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[ Prev ] PASSING THROUGH GETHSEMANE, Part IV” [ Next ]
G O R A N G K A A

Kymellian Agricultural Colony | The Milky Way Galaxy

A pair of gangly legs jutted from out of the ceiling.

The young Kymellian was contorted inside of a maintenance shaft, grease-marked and stained, as his large, three-fingered hands manipulated the variety of crystalline components that were arrayed about. The repairs to the smartship continued at a snail’s pace, though the addition of one more to the task had at least allowed the work to progress better than had Alora continued on her own.

Besides, Kofi’s leadership had nearly cost them the planet. As it happened, it had cost the Majesdanian Light Brigade dearly for the ships that had been lost in the haphazard defense of the Kymellian colony. So, he sent G’Kar to deal with the Council. He need not be there in person for Lord Aelfyre’s commands to be brought back to him or carried out.

Add to which, the manual labor helped to take the boy’s mind off of how dire the situation had become.

“Lord Whitemane.”

The Okaaran’s voice filtered up from the deck plates. Billy Batson might have just jumped down from the overhead. The Kymellian, by contrast, just shimmered out of existence -- only to appear standing beside the massive Warlord a moment later.

“What progress?” G’Kar asked. As direct as ever.

“Alora believes that the jump drive will be operational again momentarily. Communications appear to be functional. The diagnostics check out, but I can’t seem to get a signal to Billy,” the boy noted aloud, summarizing the progress of the last several hours. As for the artificial intelligence itself, those repairs were beyond Kofi’s art. They would need to put in at a Kymellian star port so that a qualified technomancer could evaluate the damage.

“What news?” the grease-stained colt asked, turning the conversation back to the meeting that G’Kar had attended. The Okaaran was back sooner than anticipated.

The Warlord did not look pleased. “Reports of a Shi’ar fleet massing near Chall,” the massive warrior-scholar noted grimly.

“So soon?” the boy uttered, his ears perked upward but his head downturned as he seemed to mull the revelation over. Chall was close enough that a Shi’ar stargate could put a fleet overhead in a matter of hours, not days. If the Shi’ar were massing, it was certain that an attack was imminent. “They can’t mean to attack again,” the boy remarked, looking up at G’kar as if for confirmation.

The Okaaran’s face was that of a man resigned to the harsh realities of war.

“Unless...” Kofi began, trailing off as he, instead, tapped his communicator. “Alora, any luck contacting the Starjammers?”

“I managed to make contact with a friend of a friend,” the Majesdanian’s teen supplied in answer, filtering back over the connection. “No word.”

The boy was quiet for a moment. Then, finally, he turned his head up toward G’Kar. “They know,” the young Kymellian stated finally. “They know Billy’s not here.”

The Warlord merely nodded in agreement. “Then they will be coming,” G’Kar warned solemnly.

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“...our combat forces will draw the enemy toward the edge of the system, providing cover for the transports to make their escape.”

The assembled militia were gathered around the Warlord of Okaara, as G’kar supplied the briefing that explained the plan to evacuate the colony.

There were people who doubted. People who thought that Kofi was yielding to nothing more than fear and suspicion.

Those doubts seemed moot as the first alarms sounded through the hangar. “Warning: Incoming stargate. Repeat, incoming stargate.”

“Give the evacuation order,” Kofi uttered, in an unusually firm tone for him. The authority afforded the Kymellian Technomancy’s aristocracy had never settled well on his young shoulders. Glancing around at the assembled pilots and officers, the boy added, “Then get to your transports.”

Of course, they would be joining that fight.

A particular sense of foreboding and dread sank into the boy’s stomach. With a wave of his hand, a shimmering light seemed to surround both himself and G’Kar...

...after which both appeared on the bridge of the Smartship Friday.

Alora was already at the navigation controls, bringing life back to the repaired ship. As both Kofi and G’Kar took their seats, the ship was starting to take off.

“Shields at maximum,” the Okaaran declared from the boy’s right. “Weapons at your command.”

