Bounce

Titans!

S A M A R
The Visaya Islands, Philippines

The rain had intensified for a few moments, then was suddenly quiet, leaving only a still night air cooled by the mist rising from off the muddy rivers that had become of the streets. Maria had dozed off to sleep, the nearness of her tugging at Christopher's consciousness as he could sense her mind drift to somewhere, where dreams were made. At long last, the young Hellspawn surrendered to the hope that he might find this sanctuary of the mind for himsself, and closed his eyes. And in that moment, Christopher dreamed of tomorrow...

...and tomorrow never came.

The child's eyes snapped open in the moment between the flash of lightning and the clap of thunder, not for the sudden flash but rather a feeling that had just begun. Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me.

The rain hit the house with the full force of a sudden gale, ripping up loose boards in the porch as a terrible howl pierced the air. The chain and tarp hammock came apart in an instant, hovering in the defiance of all Newton's laws before winking out of existence. Within the house, Christopher materialized from out of the air in a plume of Hellfire, the red cape billowing about his small form, which was now fully armored in the black and white colors of Al Simmons. Depositing Maria safely into the arms of her family, the boy again faded into the air.

Phasing through the roof of the house, Christopher shot upward into the air for an aerial view of what was happening, which is when he realized... the earlier quiet had been nothing more than the eye of the storm. A typhoon had come to Samar, tearing through houses pushing water up into the homes of those which would not yield to it. And he could sense the pending death. A dozen at least. A hundred?

The young Hellspawn was overcome by a sense of the utter futility of one hero's actions in the face of nature's wrath, and yet... he could not save them all, but he could save someone.

Plunging back into the town, the young Hellspawn ghosted across the muddy river that now rushed like a flood through the main street, chasing behind the sense of impeding death until he saw a house ripped apart to its very timbers, shuddering under the weight of its own roof. A Filipino man was trying to fight against the wind and rain to free his family from out of the home. A loud crack heralded the release of the roof's support beam, as the half-ton beam came down to crush the man and his family. Instead, the beam struck the young Hellspawn's cape, driven into the ground behind him like a stake and extended forward to create a brace. What remained of the home's foundation cracked underneath the weight of Christopher and the collapsing structure, the young Hellspawn struggling for his footing as he tried to maintain the stability of the structure, as his cape expanded to shelter the man and his family huddled at the boy's side.

They were calling to someone. As Chris looked up, he realized an elderly matriarch was kneeling before an icon of the VIrgin Mother and praying. Grimacing, feeling the timbers about to give, the boy fought to maintain his control over the symbiote even as he stretched himself further still -- sending tendril-like chains to ensnare the old woman, forcibly dragging her away from her candlelight vigil and into the sanctuary of his damned suit.

As soon as the old woman had landed at his feet, the child snapped the cape shut around them all, teleporting across town to appear from out of the ceiling of Maria's house, depositing those within into the already crowded interior. The roof had sprung several leaks, and water was coming in from underneath the doors. "We can't stay here," the young Hellspawn realized aloud, looking at the faces of the assembled people he had gathered inside the home. "Is there somewhere else we can go?" the boy inquired.

Except Christopher didn't speak Tagalog.

The roof collapsed under the weight of water and the pressure pushing against it. Christopher tried to look up as a deluge rushed over him, as the house literally came down around him and on top of him.

Darkness there, and nothing more.

Ultimate Comics: DC - Shadows Among Us

Edited Kai-ro's CS to match.

Ultimate Comics: DC - Shadows Among Us

I'm working off of the structure in Gowi's post, so I'll let him chime in as to whether that's a mistake or just... what they are in our continuity. Then I'll edit as appropriate.

Titans!

Dblade26 said
Also quick question Bounce but why did you pick the Philippines.

I was thinking of what it would be like for a character such as Dick Grayson or even Wolverine to have been in the Visaya Islands when Typhoon Haiyan struck. Taking that perspective, and applying it to Christopher, who can sense death, I thought it would make a compelling narrative for how our character re-discovers himself in the process of being a hero. And not a I'm a hero, because I beat up Lex Luthor hero, but one who tried to fight against an opponent where good and evil aren't at play. It's a typhoon. Chris can't win, he can only lose, because he won't be able to save everyone. But that becomes the point of the story.

