effect on the German, but it may be able to give him and Ted enough cover to fight. He was nowhere near as skilled as Wildcat, but years of study in the Far East gave him a proficiency in the martial arts. He’d try his best. “Who shall I kill first?” Nazi asked with a raised eyebrow. Ted answered for him as he charged with his fist held high. Nazi shook his head and prepared to hit the ex-heavyweight champ with a punch so powerful it would punch a hole through his chest. His first struck some invisible barrier and bounced the punch back. Nazi and Ted both looked around for what had caused the blow to stop. Wesley could see what it was clearly: An ankh, large and rippling with energy, appeared between Nazi and Ted. In a blast of bright yellow light, Fate emerged. [img]https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EKVOICkKlaQ/W2YvOeDPZPI/AAAAAAAAEIA/Wl7K5Ul_SQc0ZhBPlrt8gKTFWRi5NXIKACLcBGAs/s1600/Dr-Fate.png[/img] “[color=gold]𝕐𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝔽𝕒𝕥𝕖 𝕙𝕒𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕚𝕧𝕖𝕕, 𝔸𝕝𝕓𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕙𝕥 𝕂𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕘𝕖𝕣.[/color]” Doctor Fate assaulted the genetically-enhanced Nazi with bolts of arcane power, as Wildcat danced around their enemy, sneaking in punches where he found openings in their enemy’s defenses. “You’re late, Fate.” Wildcat grunted between blows. “[color=gold]A sorcerer is never late.[/color]” He said, throwing Captain Nazi against the warehouse’s steel structural beams with a telekinetic blast. “[color=gold]I was fighting Nazis in Scotland less than ten minutes ago, I would say that I made very good time getting here.[/color]” “What are Nazis doing in Scotland?” Ted asked, putting their Aryan adversary in a sleeper hold. “[color=gold]I think you’d sleep better at night if I didn’t tell you.[/color]” The Sandman could only laugh ruefully as Ted dropped Captain Nazi, and Wesley stepped in to gas him. Doctor Fate cast another spell, and four glowing ankhs manifested around their enemy’s wrists and ankles, holding him in place. “Now let’s have a talk, Captain," said Wesley. "There’s a bomb somewhere in this city that will go off in an hour. Tell me where, exactly, it is and how we stop it. And speak quickly. The sands of time run swiftly.” [hr] [b]New York City[/b] [b]Now [/b] Kent knocked loudly on the apartment door, waited five minutes for signs of life, checked his daily planner to make sure he had the correct address, and knocked loudly again. “[color=gold]Wesley? I know you’re alive in there. It’s only me.[/color]” He called into the door. Letting himself into the apartment would have been trivial for the most basic student of sorcery, but this was a friendly visit, which did not beget breaking into an old man’s home. The door opened slightly after a few locks were undid. Wesley peered through the door, still with its chain lock in place, at Kent, who looked back at him expectantly. Wesley wasn’t sure when the two men had last seen each other. Their last attempt at a JSA reunion was around the 50th anniversary in 1990. He knew they’d seen each other there back then. Wesley had missed Alan Scott’s funeral, preferring to pay his respects without the attention of the press. “Good morning… afternoon, actually,” Wesley said. “One second.” He closed the door before unlocking the door chain and opening the door fully. He wore a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap on his head and his reading glasses hung down the bridge of his nose. He beckoned him into the apartment and started back down the hallway. “Long time no see, Kent. How in god’s name do you still look younger than me?” “[color=gold]Some of us haven’t had the luxury of retirement.[/color]” Kent called after his friend, laughing. He hung up his hat and coat, and followed after Wesley. “[color=gold]Evil sorcerers, dark gods, dimensional invaders… I swear it never ends. How have you been holding up?[/color]” “I wake up, do my crossword puzzle, go to a diner, maybe the park. That’s been my life for the past thirty years.” Wesley searched through the kitchen cabinets for mugs. The last thing he wanted to do right now was explain his last few days in detail. But, word got around. There was no doubt the whole reason he was at his door to start with was because of what happened with Sandy. “I have some tea here in the cabinet if you’d like a cup.” “[color=gold]Sounds blissful.[/color]” Kent sat down, bones creaking, and sighed heavily. “[color=gold]That would be lovely, thank you.