Post by The Wonderful Wachter on Apr 15, 2012 3:46:26 GMT -5
Ultimate Brave and the Bold #6
The Greatest Episode That Never Aired
El Paso, Texas
The Reyes household from the outside looked barely large enough to provide adequate living quarters for the family that called it home. Duela’s opinion didn’t change much upon being invited inside to sit in the living room. Used to far more in life and of an utterly different class altogether, the cluttered room with a table counter the only separation from the kitchen and a dining nook instead of a proper room of its own was a foreign concept to her. Teddy, on the other hand, had been born to a different time and place. He thought it was quite cozy.
The pair sat on a loveseat, Teddy nursing a beer much to Duela’s displeasure, with a wooden coffee table between them and the Reyes’ family on the couch mirroring them. Nervously, Jaime slid a coaster towards Wildcat who nodded his thanks. The poor boy was flanked on either side by his parents.
To his right was Alberto, a former soldier and a current small business owner; there was still a patch of grease or oil on his hand. He looked young despite the widow’s peak of his black hair and the laugh lines about his eyes. His beard made his appearance more so at odds with his setting. Duela thought it to be far too thick to deal with the weather in Texas. But what did she know, she was from the north where they had proper weather. Around the eyes and their mouths were the only ways to see the resemblance between father and son. Both men had and ready smile to offer and looked uncomfortable in their best dress clothes.
Bianca was an entirely different story. Her son was her spitting image – probably to the boy’s displeasure. Same general facial structure including their hair. Same build. Mother and son were both better described as cute rather than something stronger though from experience, Duela could tell that Bianca could clean up well if she wanted to. There was fiery spark in her that was all attitude. She made sure it could be seen as she glared at the pair over thin framed glasses.
“So… uh… Dad, has a signed picture of you, Teddy,” Jaime said trying to ease the tension following Duela’s abrupt dropping of the money-bomb. “He saw your fights with his dad.”
“Mr. Grant, Jaime,” his mother corrected.
“Teddy is fine, ma’am. Never could stand that mister nonsense. Makes me feel my age.”
“Speaking of age, you’ve aged quite well.” Alberto pointed out. “You barely look like you’ve aged a day since your last fight.”
Wildcat finished off his beer with one last, large gulp. “Ah. It’s the healthy living. Your boy will probably know what I mean two decades from now.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s not going to grow older, Mrs. Reyes,” Duela answered without hesitation. “Or, well, he will but very slowly. The first Blue Beetle found the scarab around the turn of the century yet he remained forever young until the day he died.”
“Wait… So I’m going to be stuck in the middle of puberty forever?”
“Possibly, which is one of the reasons we would like to keep you under watch back in Seigelville. The first Blue Beetle was already an adult by the time the Scarab chose him. We’re not sure what will happen with you… Especially given your unique bond with the scarab.”
“You mean the fact it talks to me.”
“… yes.”
Alberto opened his mouth to say something but quickly closed it after a look from his wife. He covered it up by scrubbing at the stain on his hand while she spoke. “So it is your intent to put Jaime under quarantine?”
“Absolutely not,” replied Teddy before Duela could stop him. “Kord wants Jaime to replace him on the Brave and the Bold. That boy of yours is a born hero and the scarab knows it. I’ll be training him. Booster Gold will keep an eye on him. He’ll be with others like him who will keep him safe and help him keep you ordinary folk safe in turn.”
“It’s not charity then, right?” Jaime voiced sincerely. He gave his mother a look all mothers loathe to see. The puppy. “I’ll be working for it. Sponsors will pay me to save people.”
“And if we refuse to give permission?”
“Mrs. Reyes, I’m not going to beat around the bush,” damn Teddy and his refusal to keep his mouth shut. “Right now, Kord’s PR is spinning Jaime’s appearance as some sort of robot but some very powerful individuals with very powerful connections will soon learn the truth. And if they find that your son is living under your roof, without a leash, without the protection offered by the Brave and the Bold then they are going to want to cut him up and try to use him for their own purposes. Kord’s deal lets him be a hero, lets him be free, and yes… he will get paid though I’m sure Duela will work it out with you so that the money is put to good use. Lord only knows what a fifteen year old boy would do with thousands of dollars every month.”
“Why should we trust you, Teddy?” Bianca finally asked after meeting her son and husband’s eyes.
“Because they did it to me. Turned me into a soldier. Forced me to fight a few wars you know about and more that you don’t. And I’m a nobody compared to your son. Face it… he has a weapon strapped to his back that makes our current technology look like they belong in the Stone Age.”
The Reyes family shared in their silence. Bianca and Alberto had been married long enough to know what the other was thinking. They knew what needed to be done. What’s more, they knew in their hearts that Wildcat was right. Jaime had stepped into a world they knew nothing about. Nothing they did would be able to help him except for this.
“I want your word that you’ll keep our son safe, Teddy.” Alberto spoke for both parents. “We don’t care about the money. We just want Jaime to be safe.”
“I’ll train him to be the best damn hero in blue not named Superman.”
Any response from Alberto or Bianca was lost in the resulting shout of “Yes” from Jaime as he leaped up from the couch and pumped his hand in the air. Kid might have been born to be a hero but in the end, he was still just a kid.