“At your discretion, Warlord,” Kofi answered, before leaning forward. Through the viewport, he could see the line of Shi’ar cruisers approaching.

Well, this was familiar at least.

“Alora, let’s give the Shi’ar something to shoot at.”

[ theme: in the end ]

As he straightened back up, the young Padjal was aware of the fact that the Lalafell, who had been sheltering behind him, had now stepped forward.

"The names River, and don't you go forgetting it."

Outspoken fellow, for having seemed so quiet or shy before. Clutching his staff, the boy's eyes just blinked as he stared down as River thrust himself into the conversation with...

...well, it was all rather direct. For a moment, E-Siri was not certain whether River was a Lalafell or just a very small Roegadyn for how very blunt the delivery was. Which, might have gotten the point across very quickly, but didn't seem very polite.

It was with that very thought in mind that E-Siri put one finger aloft. He had hoped to garner the attention of the three Lalafell. After all, in Gridania, all a Padjal had to do was blink and suddenly everyone was paying them mind. Here, not so much no. So, clearing his throat, the horned child meekly began, "I have some concerns..."

That was as far as he got before Kajin leapt into action. The boy winced as the smack was delivered. Thankfully, Kajin re-engaged Kikipu in conversation to try and smooth over the matter.

Though being that they were two Lalafell and a Padjal, E-Siri was curious just how Kajin intended to go about strong-arming a man into doing anything.

[ Prev ] FEAT OF CLAY, Part X” [ Next ]
B L Ü D H A V E N

1012 Parthorne Avenue

“You really think that this’ll be the next place he hits?”

The doll hadn’t actually spoken aloud, though back at Dick Grayson’s brownstone, the man heard the boy’s voice all the same.

“Now that we know it’s Hagan, the robberies fit a pattern. He’s been working his way down one of the sewer mains.” Dick was kicked back in the man cave that was carved out inside of his condo, eating a Lean Cuisine that he’d microwaved for dinner as he checked in with the Toy Wonder through the remote connection that Charles had set up. Voice recognition protocol produced a transcript inside that was routed through the robot’s processor in the same manner in which he processed normal audio input. It kept the entire exchange between them completely silent, eliminating the risk of Toyboy Jason being overheard while on an assignment.

Lounging back in his chair, the plastic tray balanced on one thigh, Dick was amazed by what he was able to see. The secure feed from the upgraded software and remote networking capability that S.T.A.R. Labs had been able to install on Jason allowed Dick to tap into the boy’s visual field the same as if it were a video feed.

The glimpse on how the doll perceived the world around him was illuminating. Schott had designed the doll to alternate visual scanning along a rotating band of spectrum frequencies, producing an image that seemed to sweep from left to right, right to left, top to bottom, bottom to top. As it did, it shifted from the visual spectrum to infrared and back again.

Jason was atop the Blüdhaven Municipal Bus Terminal Building, which overlooked a jewelry store from the west side entrance. From this vantage point, facial recognition protocols that Dr. Charles had adapted tagged what it could identify as unique individuals. Amazingly, social media matching produced more than just a couple of matches in what was close to real time.

If George Orwell had ever met Jason, the man would likely have felt that 1984 had indeed come to pass.

“Hey, it’s that girl!”

Looking up from where he had a fork full of food, Dick was greeted by an enlarged image that framed a young brunette in the picture. The girl looked scared, constantly casting nervous glances over her shoulder. It was another moment before recognition hit. Dick had seen that same look, that same girl, before.

“Stay focused. We’re trying to catch Hagan,” Dick said, though the dizzying manner in which the visual field was now spinning told him that Jason had already moved from his surveillance point.

As if to confirm, the childlike voice cut in with, “Can’t talk. Hero time!”

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BLÜDHAVEN MUNICIPAL BUS TERMINAL

The girl was running scared.

Her attention more concerned with what was behind her, the bob-haired waif only realized that she’d stepped out in front of a city bus when the headlights had caught her eye.