[/color]” He watched Wesley for a while as he fixed them each a cup of tea. He looked strong, he stood straight, and he moved purposefully; all things that one should be immensely grateful for at their age, leaving aside the supernatural forces that sustained them both. There was no cure for ennui, and Kent was immensely relieved to see his friend in good spirits. “[color=gold]I assume you already know why I’m here.[/color]” Kent said as Wesley filled his kettle, deciding to get the difficult part of his visit out of the way. “[color=gold]I’m very sorry about Sandy, he was a good sidekick, a good hero, and a good friend. Carter and Hector both send their condolences as well. Do you know when the funeral will be?[/color]” “I imagine later this week.” Wesley took a seat across the table from Kent and laced his fingers together. “Courtney is taking care of the arrangements for me. With… umm… Frankie now in police custody, Courtney and I are Sandy’s next of kin. Not biological, either of us. But family nonetheless. Those of us still alive and able to attend will be there. It seems at this age, Kent, it’s only the funerals that bring us all together again.” Kent nodded thoughtfully as Wesley spoke, before adding, “[color=gold]I’ll endeavor to be there, and I’ll let the Halls know as well. Hector and Sandy were partners when he took over as Sandman for you, I’m sure he won’t want to miss it.[/color]” He sighed again, looking at the kettle boiling on the stove. “[color=gold]You’re right. It’s the only thing that breaks through the haze of nostalgia that most of us- what’s left of us- have retreated to. We’d rather just sit around in our trophy rooms and play ‘remember when’ than see another old face that reminds us of our own.[/color]” He looked back at his friend. “[color=gold]You look good though, Wes. I mean that. You look like you still have something to fight for.[/color]” “I sometimes wonder if that’s the case,” Wesley said as he stood. He shuffled to the stove and began to pour the boiling water into two mugs with teabags in them. “Next year I’ll be 113. One hundred and thirteen. I was born in 1908. I know I’m preaching to the choir on this, as it were. But how have I lived this long?” He walked back to the table and placed the tea on the table. But he stood where he was. A look of contemplation crossed Wesley’s face. He sighed and removed his Dodgers hat. Underneath the cap, where once a white head of hair stood, was now a head of hair that was white with several spots of brown in it. “This just started happening. My hair seems to be getting its color back, Kent. I’m going the wrong way.” Kent stared at his tea, fussing with the bag as Wesley spoke. He thought about his own age. Chronologically he was 122 years old, just edging out Wesley but still coming in under Carter’s 125. While Nabu had frozen his age at 61, on the day that he had been chosen to become his Champion of Order, his body at this point functioned more by magical means than biological. Wards, enchantments, and alchemies had enhanced all of his natural functions to levels that defied physics, all for the explicit purpose of ensuring that he would not instantly perish when battling alien mutants and other aberrations such as the “Super Man.” Temporally, his being was likely older than his chronological age by orders of magnitude, as he had spent significant time in such realms that moved at a different timescale than Earth. Despite all of that, he still could not get his knees to stop hurting, nor his upper back, nor his shoulders, nor hands. He felt the strain in his knees as he rose at once, looking over Wesley. He wasn’t a medical doctor, but he knew much of eastern medicine and spiritual healing. Ever the pessimist, only Wesley could complain about [i]actually[/i] getting younger. He felt the other man’s face, running his fingertips gently over his sunken cheek. There had always been a strangeness to Wesley, he had sensed it since they first met, but he knew no more of it, and that was all he could find here. “[color=gold]I can’t tell you much, Wesley. It’s just you in there. Have you changed anything recently? New diet? Medication?[/color]” “Yes… actually.” Wesley stepped away from Kent and walked back into the kitchenette. He put his hands on the counter and looked at his old friend. “I stopped taking the sleeping pills. For the first time in nearly fifty years… the dreams are back.” Kent looked seriously at Wesley, and then sat down, crossing one leg over the other as he looked at his friend curiously. He picked up his tea and sipped it. The Dreams… That was the strangeness about Wesley. His dreams, which Kent had always harbored a pet curiosity about. His professional nature was too strict to be overcome, but he had always desired to sit in one of Wesley’s psychic dreams in séance. Well, “psychic” was the wrong word, because Wesley wasn’t psychic, that was the strange thing about it. This was something else and the lure of the unknown had always tugged at Fate. “[color=gold]Well, clearly your dreams carry a vital part of you. Or you’ve been rewarded by a higher power. Or the pills were making you sick. If I knew where your dreams came from, I could give you a better guess, but I don’t wish to disturb your privacy.