Afterwards, he'll help a soul to cross over, briefly encounter someone in the afterlife (either Professor Utonium or Danny Fenton, I'll re-address those points with Gowi once the story progresses to that stage) and either result would be to connect his story back to his Infinity, Inc teammates.

Titans!

S A M A R
The Visaya Islands, Philippines

The girl's name was - is - Maria. Her family lived on the far side of civilization in a quaint town where people still got most of their news by radio. Working televisions were rare, along with working cars or trucks. It was the precipice over which one could see the third world, and yet million dollar hotels were quite literally just down the road. And, yet, the young Hellspawn could feel that people were happy here. There was a genuine sense of community. Everyone knew each other, knew their parents, knew their children, knew their sins... and their graces. Knew their charities and their debts.

It had been three days since Chris had saved Maria. He'd wound up at her family's home, a meager hovel which housed a multi-generational branch of the family tree. They hadn't asked him any questions, but it wouldn't have mattered if they had. Chris didn't speak Tagalog and they didn't appear to speak English. But they were eager for him to stay as their guest. He could understand that much. They called him anghel.

Even not speaking the language, Chris thought he might get the gist of to what they were referring, and didn't have the heart to correct them. Had he, he still wouldn't have known the Tagalog word for devil anyway. And he wasn't all that certain it was accurate. Not then, and maybe not now. That was part of what he'd been trying to sort out in his mind when he'd been distracted by Maria's near death. Now, she was safe and he was still as uncertain as he'd been when he'd started walking along the beach.

No, that wasn't right. He was even less certain now. About everything. Who he was. What he was. Why he was.

What it had all been for.

Or even who.

Some rational part of his mind had the idea that, maybe, when you were dealing with the cosmic machinations of gods - angels, demons, higher beings - that maybe it just the nature of it to be beyond comprehension. Wasn't faith the great unknown, the undiscovered country? It was irony, perhaps, then, that young Christopher was quite unsure as to whether he had any faith or, if he did, what in. Faith in Al? If that were so, he'd have to get another name. Al bless you was never going to catch on. And, on the more theocratic dictatorship side, kneel before Al was similarly lackluster. So as a religion that seemed to fail on the sides of both charity and wrath. And wasn't that what God was? One-half mercy and one-half cast you in the lake of fire, where there is weeping, and gnashing of teeth?

The sound of Maria giggling broke through the young boy's brooding, as the fair haired Spawn woke from out of his own dark reverie with the realization that he hadn't touched the bowl of rice that they had set in front of him. Maria and her brother, Marco, were playing some kind of game back and forth, laughing. Surveying the communal dining table, Chris realized that the adults had all migrated around the radios in the house - the women talking among themselves with the radio going in the kitchen, the men around bottles of beer and a deck of cards at the dining table with a radio propped on one end.

It wasn't music, it was a newscast... but of what, he couldn't tell.

A crack of thunder, drew the boy's sapphire eyes out of the open window to the beach just outside. He could see a breeze whipping through the trees, as white caps tipped the dark waters crashing against the shore.

There was a storm brewing.

There wasn't room for Chris in the house. The first night, they had doubled up the kids in order to make a spot for him, but he'd demonstrated the ability to do something aside from rescue girls from drowning; he formed chains from out of his body and the tattered, red cape that seemed to be his wings to craft a hammock between the house and the porch. Each night in turn, he did it again. On the third night, as with the first or second, the family said nothing. They merely whispered about their anghel. He left them to their religion and they left him to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there's the rub.

Chris did neither. He lay in that hammock, staring up at the stars, and wondering who or what was up there. He thought of his own grave and wondered who or what was in it. And he thought of Al, of Hiroshi and Kumiko. But, most of all, he thought about fear. Maria was afraid of thunder. Marco was afraid of the dark. As night fell and the storm grew worse, Chris could sense their fear from outside the house.

No, he didn't just sense it. He could taste it. And it was addicting. Not just their fears, but those of all the children in the town. It was like a snort of cocaine, he breathed it in and felt a rush of blood to the head.