---
Seigelville, Texas
An alien is rampaging through the city and it’s already taken down Booster and Kal. I’m totally screwed.
A glider swooped through Seigelville, atop it perched the lovely Kate Kane attired in her formfitting Batwoman costume. Weaving pass skyscrapers and flag poles, she came across a warzone. Booster was chained to the ground somehow by a car door fused with cement. A hundred feet away, the ground had given way, leaving Kaldur in a crater slowly filling with sewer water. Disgusting as it was, she knew there was no need to worry about him. Soon he’d heal and probably come back stronger than ever. Which left her with distraction duty.
Not gonna get any points for this.
High powered beams of energy shot out of the glider’s wing tips while a single spiraling missile followed slowly behind. Their target was the lone figure swinging a lightpole down on a pizza place that Kate loved to bring her cousin to. Her uncle would complain about the bill but when there’s an insane alien on the loose, you have to pull out all the stops.
The smoke cleared and the alien stood in a small crater fuming literally with smoke. Suddenly, brilliantly glowing eyes later, Batwoman found her glider destroyed and a hand choking the life out of her. Such strength behind those hands. No wonder Booster had gone down like a chump.
“@*#%# ^) ^^$)S+#(?!”
“I..” Kate was choking she couldn’t breathe. It felt like a single flex would send her head plummeting to the ground below. “Don’t! Speak! Alien!”
Batwoman saw a creature before her despite blackening vision and she knew the cameras in her cowl picked it up just as well. Orange skin that looked so natural and smooth. Vibrant and illuminating emerald eyes. Hair darker than space. The alien was distinctly feminine or at least looked like a human woman. The beings chest heaved beneath a shining, almost leathery black bodice. The same polymer made up her thigh-high boots and elbow length fingerless gloves. This being radiated dominance and sex appeal.
“@*#%# ^) ^^$)S+#(?!” shouted the alien again, eyes and gems on her gloves glowing blindingly bright.
Kate tried to shake her head again.
Finally the creature understood and with amazing tenderness, brought her free arm around the small of Kate’s back and drew their bodies close. The built-in-systems of Kate’s suit did nothing to cool the rising heat in her chest. The two were pressed closed, hovering high in the air over city. The hand choking her left her neck and instead lifted her chin up like a lover would. Their lips were inches apart. Then centimeters
Millimeters.
It was the sweetest kiss Kate had ever tasted. It somehow made her breath return even as it took away her air again. The lovely alien kissed her for a long while, tongue playing at Kate’s lips, seeking entrance into a gasping mouth. It was some greeting.
Regret filled Kate when the being stopped, returning tongues to their respective mouths. She couldn’t think of anything but that kiss. Of anything but the creature no human female could hope to top.
“Now where is my sister?!”
---
Seigelville, Texas
The problem with being from the future and jumping through various alternate realities was that one should never be too quick to judge. Booster had to constantly remind himself that just because Subject A was an Evil Bastard with a capital E and B in Universe 1, it did not mean that the same would hold true for Universe 115. Still, he was having a difficult time reconsolidating his knowledge of the various Blackfires with the image before him. Yet he had to admit that part of that was due to her using a car door against him.
He had a long standing rivalry with car doors.
At the moment he was playing good cop, bad cop with Kate by his side. It was hard to imagine any member of the Bat-family, no matter the universe, being the good cop in any situation but given the greeting she gave to the visitor from another world, it was agreed that she had no ground to stand on. No position to apply leverage from. That left it to Booster Gold, acting leader of the Brave and the Bold, to be tall, dark and brooding.
Now he had to figure how you could be brooding in brightly colored blues and yellow with goggles.
Blackfire sat across from them at a table in a power dampening room secluded in the depths of Eagle Point. Her bearing was regal despite the situation she found herself in and the tight black fetish-wear. She pointed her chin upwards, meeting the eyes of both heroes. She did not quiver. She did not recoil at the fact her gloves had been taken away nor did she complain at being imprisoned. It was a bit eerie in fact. She arrived, went on a rampage, and now she sat there, for all the world like an intergalactic debutant.
“I am Komand’r of the Royal House of Tamaran and I demand to know what you humans have done with my sister.”
Kate opened her mouth, intending to say kind words only for Booster to stop her. He slammed his hands down on the table, leaving indents on the metal. Blackfire stared back at him unimpressed.
“Cut the bull,” he growled in his best I am the Goddamn Batman impression. “Why would a princess from another world come to this little blue ball of dirt in the middle of nowhere to search for another princess? Isn’t that something best left for the royal guard?”
“The Royal Guard is no more. I am all that remains of our military… I… I,” her voice choked off and Booster had to admit, if it was fake then she was some kind of actress. “I am one of a handful of survivors. My world was, is, ravished by a war that stretches across the galaxy.”
An impressive, believable gasp escaped Kate’s lips. The white eyes of her mask were stretched open in disbelief. “You poor thing, I can’t believe such a thing could happen to such a beautiful species.” And the Oscar doesn’t go to Batwoman, Booster cringed.
“Right. And if we believe that, then how’d you survive?”
“We received advance warning to prepare our defenses but it was still not enough. My father fought to his last breath, my betrothed carried on long after he had sacrificed his arm and a leg. My people died so that I could survive… so that I could hand Despero that which he needed to unlock the Hawklin Gates.”
