Bounce

ＦＩＮＡＬ ＦＡＮＴＡＳＹ Ｘ｜Ｖ： Ｔｈｅ Ｂｌｅｓｓｅｄ Ｔｗｅｌｖｅ

_{[ THEME: TO THE SUN ]}

The horned boy's vantage point from the central area of the bazaar gave him a good perspective on the place.

The lengthening shadows. The colors of the painted Thanalan desert. The sounds of the dark sea. The people mulling about, gathering around the auctioneer that was hawking the wares that had drawn the crowd there.

Rats?

Head turned down, the young Padjal scanned the cobblestones for any signs of scampering marmots. Not seeing any, he was quite at a loss to explain why their Mi'qote companion would have hoisted himself up the proverbial flagpole. Let alone be shouting about rats. He could easily put a fright into some people that way, and there was narry a marmot to be found as near as E-Siri could see!

“Kikipu, this is E-Siri, a Padjal of Gridania."

It appeared that introductions were in order. Straightening up, the horned child crossed his arms out before him and then bowed in the customary salute of Stillglade Fane. "Salutations," the boy offered in his childish tone of voice "We would be most grateful if you had any news to share of any strange lot that might have passed through thine bazaar."

The boy paused there a moment.

"Other than ourselves, that is," he amended after a think.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

_{[ Prev ] “PASSING THROUGH GETHSEMANE, Part III” [ Next ]}

K N O W H E R E

---

^{Outer Limits of the Milky Way Galaxy}

...if you like piña coladas
getting caught in the rain
if you’re not into yoga
if you have half a brain…

Air pods nestled in his ears, the lyrical stylings of Rupert Holmes supplied the music as the child rocketed through the cosmos at speeds that defied human understanding.

Knowhere wasn’t a planet. It wasn’t an asteroid or a moon. It was a head. A literal head. The decaying remains carved out as the blood and tissues of the primordial corpse were mined for the exotic minerals they contained.

It was a shadowport. It wasn’t on any maps. At least, not any maps that legitimate businesses used. The Resistance had made it a port of call on occasion, but only when absolutely necessary. The criminal element was rife in Knowhere. It was the last safe haven of Reavers and their ilk. The kind of people who moved flesh markets like people were just another commodity or vice to be sold. Suffice to say, they didn’t get a lot of kids here.

Even less so, kids who flew in under their own power

Straightening up, Billy oriented himself to the shadowport’s artificial gravity as he entered inside of the airlock and passed through the atmospheric shield. His tennis shoes touched down a moment later, as the boy casually stepped out amid a slew of dock workers who were staring, open-mouthed, at what they had just witnessed.

Kicking his head to the side, the boy shook the ice that had formed in his hair and eyebrows. A hand coming up to swipe a lock of hair from out of his face as he strolled onto the main thoroughfare.

As he rounded a corner, Billy saw a Bolovaxian that was four or five times his size pushing along a chain gang of aliens. Men. Women. Children. It was easy to see that they were slaves being moved.

The boy’s fist clenched. His cold, sapphire eyes locked onto the Bolovaxian. For his part, the porcine giant just laughed and said something extremely rude in the local trade pidgin.

Five seconds was all that Billy would need to free those people… but then he’d be fighting his way out of Knowhere. And he hadn’t come here to free slaves.

He’d come here to meet with some terrorists in the hope of possibly rescuing some Kymelians before they could wind up in a chain gang like that one. And he couldn’t do that if he was picking every fight and championing every cause between here and Chandilar.

It was a bitter pill to swallow. Seventy or fifty years ago, Billy would have said fuck it and punched that Bolovaxian from here to the Golden Galaxy and then taken on the whole world and every last motherfucker in it…

...but it was 2019. And he walked away.

It made him sick to his stomach. “Does anyone remember when we used to be heroes?” the boy uttered softly. Meeting in secret with terrorists. Arranging a smuggling operation. No more dealing directly with the enemy. Everything had become shadow and shadowplay.

That didn’t sound like a hero to Billy.

At some point, war didn’t require a hero. It required that someone be ready to do whatever needed to be done.

The meeting place was a Reaver dive. He’d been expecting a bar of some kind. A dive, obviously. Instead, no sooner had Billy pushed through the doors than he looked up and saw a scantily-clad Arisian dancer hooked around a pole.

He felt his face become hot, as he quickly looked away and shuffled on in. Of course, it would be one of those kinds of bars. Why not? After all, this was the galaxy’s version of a truck stop.

“Friiiiieeeeeend…”

Raising his eyes, the embarrassed youth found himself looking at a hulking, green reptillian alient. Alora had said that his name was Ch’od. Billy had asked Alora about how she’d met one of the infamous Starjammers and the answer had apparently swiping ripe on some dating app. At that point, Billy had stopped asking questions.

A wicked, taloned hand that was at least as large as Billy’s head gestured toward an empty seat. As the boy took the offered chair, the lizard alien loomed down over the child as he uttered, “You have come to bargain. Yessss?”

A single, clawed digit pushed a dirty mug of some kind of piss-colored froth across the table toward him.

Billy pushed the offered mug away, craning his head back as he said, “I’m looking for passage to Spartax.”

“Ssssspartaxxxxx,” the lizard man echoed, almost mockingly. A lingering note of mirth seemed to resonate like hollow laughter. “Ssssspartaxxxx easy is not,” the massive alien remarked, his clawed hand turning its palm up on the table top as he said, “Ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand?”

Ch’od’s face split into a Cheshire grin, withdrawing back into the shadows as he mockingly added, “In advanccccce.”

Billy’s jaw tensed. His eyes pulsed with an inhuman light as he looked up at the alien. This was starting to feel like a set up. “That’s not what you discussed with Alora,” the boy said, his words carefully measured to try and maintain some semblance of civility.