Anghel. Not very likely.

A flash of light illuminated the sky as though, for a moment, the sun had come up. The ensuing clap of thunder seemed to shake the foundations of the house as a torrential rain suddenly broke, pummeling the roof as it poured down onto dirt streets that were rapidly becoming rivers of mud. Grabbing hold of the edges of his cape, Chris drew the tattered, red cloth tighter around his body, before the door to the house was flung open.

Before he could so much as turn his head, Maria's small form had pounced upon the makeshift hammock. The girl struggled to work her way under the tarp-like covering, as Chris pulled back the cape and extended it over the child's small frame. The young girl huddled tightly against him. Chris could feel her heart beating, and yet, she relaxed as she hugged against him. It was as though she felt safe with him. She was muttering something in Tagalog and it was a moment before Christopher realized what she was doing.

She was saying a prayer.

He hoped she was saying one for both of them.

Titans!

Just a note: I finally got my hands on scans of the 150 series of Spawn vol 1, which are the issues in which Christopher appears (151-159 specifically). So I added an image of the canon Christopher into his CS and adjusted the appearance description to match.

I'd forgotten he had blond hair. And his eyes are blue even in the Hellspawn suit, which seems unusual given what we know about Hellspawn physiology... but I'll go with it.

Anyway. On to post!

Ultimate Comics: DC - Shadows Among Us

In the greater cosmos, the people are protected by two sides in the interstellar justice system; the Lanterns who investigate crimes and the local authorities who prosecute the offenders. The call came in at seventeen forty-seven, Oa Standard Time. A domestic disturbance on an asteroid base out on the edge of space in Sector 2814. That makes it my problem. My name is Kai-ro. I carry a ring.

| A S T E R O I D • B L U E • H E A V E N |

The small spacecraft exited out of the singularity, a blue glow radiating from the ion drives as power was diverted to the sublight engines, the kinetic force combining with the resulting inertial to propel the pristine vessel toward the massive rock which hung like a rogue planet against the backdrop of space. Inside the space craft, a feminine voice echoed and said, "We have entered Sector 2814, quadrant Gamma-9. Adjusting vector for approach to space station Blue Heaven."

"Domestic disturbance," the squirrel-like creature growled, blowing smoke from a distinctly non-regulation cigar as he barked, "What are we now, marriage counselors?"

Bringing a hand up to his face, the young Chinese boy waved the smoke away from his face despite knowing all-too-well the futility of his actions. In such a confined environment, even with Aya's carbon scrubbers working at maximum efficiency to recycle the air quality, the noxious odors continued to burn at his nostrils everywhere in the ship. "Blue Heaven is a private enterprise. WIthout local government law enforcement, it is necessary for the Corps to provide for community police protection in order to prevent this quadrant becoming a..."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm not the Poozer here, kid," Ch'p growled, interrupting the young Green Lantern before blowing smoke in his face. "This is, what, third time we've been out?"

"Fourth," Kai-ro corrected, coughing as the smoke choked the back of his throat.

"Well, maybe if you'd busted some heads the first, second, or third time, we wouldn't be out here again," the H'lven chipmunk snapped.

"There was no criminal complaint alleged and therefore it would be unconscionable to impose..."

"I'll show you 'unconscionable' if you don't shut up and arrest something," the grizzled Blue Lantern barked, waving with his cigar toward the back of the cockpit. "Now hit the beat, kid."

There were creatures in this world - in this universe - who tested the patience of even the most virtuous monk. With a sigh, the young Green Lantern hung his head as he resigned himself to the fact that Clarissi Salaak had, for whatever karmic slight Kai-ro may have caused in a prior life, partnered him with just such a creature. "Kao yao," the youth muttered in Chinese as he started toward the airlock.

"Yeah, moo goo gai pan to you too, kid."

The comment from the H'lven reached Kai-ro's ears just as he started through the exit of the cockpit, drawing his shoulders up in the only tangible display of irritation. Peace. Compassion. Peace... the boy repeated to himself, drawing in a deep breath which he let out slowly as he did the right thing and just walked away. As he stepped into the airlock, the boy brought his right hand up, adjusting the distinctive ring on his middle finger. A green aura enveloped his small form, as the exterior hatch was pulled away like a curtain to reveal the naked cosmos outside. Gently, the boy's foot drifted from off the deck as he floated freely into the vacuum awaiting him.