Booster gulped. Despero. Hawklin Gates. Not a good combination. “Uh huh. You know what I think? You sold your sister into slavery then betrayed your own people. All because you were born deformed. A freak who was always jealous of her siblings and the least of the Tamaraneans since they could fly and you couldn’t.”
“How dare you!” screeched Blackfire, her voice shrill. Booster expected her to leap across the room at him, as did Kate by the way she took a step in front of him, but instead, she remained sitting. Tears were in her eyes. “While it is true I need the crystals in my gloves to properly metabolize the same solar radiation as the rest of my people, I have been nothing less than a loving teacher to my sister and loyal general to my people! But…” Blackfire paused, eyes twinkling in thought, “How did you know? Are the one who warned us? The one who professed to know what is coming?”
“Uh… what?”
“Our scientists traced the transmission that warned us of Despero’s coming back to this world… I had thought I could find our would-be prophet and learn where my sister, Koriand’r, is secluded. It was at the savior’s request that she was sent into hiding.”
Her tone was incredibly earnest and Booster found himself hard pressed not to believe it. Stranger things had happened. There had been that time he was captured by an anthromorphic Owlwoman and meant to be her consort after all. “No. I can’t say that I am. Only encountered Despero a handful of times and never around Tamaran.”
“I see.”
“Tell me about your sister,” Kate inquired after a brief pause. Booster tried to follow but just then, Skeets whispered in his ear.
“Incoming transmission from Blue Beetle, sir.”
“Excuse me for a second,” said Booster, holding up a finger in indication of waiting a moment. “Patch him through.”
”Can you hear me? Is this thing working?” Ah… Jaime. He was hoping it’d be Ted with his eleventh hour answers.
“Yes, what is it you need? We’re kinda busy here.”
“Cool! Oh… yeah, right. Right.” The kid stumbled over his words. ”Uh… Let me see if I’m reading this right. Yes, I know you told me but you’re also showing me. I want to make sure the information is correct. No, I will not just repeat what you said. I’m the hero here, not you.”
“Kid…”
“Sorry Booster… On point, I was training with Wildcat when I heard about your guys’ interrogation so he brought me up to the War Room to watch it. Experience and all that. Anyways, turns out Komand’r is not the only Tamaranean in Seigelville. And get this, you ready?”
Booster rubbed the bridge of his nose, unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “Yes. I’m ready.” He had a bad feeling about this. It wasn’t his first rodeo. He’d encountered a similar situation before so when Jaime finally dropped the bomb, he was indeed ready for it.
“The other Tamaranean shares DNA with the one you have in custody.”
“Damn it…” He turned back to the women. “We’ve found your sister.”
---
Thankful that she was not a cop and equally thankful that the stakeout was over, Linda sat in the passenger seat of Szasz’s Buick, reeking of cigarette smoke, and watched as Niko entered the apartment complex. It hadn’t been too difficult to track him down. Linda had an innocent, trustworthy face while Szasz had a large wallet. They had gone around to local businesses in the few square blocks dedicated to Russians and other former Soviet Union nations, showing his picture, asking about him. They got a name.
Then they got a location.
Szasz had gone up earlier to confirm the address. Said he met Niko’s daughter, a terrified young girl who had now had his card in her possession and a couple of freshly minted twenties in her back pocket. And then it was time to wait. And wait some more. And wait even more after that.
Linda’s eyes had started to water. She began to long for the few minutes she was allowed to stretch her legs even if it was a dangerous neighborhood and she had to keep a ready hand on both her taser and her mace. Mentally, she thanked her parents for never having that disgusting habit. Inwardly, she kicked herself for ever being slightly attracted to the BatB’s host. It was a wonder his whole body wasn’t stained yellow.
“What do we do now?”
“I call you a cab,” answered the man as he lit up another death stick. “And you go back to HQ.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to have a nice, long interview with Niko.”
“But—“
Szasz silenced her with a breath of smoke blown in her face. “You’ve done a fantastic job, Linda. Journalism lost an angel when you decided to go into communication. But you’re done here. Go back to being a pretty face for the podcasts. Leave the real investigation to the professionals.”
Blood rushed to Linda’s face. How dare he!?! She had bent over backwards, helping him with the investigation, putting up with the smoke and the years lost from her lungs. He couldn’t just blow her off. She wouldn’t let him. “You can’t go in alone. It’s not safe!”
“I was born in Hub City, raised in Gotham, went to school in Coast City, and I returned to Gotham where I wrote exposé after exposé on the corruption of the city from the dirty doctors to cops to even the prodigal son himself and that bastard Kane.” He took a nice long puff. “I’ve been shot, beaten, had my TV show taken away from me and given back. Got myself a national radio program. I can handle one, little Russian thug.”
“But—“
“Linda… You’re too young. You have a long, hopefully uneventful life in front of you. Go back to HQ, tell Booster where I am, and if I don’t check in by midnight, you have him send one of the heroes after me, got it?”
“…yes.”
“Good.” He unlocked the door. “Don’t worry, I can handle myself. Besides, if all goes as I’ve foreseen it then we’ll have quite the show for next week. Brave and the Bold versus the Royal Flush Gang… It’ll be all over the headlines.”