A large, clawed hand came across the table as Ch’od leaned forward. “Ah, but Alora not say the job was for Billy Batson of Earth,” the alien almost purred, the line punctuated by the same hollow mirth as before.

Then the hand slammed down on top of Billy’s. There was a look of confusion on the boy’s face, as Ch’od declared, “Bounty on you is worth seventeen thousand!”

Something didn’t feel right.

Yanking his hand out from under Ch’od’s, Billy found some kind of patch affixed to the back of his left hand. There was a burning or itching sensation starting to form underneath it. Billy clamped his right hand over the left, tugging to try and pull it off -- but that actually succeeded in making the sensation worse.

A gasp of pain escaped from out of Billy’s lips, as a feeling like that of lightning coursing through his veins racked his body. He fell out of the chair, collapsing onto the floor as his body curled into a fetal position.

Sparks were igniting between his teeth as he bit down and then gave a loud sigh of relief as the patch finally came free.

Kofi said this had been a bad idea.

...boy, was Billy glad that the horse kid wasn’t here right now. Billy really wasn’t in the mood for that smug Kymellian I told you so attitude. Especially because Kofi was usually right about these things.

Rolling up on his knees, Billy started to get up. That was when Ch’od’s hand came down to engulf his head, forcing him back down. Grabbing on to the alien’s arm with his right, Billy pulled it aside as he came up from the floor with a left hook that buried itself in the alien’s midsection.

Ch’od went sailing across the bar, knocking tables and chairs aside before he slammed up against the side of the dancer stage.

Four more aliens advanced on Billy. Or, where there six? Eight?

“Oh, shit,” the boy uttered, trying to get back to his feet and staggering like an old drunk. He was seeing double. Halos surrounded the lighting. His equilibrium was shot and it felt like the floor kept trying to rush at him.

He doubted people played billards at space truck stops, but the stick that someone had just broken over the top of his head was very pool cue-esque. Someone caught him in the gut, while another hit him behind the knee. A fist connected with the side of Billy’s head and the boy went down hard.

Which was when the beating just intensified.

Billy managed to grab a foot, chucking it and whatever might be attached to it up into the air. His other hand felt along the floor, discovering a splintered fragment of the pool cue and then Billy was coming up swinging.

Win some, lose some. He connected solidly with something. A person? Maybe. Hell, at this point, Billy was pretty sure he was on some kind of acid trip. The walls were melting, the floor was the ceiling, and this was the goddamn golden brick road of poor life choices. Was he fighting a person? Or just swinging at the wall? Honestly, at this point, Billy had no idea.

His head snapped aside. Some dull part of his brain rationalizing that he’d just been punched across the face. Repeatedly. He was back down a knee, with the floor or ceiling or whatever the hell this was rapidly approaching.

A burst of plasma erupted from the boy, as a scream of rage ripped from out of his throat with a ferocity that sent everyone flying in all directions as the front of the bar was blown out into the street.

Billy struggled to get back to his feet, managed to take one step, and then collapsed.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

_{[ Prev ] “FEAT OF CLAY, Part IX” [ Next ]}

B L Ü D H A V E N

---

^{Kane Sports Complex}

Cissy Chambers couldn’t remember the last time that she’d gotten off work this early.

For that matter, she couldn’t remember ever leaving the office before Commissioner Grayson. At least, until recently. Dick seemed serious about the foster parent thing, punching the clock and taking liberal leave so that he was working an actual reasonable schedule.

This had the unfortunate effect of causing her and the other lieutenants to actually do their jobs for a change, as Dick wasn’t always there to answer questions when they popped up.

She pulled up in a marked police cruiser, but was in plain clothes. The little league had taken the field, a practice game where the team was divided up against themselves. It was like a free-for-all of chaos involving a slew of boys, aged nine to eleven, acting like wild animals while dressed in baseball uniforms. Most of the entertainment was to be found in the adults who were trying to focus all that excessive energy into swinging the bat at the object that the adults wanted the bat swung at.

She found Dick on the Blüdhaven side, lounging in the stands watching lazily from the sidelines. “So which one’s Jason,” the woman asked, taking a seat beside the commissioner.

“Perfect timing,” the man offered quietly. One finger singled out a gangly child that had popped out of the dug out and was approaching the plate. Cissy could see the back of his jersey was marked with the number 28. “He’s up at bat now.”

The two were quiet as the boy stepped up to the plate. On the first pitch, it was a swing and a miss.

Calculated, of course. Dick had talked to Toyboy about how Jason needed to appear flawed. Build mistakes into the machine logic. Taking Dick’s words to heart, the doll had designed a random number generator as a sort of internal d20 system for determining success or failure, and then adjusted the physical output to correlate.

It was not perfect. Sometimes Jason meant to merely hit it toward first base and instead landed it in the outfield, but it had helped to build in missteps and errors that furthered the illusion of humanity.

The second pitch went wide.

The third was angling for the hit box and Jason’s internal calculations had arrived at a natural 20. There was a loud crack as the bat connected with the ball, sending it far and wide for the first home run of the game.

“I’ll admit, he’s not what I was expecting.”

The comment, or observation, from the Cissy Chambers peanut gallery caused an eyebrow to raise up along Dick’s already furrowed brow. Turning his head just slightly, the man echoed back the words as he uttered, “You were expecting..?”

Cissy flashed the man a look that very clearly said she wasn’t buying it. Dick knew exactly what she meant. “He stole the tires off a police vehicle in Trenton.”

She didn’t ask if he knew. She knew who she was dealing with, she’d worked for Dick Grayson since she’d joined the Blüdhaven Police straight out of the police academy. He knew. Probably more about the kid’s past arrests, juvenile convictions, and time spent in state custody than she did.