Space could be frightening the first time. There was no concept of up or down. No compass points with which to orient the mind. Some never overcame the vertigo. But Kai-ro? Kai-ro felt like this was true freedom. Putting his arms by his side, the child ducked and then pushed himself out through the void like a dolphin sliding through the sea. Gliding across the emptiness, the youth arced upward to arrive at an airlock that would give entry to the asteroid base. A pulse from his ring and the door parted for him, and Kai-ro stepped inside.

A century before, the asteroid had been cored out by a mining corporation. Left an empty shell, the remains of the mining station had been hastily converted into a port of call for people out on the fringe of this part of space. Pirates. Smugglers. Drug runners. The Green Lanterns knew that Blue Heaven, as it had come to be called, was nothing more than a waypoint from criminal elements drifting through the sector. But suspicion didn't amount to evidence, and so the Green Lanterns could do little more than keep an eye on the station. Still, it remained a lawless wonderland. A ghetto in space. Trash crunched under foot, along with something squishy that Kai-ro immediately tried not to think about as he made his way inside of the shoddy asteroid port.

B37T4-A, or Big Bertha, had originally been programmed as a lab assistant for a chemical company. Later advances in robotics and artificial intelligence design had led to Bertha being thrown out with the trash, but instead of being resigning herself to being reduced to scrap, the rusted automaton had wound up opening a bar out on Blue Heaven. There, she'd met up with a waste disposal unit that everyone called 'Marty' and the two had mixed like oil and water. Their passions for one another were, perhaps, impressive given the limitations of their designs, but that passion led to destructive behavior - usually by Bertha - which was of increasing concern to the residents of Blue Heaven.

That alone was concerning. It took a great deal for someone who lived on Blue Heaven to want to call the Lanterns.

As the young Green Lantern walked through the doors of the bar, an ion bolt buried itself into the wall about three feet to the left and two heads higher than he stood. The smell of residual gas coolant gave credence to the notion that such hadn't been the first shot fired, which would explain why someone would have been willing, if not eager, to call the Lanterns. In space, with the risk of the hull being compromised, no one won a gun fight.

Bertha was behind the bar, plugged into a voltage converted that had obviously made her onboard components drunk from the power surge. In one of her reedy, articulate limbs was a relic of the Trandoshan Civil War, a gas-powered ion bolt caster that was little more than a high-tech slug thrower. "You whore," the robotic bar tender managed, loudly slurring her words as her servos were unable to precisely calibrate for motion. The rifle waved wildly toward a squat, dirty-looking robot. "I... I kill you and... and that automated hussy!"

"Perhaps we could begin by placing the weapon on the..."

"Bertha, my love! My binary blossom, it was nothing!" Marty's roughly synthesized voice interjected, as the squat box-like robot seemed to dance from side to side. "A thirty second upload in a parallel connection, I swear! She means nothing to me!"

Turning toward the squat machine, Kai-ro looked sternly over at the waste robot and offered, "I do not believe such protests will be effect..."

"Upload!?" Bertha echoed, drawing both Marty and Kai-ro's attention to the chemist-turned-barmaid at the distinctive sound of the caster bolt being drawn back. "UPLOAD!?"

"Upload? No, I didn't upload in her..." Marty uttered weakly.

This was, in the boy's mind, exactly what a train wreck in slow motion must look like. "Go se," the child swore under his breath, as a large green shield appeared between himself, Marty, and the bar as several ion bolts slammed into the willpower construct. This was not what he'd envisioned when he'd been chosen as Green Lantern.

"I had reconstructive surgery for you!" Bertha barked, pausing her barrage as she gestured toward what were obviously a new set of oscillating processor tubes across the front of her torso.

"Yes'm, those are nice," Kai-ro quipped vapidly, not entirely certain that made sense, and less so just what he was saying, but it made sense to say something as he gestured with both hands for her to put the caster down. "We can talk about this rationally and without the need for viol..."