---
Never before could Booster recall a single instance where he found himself ashamed to call Ted Kord his friend short of evil pocket dimension incarnations until now. He’d come to expect that this Kord was a tad more Machiavellian than most but the man was still a hero in his heart. Beetle would do the right thing in the end, always had. And Booster could see that the Ted of this reality was just as willing to sacrifice his life, his entire being, for a good cause as any other Ted Kord in any other reality would. It was one of those things that had to happen.
Yet… he looked at the familiar figure strapped to a table, restrained with numerous bindings despite being comatose with the putrid taste of bile forming in his mouth. What kind of hero did this? The Scarab was one thing. Sure, it might be sentient in a sense, but it was a machine. Kori was a living, breathing, bleeding creature.
Here, beneath Kord Electronics, mere floors away from where Danni had studied the Scarab according to Jaime, they had found Starfire. It was an unusual level best left to some mad scientist’ underground bunker. From what he could tell, it was a complete, if compact, personal hospital and laboratory. There was everything from private recovery rooms to a morgue to common lounges for doctors and patients to even simulated environmental rooms. At the moment, and from what he could gleam from Jaime, Danni, and the Doctor-on-duty— Starfire had been the centerpiece since its construction. She might even had been the reason it was built in the first place.
They watched her from an adjacent chamber, a couple feet of steel and concrete separating them from her in case she should break out. Instead of an examination window, the wall itself was a view screen, displaying everything inside in high definition. Probably 3D too knowing Ted. He honestly couldn’t figure out if she was an experiment, a patient, a study, or something else altogether. However, based on what Ted had done with Menagerie and other prisoners in Eagle Point, he had an inkling… Shouldn’t have been different but it was. He knew Kori. She was his friend.
“The subject has been under my care since I transferred over from STAR Labs,” began the Doctor – Booster couldn’t recall his name – in a gravely octave. The Doctor, a darkskinned man of stocky stature, had quite look of resolute composure inappropriate to a man who had just been confronted by three heroes and the alien sibling of his subject. “She has not once regained consciousness in all that time.”
“Can’t or not allowed to,” asked Booster, fearing the answer.
“Not allowed to.”
Booster steeled himself for an explosion from Blackfire. She was in containment gloves, the only way they would allow her to come with them, but he knew her to be quite the powerful figure no matter the lack of flight. Yet nothing came. Kate had a comforting hand on her shoulder and she shook. For a moment, he thought it was barely restrained rage but no… she was crying. The Evil Queen of Tamaran was shedding tears over her lost sibling. Quite the act if that was what it was.
“Under whose orders?”
“Mr. Kord’s.”
The golden hero fixed his gaze on the lithe blond next to the Doctor. “Danni, did you know about this?”
“Yes,” she wasn’t truly paying attention to Booster. Her attention was on Jaime who tilted his head in thought, staring at the image of Starfire. “I developed most of the technology needed to keep her in stasis. Thought it was for the best. Her rampage caused a ton of destruction.”
“What rampage?” Kate chimed in, “Metas may not be new but they weren’t all over the place until a few months ago. An attract— I mean, an aggravated alien would have made national news. When was this?”
“The same day the first Blue Beetle died.”
There was a pregnant pause in the air. Jaime’s head snapped towards Danni and even Booster stared open mouthed at her. She said the words quite glibly. Where was the concern for her grandfather?
“Impossible. Koriand’r would never do such a thing!” Booster exclaimed without much enthusiasm. If Ted could lock her away, imprisoning her in her own mind to be studied like a labrat, If Blackfire could be a decent living being, then who was to say Star was incapable of murdering Dan?
“What have you done to her?” they were the first words Komand’r had spoken since laying her eyes on her sister. “What have you foul, little apes done to my sister?!?”
“Done? We’ve done nothing,” the doctor said solemnly. “The subject has been under observation, nothing more. We did study a few of the alien artifacts she carried on her person but other than that? Nothing. Kord was very specific in his orders. We are not Area 51. No dissections.”
“Then it is impossible. That is not my sister.”
“Princess Komand’r, I hate to burst your bubble but I’ve, uh, met Kori before. That is her. I’d recognize her anywhere.”
“No. It is not. My sister did not have that scar tissue. No single battle with some Insect could have left those marks. It needs a lifetime.” Blackfire move her hands quickly before remembering they were bound. “My belt, please. I have a hologram of her taken right before we sent her to safety. Not more than a cycle old.”
Kate retrieved the tiny disc from a pouch on the princess’s belt and with the ingenuity of a human, or luck, turned it on. A three dimensional picture popped up. It showed a young Tamaranean, somewhere between thirteen and sixteen if humans were used as the measuring blocks. Her skin had only a slight orange tint to them, her eyes did not yet proper glow. She wore a slinky, purple gown that hung off her all wrong. This was a Koriand’r on the verge of womanhood. One not yet finished growing.
All five pairs of heads turned slowly to focus on the same lovely creature Jaime had returned to staring at slack-jawed. Booster couldn’t blame the boy. The Koriand’r on the stasis table was full grown. Statuesque, voluptuous, beautifully endowed. She was every bit the sort of Starfire Booster had known in more than a few realities. The tiny bands across her chest strained to hold her in. They stretched as no human woman could ever make them stretch.