That boy-next-door smile that Dick wore vanished. Instead, the man seemed oddly stoic as he commented, “I know that juvenile record access is for official business only.”

Cissy pursed her lips, but decided against saying anything. The two sat in brooding silence as the gangly boy in the number 28 jersey completed his jog around the bases and was returning to the dug out.

“I grew up in the circus.”

At the statement, Cissy turned to look back over at the man. “Everyone sees the lights. The clowns. The bright veneer of the greatest show on Earth. The truth is, circus folk aren’t always the most honest people,” Dick remarked candidly. While candor had rarely been a problem, Cissy had to admit she wasn’t expecting him to just drop the other shoe. “My parents are dead because of the organized crime that followed Haley’s Circus.”

Out on the field, the coaches had called the game and were getting the boys to huddle up.

In the stands, the awkward silence that followed Dick’s proclamation finally ended when he said, “The point is, that boy’s not any different from me when Old Man Wayne pulled me up into that ivory tower of his outside of Gotham.”

It was a nice speech. But Cissy had done her homework on Dick as much as she had the young Master Todd. “You don’t have a juvenile record,” the woman stated flatly.

“That you know of,” Dick tossed back at the woman. Then the boy-next-door smile suddenly returned. A flash of movement was Cissy’s only warning, as a ten year old suddenly launched from out of the shadows to barrel at the commissioner.

It was the gangly kid in the number 28 jersey.

“I hit a home run!” Jason proclaimed proudly, seemingly ready to bounce into orbit with the plethora of excitement that exuded from him.

“I saw!” Dick cheered, before hooking and arm around the boy. Physically turning the child toward the woman, Dick introduced the two of them, saying, “Jason, this is Lieutenant Chambers. She’s a police officer with me.”

The boy’s face changed visibly at the revelation that she was police. Just like with Dick, it was all smiles one second and the next: “Are you here to arrest me?”

Dick’s hand clapped down on the boy’s shoulder. “No, she’s not here to arrest you,” he said. He was trying to force some mirth in his voice, but the already awkward tension in the air from the earlier conversation was only made more manifest by the fact that, not only was the boy serious, but they all knew why he was serious.

“Oh,” the boy uttered finally. Now, he just looked confused. “Is this about the thing in Middletown?”

“Middletown,” Dick echoed, doing a double take as the statement caught him off-guard. “Middletown? What thing in Middletown?”

“Nothing,” the boy chirped, even as his eyes darted off to the left. Then the floor. When he’d finally looked up again, he glanced at Cissy and said, “Uh, hi!”

Dick withdrew his hand just so that he could bury his face in it. With a long sigh, the man again placed a hand on the boy’s back as he looked over at Cissy. “We were going to grab some dinner after this, care to join us?”

Mention of food made the kid all smiles again. Bouncing excitedly, the kid turned on Dick with a flurry of motion and energy. “Oh! Can... can we, like... can we go to In and Out Burger? Bailey and Jaime both said they’re... they’re going to In and Out Burger after the game.”

As Dick looked from him to her, Cissy just gave a nod. “That works for me.”

Patting the boy on the back, Dick turned the boy back the way he had come. “Okay, go change and we’ll head out,” the man said, pushing the boy off in the direction of the locker rooms.

As Jason bounded through the stands and then disappeared, Cissy heard Dick give another heavy sigh. “I may be too old for this.”

+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +

Toyboy Jason was good at this.

With all the talking and running around, even Dick would have been fooled by how Jason played with the food without ever eating it. They’d gotten him a bottle of water rather than a soda, which had the benefit of being something that the doll could actually drink -- since it could be added to his normal water-fed cooling system.

By the time that everyone was done, Dick was confident that neither Cissy nor the other parents had any idea that Jason hadn’t had a single thing to eat the whole time that they were at the restaurant.

The Boy Wonder and the Toy Wonder were standing on the sidewalk, waving goodbye as Cissy Chambers got into her police car and drove off. Jason’s friends had already departed with their parents. After all, this was a school night for the real kids.

“How was that?” Jason asked, turning his head up to look at Dick.

Motioning the boy over toward the car, Dick offered, “I thought the game went well.” As he made his way around to the driver’s door, Jason dove into the back seat from the passenger side.

“So am I gonna get to play little league?” the doll asked. Dick heard a sound from the back and recognized it as that of a zipper being tugged open.

As Dick started to drive away, he adjusted the rear view mirror to peer into the back. “I figured it might help to fill your time with something other than video games,”the man noted.

Jason was changing in the backseat, donning the red and black costume. As he popped the domino mask into place, he started messing his head from how he usually styled it. “Cool.”

That was it. All the effort Dick put into finding a little league that had a spot open. All the money that had gone into the registration, the equipment... falsifying a few medical documents... Those would at least come in handy if they stayed the course and Jason wound up enrolling in school.

All that for a one word answer. Cool.

ＦＩＮＡＬ ＦＡＮＴＡＳＹ Ｘ｜Ｖ： Ｔｈｅ Ｂｌｅｓｓｅｄ Ｔｗｅｌｖｅ

_{[ who we want to be ]}

The young Padjal was too taken with the sense of awe and amazement to have paid much attention to the plight of Lyveva.

Like a child, the dark haired boy's eyes were large as he disembarked the carriage. Mouth agape, the horned youth took in the sight of the bazaar. The peculiar, distinct architecture of the structures -- so unlike that found in the Shroud. The picturesque view of the port with its ocean horizon. A boundless sea that stretched out from the parched desert, painted red with the setting of the sun.

It was magnificent. Eyes sparkling with all the wonder of youth, a bubbly squeak of excitement escaped his lips.

“Okay, okay. I know she said all those people but how about you stick with me and we can try something else?”