"Bitch, you best recognize that's my man!"

There were very few times that Kai-ro would have offered the opinion that discussion was a useless endeavor. As the automated food processor came wheeling into the bar, however, the Shaolin monk had to resign himself to the fact that this was one of those times.

"Oh, hell no!"

As Bertha roared and snapped up the rifle, the spry, young Green Lantern was already in motion. Quick as a snake, a sweep of the boy's leg had sent the Trandoshan rifle skidding across the bar top, as a series of green handcuffs snapped onto her reedy limbs. "Weapons discharge in an enclosed space environment is a class five misdemeanor," the youth asserted in a matter-of-fact tone. "I believe some time apart on Oa will help in alleviating this conflic..."

"GET YUR HANDS OFF MY WIFE!"

As he turned, Kai-ro saw Marty lunging for him, as the food processor came wheeling after. "That's my man!"

Had he mentioned that he hadn't signed up for this?

Titans!

Ken Tennyson. Well played, sir.

I consider myself a Ben 10 fan and that one sent me to Google because I had never even heard of him.

Star Wars - Jedi Exile.

The young Anzati and the young Nautolan both huddled close to the Vahla padawan as she offered encouragement. A safe place, she had said. They were inside of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, and yet they were not safe. If they were not safe here, then where? Did such a thing exist anymore? Sor-Jan and Zak both wanted to believe the words the Vahla offered them, but despair and anxiety were beginning to take their toll as both boys finally had time for some of the magnitude of events which they had witnessed to sink in.

They were dead.

All of them. Everyone that either boy had ever known or loved since they were taken from their families and given, instead, a Clan to belong to. They had seen the bodies of all those Jedi brother and sisters littering the ground. Their parental guardians felled by the clone troopers who were supposed to be the Great Army of the Republic. Their idealized protectors, the Jedi Knights, dead or dying in the very halls in which the two boys now stood. And so Sor-Jan and Zak both wanted to believe what the Vahla said to be true - desperately, pleadingly, as a child might hide from evil by throwing a blanket over its head - but neither of the younglings were so young as to be that naive with all that they had born unwitting witness to. There was no where safe.

Swallowing, choking against his own fear and a parched throat, the young Anzati could only hope that he was wrong.

A hand touched his shoulder, prompting the raven-haired youth to look up. A Jedi Temple Guardian stood over him and said, "You will survive this nightmare I promise you this, however you must be strong, stronger than any younglings before you. You must control your emotions, if you unleash them now they will lead you down a dangerous path and could as well send those around you down the same path. Now follow Deja, she will escort you to the Cargo Bay, I will be there shortly."

Another temple guard - Deja, he supposed - began issuing orders. Sor-Jan and Zak were ushered into the center of a formation forged of the remaining survivors. The Vahla padawan was nearby, standing between the younglings and the remaining Jedi Knights. And the guardian who had spoken of their survival? Through the crowds of people, Sor-Jan caught the fleeting glimpse of him returning to the tunnels where they had come. But he got no more than a glimpse, as both he and the Nautolan were pressed onward as the Jedi group led by Deja were on the move.

The young Anzat reached out for the Nautolan boy's hand as they found themselves on the run once more. Panic and fear and uncertainty clouded his mind and deprived him of the opportunity to catch his breath, though it wasn't long before Deja had them positioned outside of their destination. But there was another problem. There were more clones inside. So they would wait. But not for long.

"How long do you think we have before we need to move on them?"

It was the Vahla padawan. He could recognize her voice now. Glancing up at the red-haired woman, the youngling swallowed back the apprehension he felt at the suggestion. Fighting clones seemed... wrong. The Jedi and the clones were supposed to have been in the war together. A tug on his arm brought his head close to the Nautolan boy as the one whispered to the other. "Do you still have your training saber?"

Bringing a hand up to his belt, Sor-Jan felt a wave of anxiety overwhelm him before his hand brushed against the training device. Nodding, the Anzati and the Nautolan exchanged a look before turning back toward the adults around them. Charging a group of clone troopers wasn't what either of them had in mind when they'd gone to saber practice today.

Ultimate Comics: DC - Shadows Among Us

Who are you again?