“Booster, I don’t know if Skeets has the right sensors for this but,” Jaime’s voice unintentionally let out a squeak, “That right there is a temporal anomaly. She shouldn’t be here.”
Silence followed the revelation. Booster, accustomed to time travel, figured it out before the others. This wasn’t the present Starfire. This Kori had successful journeyed back in time to give her people a grave warning in their darkest hour. She had saved her younger self. Tried to save Tamaran. There simply was no telling when she was from short of asking.
“Wake her up,” ordered Booster Gold. “I need to know how she got here.”
Booster’s mind raced. If the Scarab’s sensor could detect the temporal displacement then chances were Dan did too and in turn, Ted had been privy to the knowledge. Her imprisonment started to make sense… As did the lengths Ted was willing to go.
“Like Timey Wimey shenanigans? Well you’re in luck, Doctor Who is returning this fall to BBC and BBC America.”
Don’t forget to scroll back to the top and vote.
The Greatest Episode That Never Aired
El Paso, Texas
The Reyes household from the outside looked barely large enough to provide adequate living quarters for the family that called it home. Duela’s opinion didn’t change much upon being invited inside to sit in the living room. Used to far more in life and of an utterly different class altogether, the cluttered room with a table counter the only separation from the kitchen and a dining nook instead of a proper room of its own was a foreign concept to her. Teddy, on the other hand, had been born to a different time and place. He thought it was quite cozy.
The pair sat on a loveseat, Teddy nursing a beer much to Duela’s displeasure, with a wooden coffee table between them and the Reyes’ family on the couch mirroring them. Nervously, Jaime slid a coaster towards Wildcat who nodded his thanks. The poor boy was flanked on either side by his parents.
To his right was Alberto, a former soldier and a current small business owner; there was still a patch of grease or oil on his hand. He looked young despite the widow’s peak of his black hair and the laugh lines about his eyes. His beard made his appearance more so at odds with his setting. Duela thought it to be far too thick to deal with the weather in Texas. But what did she know, she was from the north where they had proper weather. Around the eyes and their mouths were the only ways to see the resemblance between father and son. Both men had and ready smile to offer and looked uncomfortable in their best dress clothes.
Bianca was an entirely different story. Her son was her spitting image – probably to the boy’s displeasure. Same general facial structure including their hair. Same build. Mother and son were both better described as cute rather than something stronger though from experience, Duela could tell that Bianca could clean up well if she wanted to. There was fiery spark in her that was all attitude. She made sure it could be seen as she glared at the pair over thin framed glasses.
“So… uh… Dad, has a signed picture of you, Teddy,” Jaime said trying to ease the tension following Duela’s abrupt dropping of the money-bomb. “He saw your fights with his dad.”
“Mr. Grant, Jaime,” his mother corrected.
“Teddy is fine, ma’am. Never could stand that mister nonsense. Makes me feel my age.”
“Speaking of age, you’ve aged quite well.” Alberto pointed out. “You barely look like you’ve aged a day since your last fight.”
Wildcat finished off his beer with one last, large gulp. “Ah. It’s the healthy living. Your boy will probably know what I mean two decades from now.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s not going to grow older, Mrs. Reyes,” Duela answered without hesitation. “Or, well, he will but very slowly. The first Blue Beetle found the scarab around the turn of the century yet he remained forever young until the day he died.”
“Wait… So I’m going to be stuck in the middle of puberty forever?”
“Possibly, which is one of the reasons we would like to keep you under watch back in Seigelville. The first Blue Beetle was already an adult by the time the Scarab chose him. We’re not sure what will happen with you… Especially given your unique bond with the scarab.”
“You mean the fact it talks to me.”
“… yes.”
Alberto opened his mouth to say something but quickly closed it after a look from his wife. He covered it up by scrubbing at the stain on his hand while she spoke. “So it is your intent to put Jaime under quarantine?”
“Absolutely not,” replied Teddy before Duela could stop him. “Kord wants Jaime to replace him on the Brave and the Bold. That boy of yours is a born hero and the scarab knows it. I’ll be training him. Booster Gold will keep an eye on him. He’ll be with others like him who will keep him safe and help him keep you ordinary folk safe in turn.”
“It’s not charity then, right?” Jaime voiced sincerely. He gave his mother a look all mothers loathe to see. The puppy. “I’ll be working for it. Sponsors will pay me to save people.”
“And if we refuse to give permission?”
“Mrs. Reyes, I’m not going to beat around the bush,” damn Teddy and his refusal to keep his mouth shut. “Right now, Kord’s PR is spinning Jaime’s appearance as some sort of robot but some very powerful individuals with very powerful connections will soon learn the truth. And if they find that your son is living under your roof, without a leash, without the protection offered by the Brave and the Bold then they are going to want to cut him up and try to use him for their own purposes. Kord’s deal lets him be a hero, lets him be free, and yes… he will get paid though I’m sure Duela will work it out with you so that the money is put to good use. Lord only knows what a fifteen year old boy would do with thousands of dollars every month.”
“Why should we trust you, Teddy?” Bianca finally asked after meeting her son and husband’s eyes.