"Huh?" the boy asked, turning his head and instinctively looking up as he did so. It was the second time he'd done that now. Realizing that he was staring over the top of Kajin's head, the Padjal looked down. He'd been so taken with the view that he'd obviously missed something.

Who was she? And what people? Stealing a glance up to the left and the right, the boy realized that he'd completely spaced for a spell and had no idea just what they were supposed to be doing. "Oh," the boy uttered, an entirely guilty expression plain on his face even as he tried to recover when he just summarily agreed with what the Lalafell had said. "Right!"

Falling into step behind the Lalafell, the boy watched as the thaumaturge exchanged pleasantries with another of his kind. Kiki... pu?

Was that one word or two?

The boy gave a shake of his head. The Lalafell naming convention was an oddity indeed. Though, there was something simply endearing about it all the same.

Bowing toward the Lilliputian woman, the boy offered his silent respects in greetings. Obviously, Kajin and Kikipu were acquainted. As such, he'd allow Kajin to supply the introductions -- should he deem such necessary.

Planting the butt of his shepherd's creek down against the sandstone, the Padjal rested the staff against his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around the crook and simply observed.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

_{[ Prev ] “PASSING THROUGH GETHSEMANE, Part II” [ Next ]}

G O R A N G K A A

---

^{Kymellian Agricultural Colony | The Milky Way Galaxy}

The young boy descended from above the clouds.

Following close behind, the smartship Friday broke through the atmosphere. The surviving remnants of the Coalition defense was gathering on the planet’s surface. Gorangka was an agricolony -- a peaceful world with no defenses. It was basically the farmland of the Kymellian Technomancy. Pastoral fields and temperate climates, with a high concentration of nitrates in the surface that supported a variety of rich grains, legumes, and other cultivars.

It was also the largest exporter of food to the other member states of the Coalition, making it a rather strategic target in the ongoing war effort against the expansion of the so-called Big Three -- the Kree, Skrulls, and Shi’ar Empires.

Up until this moment, the struggle against the Shi’ar Imperium had been a cold war. For whatever reason, it seemed as though the Majestor of Throneworld was content to let the sparks ignite into open war.

Not an unintelligent offering, given that it put the Coalition on the back foot in a conflict that now opened on two fronts. Potentially three, if the Kree decided to similarly take advantage of the situation.

Against the Skrulls, the Kymellians and the Majesdanians were evenly matched. Galladorian technology lagged behind somewhat, though it had been improved significantly since the Coalition had been formed out of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. Still, against the technological superpowers of the Kree and the Shi’ar, the Coalition was the underdog.

Particularly if the Shi’ar brought the Imperial Guard to bear. From everything that Coalition intelligence had gathered about the members of the Guard, Billy might find himself in a battle that would make his struggle against Terrax seem like just a warm up.

Under different circumstances, then, the young Batson would opt to try and find any solution that didn’t involve prolonging the war. Anymore than it had already been, any way. As it was, the Coalition had come together through forty years of conflict. More than anything, the galaxy cried out for a respite from all this war. Billy wasn’t sure just how long he was going to live, but it’d be nice to have peace in his lifetime.

Sooner rather than later.

But the fact that the Shi’ar would attack an agricolony -- a planet with no defenses of its own -- populated with farmers, not soldiers, was enough to convince Billy that the Shi’ar weren’t the kind of enemy that you reasoned with. Not with words. The Shi’ar war machine didn’t seem to appreciate diplomacy. They overpowered planets and simply took what they wanted. The only reason that they seemed to respect was a force strong enough to repel them.

And looking at the damage to the farms and the Coalition fleet, Billy wondered how much longer the Coalition would be able to repel them.

Kofi and G’Kar were outside of Friday, surveying the damage to the smartship, as Billy finally touched down against the scorched earth and started walking toward them. “How bad is it?” the boy asked.

“The ship, the planet, or the fleet?” G’Kar tossed back the boy’s way.

“Bad, worse, and worse-er,” Kofi quipped.

The dark haired youth had glanced over at the large Okaaran, then cut a sharp glare over at the Kymellian bot. “I thought you said worse-er wasn’t a real word?” Billy remarked flatly.

“It’s not,” Kofi affirmed, as Billy fired yet-another-look his way. “...but its probably the best word to describe how bad this looks for us.”

The frown settled on Billy’s face. Craning his head back, his eyes took in the damage to Friday for himself. Black scorch marks cut scars across the white hull, carving out sections of the ship. Those same scars were apparent on the planet as well. “What was the point of this?” the boy asked, as he turned and slowly took in the burning homesteads that cast the horizon into a cloud of smolder and smoke.

It was meant to be rhetorical.

“Deny the enemy access to resources,” G’Kar intoned in his gravelly voice. “Take them. Make them your own,” the Warlord of Okaara offered sagely, before adding, “The Shi’ar are not benevolent, Billy Batson of Earth. But they are conquerors. And they are quite adept at what they do.”

“We got here as soon as we could, but I think the Shi’ar already made off with some of the population.”

Billy turned his head to look back at the Kymellian boy for a moment. The look on the human’s face was one of resolve. “Right,” he intoned solemnly, before turning around to face the Okaaran. “G’Kar, where would the Shi’ar have taken the people they stole from here?”

Even before he’d asked the question, Kofi had a sinking feeling you already knew the answer. “Billy, you can’t be planning to attack the Shi...”

“Someone gives you a black eye, sometimes you gotta hit ‘em back,” Billy tossed back, interrupting the Kymellian. His eyes never wavered, holding the Okaaran’s gaze, waiting for an answer.

“Lord Aelfyre’s command is to avoid furthering the conflict with the Shi’ar,” Kofi stated patiently, pleading, “We can’t fight a war on two fronts and hope to succeed.”