She’d gasped, but didn’t scream until something grabbed her.

Hoisted up into the air, she hadn’t realized what had happened until she was back on her feet again. A boy -- the same one in the red suit and black cape from before -- had swooped in to pull her out of the bus’ path at the last second. Then, swinging through the air, deposited them both safely on the other side of the terminal.

No sooner had he let her go than she had thrown herself at him. Arms wrapped tightly around the doll, the girl buried her face into his shoulder and sobbed.

For his part, Jason was frozen in place. It was the robotic equivalent of being speechless, as his program had pre-loaded a selection of human behaviors that it had anticipated, with appropriate responses waiting in the L2 cache. But this? This sent the doll back into the L3 cache in order to compose a response.

After the seconds ticked by of just awkwardly standing there, like a mannequin, the boy gently returned the hug. Then, his hands, placed on her arms, pulled her away so that he could try to look her in the eye. “It’s okay,” he offered, though her face was turned away.

She planted a hand in the center of his chest, pushing him away as she started to break into a run.

He caught her hand, stopping her in mid-step. At last, she turned to look at him. When she did, he let go. “You don’t have to keep running.”

The sleeves of the pink cardigan she wore hung over the tops of her hands. Using the sleeve, she wiped away the tears from her eyes. “There’s a man after me.” It was a simple statement. Risking a look back over her shoulder, the panicked look returned before she looked back at the masked boy. “I... I have to keep moving.”

“Who is he?”

The girl’s mouth fell open, as if to answer, but then she seemed to pause there. “I... don’t know,” she admitted, before adding, “But, he’s always there. Even in my nightmares.”

“Be careful. A lot of runaways have underlying psychological distress. This girl probably needs a professional counselor.”

Jason had forgotten that he was still connected with Dick. The remote network operated through a virtual drive that was intentionally walled off from his normal processing, making the whole process appear to run in the background. Putting on a smile, the doll again reached out to take the girl by the shoulders. “It’s okay to be afraid,” he stated frankly, giving her shoulders a slight squeeze as he added, “I just want to help you.”

“Her face isn’t coming up in the database of missing kids,” Dick’s voice supplied inside of the robot’s head. “See if you can get her to give you a name.”

Withdrawing an arm, the boy gestured to indicate himself as he offered, “I’m Robin. What’s your name?”

The same pained expression. Her hands came up to either side of her head, as though she were trying to viscerally pull the answer out. “I...” she stammered, before shaking her head. “I can’t even remember that,” she uttered finally.

“There’s a shelter about three blocks over. They have counselors on staff that should be able to connect her with the resources that she needs.”

Ducking low, the masked doll put his face so that it was beneath hers, looking up at her with a smile as he nonchalantly said, “That’s okay, we’ll improvise.” Straightening back up, the boy craned his to peer through the interior of the bus terminal. “How about...” he began, even as various lists began to spool in his memory.

A girl was about to board a bus, carrying a Little Orphan Annie doll under her arm. “...Annie,” the doll concluded, turning to look back at the dark haired girl.

Still wiping at her face with the edge of her sleeve, the girl gave a weak laugh. At the name, or maybe the goofy boy who had offered it, or even just the fact that this was the first time that she could remember anyone caring. “Okay,” she answered meekly.

Then she panicked, her breath frozen in her lungs in a sharp intake of air.

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s near,” the girl answered, ominously. Then, looking left, pointed to an open door cast in the shadows as she proclaimed. “There!”

To both Jason and Dick’s amazement, as the doll’s visual field swept over the doorway, it revealed that there was someone there. Watching. While the infrared imaging was unclear, the passing headlights of a bus at last supplied a better visual inspection.

He was tall. Powerfully build. With a face like that of Borris Karloff. And a pair of piercing, inhuman eyes.

“That’s Hagan,” Dick’s voice warned sharply.

[ 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.



[ 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.

[ 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.”

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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.

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.

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


Dan Garret?

[ 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.”

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

“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?
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