“Because they did it to me. Turned me into a soldier. Forced me to fight a few wars you know about and more that you don’t. And I’m a nobody compared to your son. Face it… he has a weapon strapped to his back that makes our current technology look like they belong in the Stone Age.”
The Reyes family shared in their silence. Bianca and Alberto had been married long enough to know what the other was thinking. They knew what needed to be done. What’s more, they knew in their hearts that Wildcat was right. Jaime had stepped into a world they knew nothing about. Nothing they did would be able to help him except for this.
“I want your word that you’ll keep our son safe, Teddy.” Alberto spoke for both parents. “We don’t care about the money. We just want Jaime to be safe.”
“I’ll train him to be the best damn hero in blue not named Superman.”
Any response from Alberto or Bianca was lost in the resulting shout of “Yes” from Jaime as he leaped up from the couch and pumped his hand in the air. Kid might have been born to be a hero but in the end, he was still just a kid.
---
Seigelville, Texas
An alien is rampaging through the city and it’s already taken down Booster and Kal. I’m totally screwed.
A glider swooped through Seigelville, atop it perched the lovely Kate Kane attired in her formfitting Batwoman costume. Weaving pass skyscrapers and flag poles, she came across a warzone. Booster was chained to the ground somehow by a car door fused with cement. A hundred feet away, the ground had given way, leaving Kaldur in a crater slowly filling with sewer water. Disgusting as it was, she knew there was no need to worry about him. Soon he’d heal and probably come back stronger than ever. Which left her with distraction duty.
Not gonna get any points for this.
High powered beams of energy shot out of the glider’s wing tips while a single spiraling missile followed slowly behind. Their target was the lone figure swinging a lightpole down on a pizza place that Kate loved to bring her cousin to. Her uncle would complain about the bill but when there’s an insane alien on the loose, you have to pull out all the stops.
The smoke cleared and the alien stood in a small crater fuming literally with smoke. Suddenly, brilliantly glowing eyes later, Batwoman found her glider destroyed and a hand choking the life out of her. Such strength behind those hands. No wonder Booster had gone down like a chump.
“@*#%# ^) ^^$)S+#(?!”
“I..” Kate was choking she couldn’t breathe. It felt like a single flex would send her head plummeting to the ground below. “Don’t! Speak! Alien!”
Batwoman saw a creature before her despite blackening vision and she knew the cameras in her cowl picked it up just as well. Orange skin that looked so natural and smooth. Vibrant and illuminating emerald eyes. Hair darker than space. The alien was distinctly feminine or at least looked like a human woman. The beings chest heaved beneath a shining, almost leathery black bodice. The same polymer made up her thigh-high boots and elbow length fingerless gloves. This being radiated dominance and sex appeal.
“@*#%# ^) ^^$)S+#(?!” shouted the alien again, eyes and gems on her gloves glowing blindingly bright.
Kate tried to shake her head again.
Finally the creature understood and with amazing tenderness, brought her free arm around the small of Kate’s back and drew their bodies close. The built-in-systems of Kate’s suit did nothing to cool the rising heat in her chest. The two were pressed closed, hovering high in the air over city. The hand choking her left her neck and instead lifted her chin up like a lover would. Their lips were inches apart. Then centimeters
Millimeters.
It was the sweetest kiss Kate had ever tasted. It somehow made her breath return even as it took away her air again. The lovely alien kissed her for a long while, tongue playing at Kate’s lips, seeking entrance into a gasping mouth. It was some greeting.
Regret filled Kate when the being stopped, returning tongues to their respective mouths. She couldn’t think of anything but that kiss. Of anything but the creature no human female could hope to top.
“Now where is my sister?!”
---
Seigelville, Texas
The problem with being from the future and jumping through various alternate realities was that one should never be too quick to judge. Booster had to constantly remind himself that just because Subject A was an Evil Bastard with a capital E and B in Universe 1, it did not mean that the same would hold true for Universe 115. Still, he was having a difficult time reconsolidating his knowledge of the various Blackfires with the image before him. Yet he had to admit that part of that was due to her using a car door against him.
He had a long standing rivalry with car doors.
At the moment he was playing good cop, bad cop with Kate by his side. It was hard to imagine any member of the Bat-family, no matter the universe, being the good cop in any situation but given the greeting she gave to the visitor from another world, it was agreed that she had no ground to stand on. No position to apply leverage from. That left it to Booster Gold, acting leader of the Brave and the Bold, to be tall, dark and brooding.
Now he had to figure how you could be brooding in brightly colored blues and yellow with goggles.
Blackfire sat across from them at a table in a power dampening room secluded in the depths of Eagle Point. Her bearing was regal despite the situation she found herself in and the tight black fetish-wear. She pointed her chin upwards, meeting the eyes of both heroes. She did not quiver. She did not recoil at the fact her gloves had been taken away nor did she complain at being imprisoned. It was a bit eerie in fact. She arrived, went on a rampage, and now she sat there, for all the world like an intergalactic debutant.
“I am Komand’r of the Royal House of Tamaran and I demand to know what you humans have done with my sister.”
Kate opened her mouth, intending to say kind words only for Booster to stop her. He slammed his hands down on the table, leaving indents on the metal. Blackfire stared back at him unimpressed.