“Sometimes you don’t get a choice,” Billy stated, as he continued to stare down the large Warlord. “One thing I learned, the enemy gets a say.”

“But we can choose how we respond to the enemy,” Kofi fired back.

A low rumble seemed to resonate from out of the massive Okaaran frame. Finally, G’Kar gave a nod toward the human. “Slaves are a commodity. The Shi’ar would take them to a world where they could be put on display as trophies to be dolled out to the highest bidder,” the Warlord reasoned aloud.

The large veteran of many wars seemed to pause there as he mulled the question over in his mind. Finally, after another minute of silence, he offered a name. “Spartax.”

Billy simply gave a nod. “Thank you,” he offered quietly. Taking a step back, the boy brought his left forearm up. Glancing down at the gauntlet on his wrist, the boy commanded, “Location: Spartax.”

A holographic star map exploded into view above Billy’s arm, highlighting a star system. Standing there, Billy started trying to make sense out of the galactic coordinates so that he could plot an astrogation course.

Kofi’s voice interjected. “Dude, they’ll see you coming from lightyears away!”

“Then I hope they have something bigger in their torpedo tubes that what they brought to this fight here,” Billy quipped vapidly, as the map and astrogation plot began to solidify.

A three-fingered hand landed on his shoulder. As he looked back, a pair of Kymellian pink eyes stared back at him. “I know you have a hard time remembering this, but you’re not the most powerful being in the galaxy.”

“If they have forewarning, they will be prepared,” G’Kar offered solemnly. “They’ve seen what you can do. You can be assured that our next confrontation with the Shi’ar, they will have counter-measures ready for you. It is imperative that the Shi’ar not be allowed to choose the time or place for that confrontation.”

“I know a guy.”

All three heads turned at the sound of the voice. The Majesdanian teen was seated on the loading ramp, her rainbow hair disheveled and her face soot-marked from working on the interior parts of the ship. “He used to be one of the Ravagers,” Adora explained, before saying, “Now he’s with this group who call themselves Starjammers...”

“Starjammers!?”

Kofi was incredulous. Billy was just speechless. “Those guys are terrorists. You can’t be serious.”

The rainbow-haired teen just gave a shrug. “If anyone knows how to smuggle in or out of Shi’ar space, it’s them.”

Billy shared a look with Kofi, then glanced at G’Kar. For his part, the Okaaran gave a nod of his head in the direction of the Majesdanian to indicate his support for the idea.

Taking a deep breath, Billy finally asked, “All right, where do I find this guy?”

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

The real Blue Beetle will be finished within the next three or so hours.

@Sep

Dan Garret?

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

_{[ Prev ] “FEAT OF CLAY, Part VIII” [ Next ]}

B L Ü D H A V E N

---

^{Blüdhaven Police Headquarters}

Cissy Chambers was looking rough when Dick came inside the precinct.

It was around five in the morning. Once upon a time, Dick had gotten up at four o’clock to go to the gym. Then, over time, stopped going to the gym and just made his way into the office. Toyboy Jason hadn’t returned yet, so Dick hadn’t been able to get a debrief on just what he’d missed while he’d been asleep.

Looking at Cissy’s face now, though, he had a feeling that he was about to hear all about the Toy Wonder’s adventures of the last twelve hours. “Don’t tell me we’ve got another kidnapping on our hands,” Dick deadpanned dryly, tucking his hands into the pockets of his trenchcoat as he stood there, looking over at the visibly distressed lieutenant.

“What?” Cissy uttered, breaking out of her brooding to cast a look over his way. When she realized what he was asking, she just shook her head. “No.”

“Murder?”

“A mugging,” the woman stated finally.

“Sounds like the crime of the century,” Dick joked grimly, taking a step closer so that he could see the files spread out across the woman’s desk.

“It didn’t happen.”

Glancing up, now it was Dick’s turn to ask, “What?”

“The mugging. It didn’t happen,” Chambers remarked in answer, however cryptic. “Someone intervened.”

“That sounds like the sort of thing we need more of,” Dick ventured, settling back against a wall as he waited for the other shoe to drop.

“Four grown men versus one seventy-something coming out of church late at night,” Chambers began, before she started sliding the mug shots across the desk.

The first thing that Dick noticed was that most weren’t the usual line up. Instead, the photographs were taken inside a hospital.

“One has an arm that’s broken in three places. Nevermind the dislocated shoulder,” Chambers said. “Another has a skull fracture and a concussion, but the third is the real piece of work. Cracked sternum. Three broken ribs. Then had his face impaled by some sort of climbing hook...”

Chambers had his attention now. Dick felt his stomach twist into a knot as his head popped up. Toyboy had used his grapple line to stab somebody in the face?

“...he’s in surgery now. Docs said the eye can’t be saved.”

Correction, Toyboy stabbed somebody in the face with his grapple line and put their eye out? Swallowing, Dick cleared his throat as he asked, “And our seventy-something victim?”

“Swears an angel from heaven swooped down and saved her ass,” Chambers answered flatly, obviously less than satisfied with that answer.

“But you don’t believe in angels,” Dick ventured aloud.

“It’s the description. She said that he was wearing a cape that was black on one side and gold on the other,” Cissy stated, crossing her arms as she shook her head and added, “Remember when we pulled those kids out of that storage unit? They all said that there had been another kid with them, but none of their stories made any sense. But they all described the same thing. A cape that was black on one side, gold on the other.”

“You’re suggesting that there’s a connection between Anton Schott and a mugging?” Dick asked, feigned skepticism coloring his tone.

“I’m suggesting that we may have another vigilante problem,” Cissy offered, turning her head back toward Dick. “GCPD are already hearing about someone dressed up as Batman. Maybe this is another copy-cat.”