[/color]” Wesley looked confused for a moment. He took off his reading glasses and let them hang by the chain around his neck. “Kent, don’t you remember what happened back in ‘54? It was me, you, Dian, Sandy, and Alan. I slept while the four of you had some kind of séance. You looked into my dreams. Dian and the others said they saw a man, skin as pale as bone, with stars for eyes staring back at them. I have no idea what you saw, but I remember you being unconscious when I awoke. You had no memory of what you’d seen in my dream, and I guess you have no memory of that even happening now.” A cold shock ran through Kent, he looked at Wesley very seriously. There was a small tremble under his eye as he said, [color=gold]“Wesley, who was with you in ‘54? It couldn’t have been me. I didn’t join the JSA until ‘62.[/color]” In the fifties, before Nabu, before he became Fate, he had been an archaeologist, studying ruins and artifacts from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. “No,” Wesley said softly. “That’s not right. By ‘62, I was retired as The Sandman. Sandy took my spot on the JSA. Alan would have still been leading the team back then, but a lot of the first generation was retiring. I think Jack had passed the mantle to Starman on to Courtney’s father, Ted. The team pretty much faded away by the early 70’s as even the second generation lost interest.” Wesley frowned slightly at Kent’s memories. “What’s going on, Kent? Don’t you remember the 40’s? Fighting the Fourth Reich? FDR himself gave us presidential medals of freedom for saving the city. We lost Whizzer to Psycho Pirate in ‘47. Hold on…” Wesley shuffled into some backroom for several minutes. When he came out, he held a framed picture in his hand. Kent called after him, “[color=gold]In the forties I was in Tunisia. Rommel, the Desert Fox. A worthy foe.[/color]” “I kept very little of my Sandman stuff after I retired. Sandy had it all, and I’ve been slowly moving stuff here to my apartment. But look…” He passed Kent a photo of the Justice Society of America. It showed Alan Scott, the Green Lantern, in the middle of the group with his arm raised and his power ring on display. Wildcat and Starman flanked him on both sides. Black Canary, Whizzer, and Hourman were to the right. To the left of Wildcat were the Sandman and… Dr. Fate. “We took this in early 1940. Not the inaugural meeting, but the first one we had a photographer at.” Kent accepted the photo, hands trembling slightly. He stared at it for an uncomfortably long time, before closing his eyes to perform a psychometric reading. He could feel the presence of every person that had been in the room, including himself, as well as the photo’s age. It was genuine, a completely authentic article. And the more he thought about it… He could almost feel as though he remembered this Kent took a firm breath, collecting himself. Normally something like this he would assume to be a trick, or some temporal hiccup, but given his most recent encounter with Destiny, he was particularly wary of any possible disturbances in the past or future. Pocketing the photo, he looked back at his friend, no longer with the genial regard of Kent Nelson, but the unflinching gaze of Doctor Fate. “[color=gold]Wesley, I hate to cut our social call short, but this requires my prompt attention. If… this,[/color]” He made a general motion at Wesley’s face and hair. “[color=gold]Progresses further, especially if it gets faster, call me.[/color]” With the practiced motion of a stage magician, he produced a card from inside his sleeve. It was a shiny piece of golden foil paper with the dimensions of a business card. There was nothing written on the side Fate offered to Wesley, nor was there anything on the other side when he accepted it and turned it over. He was half a step out the door before he stopped himself and turned back to his friend again. Kent took Wesley’s hand and put another on his shoulder. “[color=gold]It was good to see you, Wes. I’m very sorry about Sandy. Be well.[/color]” With that he left. Wesley, peeking through the peephole after him, saw him take two steps away from his apartment door, and vanish in a glimmer of golden light. Wesley locked his door and leaned against it, trying to comprehend all that had just happened between him and Kent. He remembered a bit of poetry from his schoolboy days that seemed to apply to both men. “‘That is no country for old men… an aged man is but a paltry thing.’”