“Cut the bull,” he growled in his best I am the Goddamn Batman impression. “Why would a princess from another world come to this little blue ball of dirt in the middle of nowhere to search for another princess? Isn’t that something best left for the royal guard?”
“The Royal Guard is no more. I am all that remains of our military… I… I,” her voice choked off and Booster had to admit, if it was fake then she was some kind of actress. “I am one of a handful of survivors. My world was, is, ravished by a war that stretches across the galaxy.”
An impressive, believable gasp escaped Kate’s lips. The white eyes of her mask were stretched open in disbelief. “You poor thing, I can’t believe such a thing could happen to such a beautiful species.” And the Oscar doesn’t go to Batwoman, Booster cringed.
“Right. And if we believe that, then how’d you survive?”
“We received advance warning to prepare our defenses but it was still not enough. My father fought to his last breath, my betrothed carried on long after he had sacrificed his arm and a leg. My people died so that I could survive… so that I could hand Despero that which he needed to unlock the Hawklin Gates.”
Booster gulped. Despero. Hawklin Gates. Not a good combination. “Uh huh. You know what I think? You sold your sister into slavery then betrayed your own people. All because you were born deformed. A freak who was always jealous of her siblings and the least of the Tamaraneans since they could fly and you couldn’t.”
“How dare you!” screeched Blackfire, her voice shrill. Booster expected her to leap across the room at him, as did Kate by the way she took a step in front of him, but instead, she remained sitting. Tears were in her eyes. “While it is true I need the crystals in my gloves to properly metabolize the same solar radiation as the rest of my people, I have been nothing less than a loving teacher to my sister and loyal general to my people! But…” Blackfire paused, eyes twinkling in thought, “How did you know? Are the one who warned us? The one who professed to know what is coming?”
“Uh… what?”
“Our scientists traced the transmission that warned us of Despero’s coming back to this world… I had thought I could find our would-be prophet and learn where my sister, Koriand’r, is secluded. It was at the savior’s request that she was sent into hiding.”
Her tone was incredibly earnest and Booster found himself hard pressed not to believe it. Stranger things had happened. There had been that time he was captured by an anthromorphic Owlwoman and meant to be her consort after all. “No. I can’t say that I am. Only encountered Despero a handful of times and never around Tamaran.”
“I see.”
“Tell me about your sister,” Kate inquired after a brief pause. Booster tried to follow but just then, Skeets whispered in his ear.
“Incoming transmission from Blue Beetle, sir.”
“Excuse me for a second,” said Booster, holding up a finger in indication of waiting a moment. “Patch him through.”
”Can you hear me? Is this thing working?” Ah… Jaime. He was hoping it’d be Ted with his eleventh hour answers.
“Yes, what is it you need? We’re kinda busy here.”
“Cool! Oh… yeah, right. Right.” The kid stumbled over his words. ”Uh… Let me see if I’m reading this right. Yes, I know you told me but you’re also showing me. I want to make sure the information is correct. No, I will not just repeat what you said. I’m the hero here, not you.”
“Kid…”
“Sorry Booster… On point, I was training with Wildcat when I heard about your guys’ interrogation so he brought me up to the War Room to watch it. Experience and all that. Anyways, turns out Komand’r is not the only Tamaranean in Seigelville. And get this, you ready?”
Booster rubbed the bridge of his nose, unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “Yes. I’m ready.” He had a bad feeling about this. It wasn’t his first rodeo. He’d encountered a similar situation before so when Jaime finally dropped the bomb, he was indeed ready for it.
“The other Tamaranean shares DNA with the one you have in custody.”
“Damn it…” He turned back to the women. “We’ve found your sister.”
---
Thankful that she was not a cop and equally thankful that the stakeout was over, Linda sat in the passenger seat of Szasz’s Buick, reeking of cigarette smoke, and watched as Niko entered the apartment complex. It hadn’t been too difficult to track him down. Linda had an innocent, trustworthy face while Szasz had a large wallet. They had gone around to local businesses in the few square blocks dedicated to Russians and other former Soviet Union nations, showing his picture, asking about him. They got a name.
Then they got a location.
Szasz had gone up earlier to confirm the address. Said he met Niko’s daughter, a terrified young girl who had now had his card in her possession and a couple of freshly minted twenties in her back pocket. And then it was time to wait. And wait some more. And wait even more after that.
Linda’s eyes had started to water. She began to long for the few minutes she was allowed to stretch her legs even if it was a dangerous neighborhood and she had to keep a ready hand on both her taser and her mace. Mentally, she thanked her parents for never having that disgusting habit. Inwardly, she kicked herself for ever being slightly attracted to the BatB’s host. It was a wonder his whole body wasn’t stained yellow.
“What do we do now?”
“I call you a cab,” answered the man as he lit up another death stick. “And you go back to HQ.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to have a nice, long interview with Niko.”
“But—“
Szasz silenced her with a breath of smoke blown in her face. “You’ve done a fantastic job, Linda. Journalism lost an angel when you decided to go into communication. But you’re done here. Go back to being a pretty face for the podcasts. Leave the real investigation to the professionals.”
Blood rushed to Linda’s face. How dare he!?! She had bent over backwards, helping him with the investigation, putting up with the smoke and the years lost from her lungs. He couldn’t just blow her off. She wouldn’t let him. “You can’t go in alone. It’s not safe!”