“What? Like another what’s his name? Darkwing?”

“Nightwing,” Cissy said, correcting him. “And I’m worried that its a possibility. The Street Demonz were causing problems near the mall earlier, but someone busted them up before we got there.”

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“And then she was just gone!”

The same account of the previous evening had a slightly different re-telling from the doll’s perspective. Having Jason gave Dick a reason to leave work earlier than his usual round-the-clock routine. Otherwise, it was possible that the two would never see each other.

Dick had found the doll lying on the floor, playing Fortnite on his Nintendo Switch. Had he been doing that all day?

Dick was definitely going to need to do something to occupy Jason’s non-heroing hours. Maybe sign him up for sports? “Probably scared out of her wits,” Dick commented, as Jason finished telling his account of the rumble with the Street Demonz gang. “And that’s before some goofy kid in a mask and cape came swooping in.”

“Hey!” Jason protested, demanding,“Who’s goofy?”

Kneeling down so that he was eye-level with the doll, Dick paused as he tried to get his thoughts together. He wasn’t sure just how much good that it would do to be frustrated with a machine. “Jason, let me ask you about the muggers,” he began.

“Okay,” the boy answered with a shrug.

“Three of them were hospitalized with some pretty serious injuries,” Dick began.

“Three?” the boy echoed, as though surprised. Then added, “I anticipated two requiring medical assistance.”

“Anticipated.” Now it was Dick’s turn to play word games. “So you meant for it to happen?”

“There were four opponents in close proximity, three of whom were armed with knives and a fourth armed with a pistol,” Jason began. “I selected the course of action that produced the lowest risk for both them and the woman that they were threatening.”

“One of them lost an eye,” Dick said, trying to keep the emphasis on the damage that he’d caused. “Another inch and the grapple hook might have killed him.”

The doll just blinked. It was clearly taking a moment in which to process what Dick had said. Which, Dick could appreciate that at least he could count on the fact that Jason genuinely did listen. Even if he was as pig-headed as a real boy.

“He had a knife pressed to the woman’s throat, which he used as a hostage to try and bargain with me. I calculated a seventy percent chance that he would not intentionally cut her throat, but a twenty-seven percent chance that it might happen accidentally,” the doll explaining, laying out the rather cold and calculating way in which it negotiated interaction. “Extrapolating from that calculus, there was a ninety-three percent chance of death should the carotid artery be damaged. In contrast, my solution posed only a sixteen percent chance of mortality for him, while eliminating the danger in the most expedient way possible.”

Dick gave a heavy sigh. In other words, Toyboy had chosen the lesser of two evils. Not an answer that Dick wanted to hear, but he’d been there a few times himself. And he definitely couldn’t negate the fact that the seventy-year old had walked away without a scratch.

“I do not see how it is possible to function if our duty of care is to the criminals,” the doll noted. Not pointedly, but it still seemed remarkably blunt all the same.

“It’s not,” Dick answered. Even still, there had been a few unwritten rules with Bruce that Dick felt like were lost in translation here. Except, being that they were unwritten rules, Dick wasn’t even sure of how to go about explaining them. “Our duty is to the people that we protect. I just wanted to make certain that I understood what your thought process was.”

Shooting someone in the face with the grapple gun. Why had he never thought of that?

And what would Bruce have done if he had?

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

Marvelous Tuesday to you.

Blessings and high favor.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

_{[ Prev ] “PASSING THROUGH GETHSEMANE, Part I” [ Next ]}

P L A N E T G O R A N G K A A

---

^{Kymellian Agricultural Colony | The Milky Way Galaxy}

If Billy were here, he would likely comment that they’d had worse days.

A power transfer conduit exploded overhead, prompting the young Kymellian to duck his head as blinding sparks and hot shrapnel rained down. At the same time, space had become a roller coaster. This close to a gravity well, the force exerted on the smartship as it weaved through evasive maneuvers created g-forces that shoved the horse-faced youth from side to side -- and several times nearly catapulted him from the chair.

“Our shields are down.”

Off to Kofi’s right, the large Okaraan warlord was crammed into the tactical station. Of late, he had not been the bearer of good news. Glancing over at the large alien, the boy gave a nod before he looked back out through the forward window. He was looking over the top of Alora’s head, the Majesdanian teen occupying the forward astrogation terminal.

Raising a three-fingered hand, a flickering hologram of the surrounding space suddenly appeared at Kofi’s large, blunt fingertips. Rotating his wrist, the horse-like being examined what seemed to be a rather deteriorating situation. “The Galadorians are in retreat and the Light Brigade appears to have been destroyed,” the boy noted flatly.

Whatever good that they had tried to do here had failed spectacularly.

And at the cost of lives. Many, irreplaceable lives.

It was a situation that was not going to be improved by struggling against the inevitability of their defeat. “Alora, can you get us out of here?” the boy asked, wistfully.

The rainbow-haired waif was soot marked, with half her terminal scorched from the damage that they’d been taking. Ordinarily, manual flight of the smartship was not necessary -- except Friday’s artificial intelligence had been knocked off-line when the computer core had taken damage. “Jump drive’s off-line,” the Majesdanian quipped tersely. “We’re barely maintaining sub-light.”

The flight of the smartship Friday came to a sudden halt. Lurching forward, Kofi clung to the side of the captain’s chair as it seemed as though their ship had been snapped backward.

“Tractor beam.”

As Kofi turned his head, he watched as the Okaraan rose from his station. Reaching over to the wall, the warlord pulled a Galadorian short sword from the wall. Then, taking two steps forward, planting himself like a living wall in front of the aft airlock. “Prepare for boarding,” the man uttered gravely.

Overhead, the speakers crackled as a transmission cut in. “People of Gorangkaa, you are all now slaves of the immaculate Shi’ar Imperium. Rejoice in your elevation.”

Arcane circles formed at the fingers of the young Kymellian sorcerer as he rose from out of the command chair. Down forward, Alora was priming the charging bolt on a Kree pistol, when something flashed over the top of her console. “There’s a jump point forming behind us,” the teen announced.

Kofi and G’Kar shared a brief look, before the Kymellian stated, “I thought Lord Aelfyre's final word was that no reinforcements would be forthcoming.”

Setting her pistol aside, the Majesdanian teen was trying to get the damaged console to work with her. “I’m getting a transmission. It’s...” the girl began, before trailing off. “It’s...” she uttered, now clearly confused. After another minute, she turned her head and stated, “It’s David Bowie?”

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Whoever had invented air pods was seriously the best genius of all time.

Forty years, he’d been flying in space. One thing that he’d been missing was a way to listen to music or the radio, or anything. Now, the lyrical stylings of Let’s Dance filled the airways, as Billy had figured a way to pair music from his iPod to the Kymellian communicator that was clipped to his ear.

The small human exited the jump point in a fiery explosion. A stream of photons sailed forward, cutting a swath through the large, insectile alien ship that was descending upon Friday. The Shi’ar assault ship was already reeling in a series of explosions, even before Billy punched straight through it on a path toward the middle of the battlefield.

He cut through the Shi’ar line like a stick into water. Plumes of light accompanying the explosions that ripped through the Shi’ar ships as they were literally torn apart by the sixty-pound human bullet that zig-zagged through the widowing field amid pulsating bursts of radiation and energy.

Rising up above the line of broken and retreating warships, Billy shone like a miniature star. Plasma rolled from off his body, his eyes aflame as he peered out and declared, “Shi’ar fleet, this is Captain Batson. I hope the first round didn’t wear you out, because round two just started.”

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

_{[ Prev ] “FEAT OF CLAY, Part VII” [ Next ]}

B L Ü D H A V E N

---

^{St. Anthony’s Cathedral}

The evening mass had gone long in commemoration of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence.

Now, the streets were dark as the faithful emptied from out of the cathedral. Several ladies of the church gossiped as they helped one another down the steps. Mary Agatha, a widow twice over, was the oldest of the trio. Helen’s husband was still with them, but in an assisted living home that specialized in care for Alzheimer’s patients. Jean was the youngest, yet had been widowed the longest.

Mary Agatha didn’t drive much anymore. Two hip replacements had limited her mobility. Jean had given her a ride, and been able to park in front of the cathedral with the handicap tag that Mary Agatha carried. So, for them, the trip to the car was short. They got Mary Agatha seated quickly, standing there talking for a few minutes more. All the while, the people thinned out. The crowd dispersed. It was just Helen standing on the sidewalk, as Jean got into the car and the women said their goodbyes.

Parking in downtown Blüdhaven was always a problem. Helen hadn’t been able to find a spot in the small parking lot beside the cathedral, so she’d had to get a spot in the back. Making her way down the dimly lit alleyway, the woman was -- at first -- oblivious to the scattering of people that milled about. That was before two men stepped out to block her path forward.

Frightened, the woman went to turn back, but found another two men behind her.

“Lost, granny?” one of the men in front of her demanded, as the four men each stepped forward, pressing against the speechless woman. “Let’s see what’s in that purse, yeah?”

The alley was plunged in darkness. The sound of breaking glass echoing as one of the lights facing into the alley was suddenly extinguished. All five of them jumped, Helen as well as the four men. The knives came out. Along with a small .22.

The sound of footsteps overhead caused several of the men to look up to their left. Then a shadow, moving, sent their heads spinning as if on a swivel. Except, when they looked, there was no shadow there.

One of the men swore. “Shit, it’s Batman!”

That was when a giggling echo, like childish laughter, could be heard -- echoing down the alley.

A loud bang accompanied the arrival of a small form, descending from the rooftop to land atop the roof of a car abandoned in the alley. Turning his head up, the masked youth had a Cheshire grin plastered across his face as he asked, “Who’s Batman?”

The four men just stood there for a moment. Finally one blurted out, “The fuck..?”

Cartwheeling from off the car, the childish vigilante flipped through the air. Planting two feet straight into the chest of one of the thugs, the boy sent the man flying with surprising force into the side of the cathedral, sliding down to the ground in a stupor.

As the costumed boy made the landing, a leg sweep took a second thug to the ground. The man with the .22 brought the pistol around to aim at the kid, but coming out of the sweep the boy seemed to flip his body around like a break dancer. Both legs came up to seize hold of the man’s arm in a scissor lock, leveraging his body weight to then launch the man off his feet. The sound of bone snapping and the scream that followed gave evidence to the fact that the man’s shoulder may not have survived the encounter.

For himself, the doll used his hands to propel himself up, twisting in the air and then performing a handstand before popping back upright. It was two against one now, knives flashing in the darkness as the pair converged on the boy. Cherubic laughter echoed it a haunting melody of childish giggling.

The furl of his cape blinded the one to his left, while a wrist strike became a joint lock that he leveraged in order to spin the one to his right around, so that the two slammed into each other. A palm-heel strike to center mass supplied surprising momentum, as the thug was taken off his feet. A windmill kick ended with the sound of snapping bone, after which the other thug slammed down into a puddle on the alley floor.

A short scream caused the boy to turn around. The first thug -- the one that he’d kicked in the chest -- was back on his feet. He had the old woman with a knife to her throat. “Look, man. All I want is the purse, man. Then I’m leaving here, man. You got that?” the man sputtered, tightening his grip on the woman as he shouted, “You got that!?”

Through his robotic vision, the doll was calculating a series of angles and statistics, extrapolating physical probabilities even as he began to put a still-formulating plan into motion. Holding up his arms, as if in surrender, the boy made a slow and deliberate reach to his utility belt. Withdrawing the grapple gun, he held it out at the side, slowly bending down as if to show that he was setting it down.

Then he reversed the grip and hit the trigger.

The grapple hook fired at the side of the building, the force and angle of impact causing it to ricochet off the brick. The hook caught the man in the side of the face, embedding itself there. A high-pitched squeal shattered the night, as the knife fell away, clattering to the floor. The man dropped a second later, clutching at his face as he writhed and screamed in pain.

Stooping low, the costumed doll snatched up the purse that had been dropped. Then, walking up to the shivering woman, offered it as he said, “I’ve contacted the police. They’re on their way.” Gently, the boy placed a hand on the woman’s arm and turned her back toward the way that she’d come. “Let me walk you back to the street. The police will be here soon.”

As the pair emerged into the light, the woman at last got a good luck at the strange figure. It was a boy. Little more than a child. His dark hair was tousled and wild, framing a face that was masked. A short black cape shrouded his slight form, though glimpses of gold and crimson were visible. As they arrived at the corner, the sound of police sirens could be heard. Flashes of blue and red began to appear down the street.

“Don’t be afraid,” the woman heard the childish voice say.

When she turned to look again, the boy was gone. As the first police car pulled up, with Helen caught in the headlights, the church lady clutched at her purse and then stared down the alleyway, wondering if some madness had caused her to imagine all of that just now.

...it couldn’t have really happened. Could it?

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Childish laughter echoed off into the moonlight.

It had been a fairly benign evening. Busting up the mugging outside the church had been about the most excitement he’d had all night. That didn’t mean that it had been a quiet night. He’d been keeping up with the police scanner. All manner of routine calls had been coming in. Mostly calls for medical assists, stolen cars, or robberies of the convenience and/or liquor store variety.

Now that the hour was rolling past midnight, it was likely to get to be quieter on the police scanner and more interesting from Robin’s perspective. The people moving about at this hour could be divided up into two rather neat categories: People going to work on odd-hour shifts or people who didn’t want their comings or goings to be seen.

...or, in the alternative, wanted everyone to know their comings and goings.

The Street Demonz were one such example. Rolling through on motorcycles with bored out exhaust or glass packs to make them sound like overly aggressive Harley-Davidsons. They roared through the streets at around one in the morning, filling the streets with noise before piling into the parking lot of a closed strip mall.

As the headlights panned around the shops, they caught the form a girl. Illuminated there for a moment, the dark-haired waif broke into a run.

And the motorcycles in pursuit.

As the motorcycles swooped in, the girl found herself surrounded. Like a flock of vultures, the bikers prowled in a circle around her. “Well, what do we have here?” one asked, while others cat-called or whistled.

Clutching at the hem of the cardigan that she wore, the girl looked about, as though seeking an escape. Finally, one of the bikers broke from the circle, zipping up beside her to ask, “Past your bedtime, isn’t it cutie?”

Breaking in the direction that he’d traveled, the girl made a run for it. Two bikes cut her off, causing her to skid to a halt as the first biker came up behind her. “What the matter? Don’t you want to play?”

“Maybe she doesn’t like slime.”

As the bikers and the girl looked up, a shadow seemed to detach itself from the darkness, until a red-and-black clad figure became visible along the rooftops of the strip mall. At the realization that the figure was that of a boy, the bikers relaxed. “Halloween’s over, kid,” one of them boasted, before dismissively adding, “Now beat it. Before you get hurt.”

Vaulting through the air, the boy suddenly planted himself just an inch away from the man of the bike. Despite the size difference between the two, the man on the bike actually baked away a step, as the costumed figure said, “The girl leaves with me or you’re the ones getting hurt.”

“What was that?” one of the bikers asked, before another noted, “Oh, tough guy.”

That was when the bikers started moving. Circling and shooting toward the costumed boy and the frightened girl. Until one got too close and a windmill kick had neatly knocked one of the Street Demonz from off their pedestals. The bike were sailing into the one of the buildings, while the rider went down hard onto the pavement.

It was cause for a lot of consternation among the true believers.

“You see that?”
“No way.”
“You’re going down, kid.”

As the whirling dervish turned upon the pair, the costumed figure came to life. A grapple line took out two of the mounted thugs, while a trash can lid was repurposed into a projectile that served to turn another of the bikers into a projectile.

When the dust had cleared, the bikers and their motorcycles were laid bare, while the costumed Toy Wonder emerged victorious. Turning toward where the girl had huddled for security, the young Toyboy Jason asked, “You all right?”

Except there was no one there. Instead, glancing off to the left, the boy saw where the girl was running for her life down an alleyway. “You’re welcome,” the boy offered with a shrug.

The girl in the mini skirt and the cardigan sweater made it halfway down the alley before a police car with lights cruised by. Instantly, she froze. Backing away, she collided with something. Or someone. Turning, she looked back to realize that the Toy Wonder was standing there, behind her. “Is that what you’re running from?” the boy asked. As she shied away, he reached out, saying, “I just want to help.”

The girl adamantly shook her head. “You can’t,” she uttered flatly, adding, “I have to keep moving.”

She was a runner. “Is there somewhere I can take you?” the boy asked, almost pleading. Softly, he asked, “Do you have a family?”

The girl hesitated, “I...”

Whatever answer that he might have gotten was lost the moment that a voice broke across the strip mall parking lot and said, “Police!”

A plethora of police cars came barreling in, sirens blaring. Vaulting back up to the rooftops, the Toy Wonder vanished into the shadows.

He’d lost sight of the girl. Vanished into the night, as he had.