“I was born in Hub City, raised in Gotham, went to school in Coast City, and I returned to Gotham where I wrote exposé after exposé on the corruption of the city from the dirty doctors to cops to even the prodigal son himself and that bastard Kane.” He took a nice long puff. “I’ve been shot, beaten, had my TV show taken away from me and given back. Got myself a national radio program. I can handle one, little Russian thug.”
“But—“
“Linda… You’re too young. You have a long, hopefully uneventful life in front of you. Go back to HQ, tell Booster where I am, and if I don’t check in by midnight, you have him send one of the heroes after me, got it?”
“…yes.”
“Good.” He unlocked the door. “Don’t worry, I can handle myself. Besides, if all goes as I’ve foreseen it then we’ll have quite the show for next week. Brave and the Bold versus the Royal Flush Gang… It’ll be all over the headlines.”
---
Never before could Booster recall a single instance where he found himself ashamed to call Ted Kord his friend short of evil pocket dimension incarnations until now. He’d come to expect that this Kord was a tad more Machiavellian than most but the man was still a hero in his heart. Beetle would do the right thing in the end, always had. And Booster could see that the Ted of this reality was just as willing to sacrifice his life, his entire being, for a good cause as any other Ted Kord in any other reality would. It was one of those things that had to happen.
Yet… he looked at the familiar figure strapped to a table, restrained with numerous bindings despite being comatose with the putrid taste of bile forming in his mouth. What kind of hero did this? The Scarab was one thing. Sure, it might be sentient in a sense, but it was a machine. Kori was a living, breathing, bleeding creature.
Here, beneath Kord Electronics, mere floors away from where Danni had studied the Scarab according to Jaime, they had found Starfire. It was an unusual level best left to some mad scientist’ underground bunker. From what he could tell, it was a complete, if compact, personal hospital and laboratory. There was everything from private recovery rooms to a morgue to common lounges for doctors and patients to even simulated environmental rooms. At the moment, and from what he could gleam from Jaime, Danni, and the Doctor-on-duty— Starfire had been the centerpiece since its construction. She might even had been the reason it was built in the first place.
They watched her from an adjacent chamber, a couple feet of steel and concrete separating them from her in case she should break out. Instead of an examination window, the wall itself was a view screen, displaying everything inside in high definition. Probably 3D too knowing Ted. He honestly couldn’t figure out if she was an experiment, a patient, a study, or something else altogether. However, based on what Ted had done with Menagerie and other prisoners in Eagle Point, he had an inkling… Shouldn’t have been different but it was. He knew Kori. She was his friend.
“The subject has been under my care since I transferred over from STAR Labs,” began the Doctor – Booster couldn’t recall his name – in a gravely octave. The Doctor, a darkskinned man of stocky stature, had quite look of resolute composure inappropriate to a man who had just been confronted by three heroes and the alien sibling of his subject. “She has not once regained consciousness in all that time.”
“Can’t or not allowed to,” asked Booster, fearing the answer.
“Not allowed to.”
Booster steeled himself for an explosion from Blackfire. She was in containment gloves, the only way they would allow her to come with them, but he knew her to be quite the powerful figure no matter the lack of flight. Yet nothing came. Kate had a comforting hand on her shoulder and she shook. For a moment, he thought it was barely restrained rage but no… she was crying. The Evil Queen of Tamaran was shedding tears over her lost sibling. Quite the act if that was what it was.
“Under whose orders?”
“Mr. Kord’s.”
The golden hero fixed his gaze on the lithe blond next to the Doctor. “Danni, did you know about this?”
“Yes,” she wasn’t truly paying attention to Booster. Her attention was on Jaime who tilted his head in thought, staring at the image of Starfire. “I developed most of the technology needed to keep her in stasis. Thought it was for the best. Her rampage caused a ton of destruction.”
“What rampage?” Kate chimed in, “Metas may not be new but they weren’t all over the place until a few months ago. An attract— I mean, an aggravated alien would have made national news. When was this?”
“The same day the first Blue Beetle died.”
There was a pregnant pause in the air. Jaime’s head snapped towards Danni and even Booster stared open mouthed at her. She said the words quite glibly. Where was the concern for her grandfather?
“Impossible. Koriand’r would never do such a thing!” Booster exclaimed without much enthusiasm. If Ted could lock her away, imprisoning her in her own mind to be studied like a labrat, If Blackfire could be a decent living being, then who was to say Star was incapable of murdering Dan?
“What have you done to her?” they were the first words Komand’r had spoken since laying her eyes on her sister. “What have you foul, little apes done to my sister?!?”
“Done? We’ve done nothing,” the doctor said solemnly. “The subject has been under observation, nothing more. We did study a few of the alien artifacts she carried on her person but other than that? Nothing. Kord was very specific in his orders. We are not Area 51. No dissections.”
“Then it is impossible. That is not my sister.”
“Princess Komand’r, I hate to burst your bubble but I’ve, uh, met Kori before. That is her. I’d recognize her anywhere.”
“No. It is not. My sister did not have that scar tissue. No single battle with some Insect could have left those marks. It needs a lifetime.” Blackfire move her hands quickly before remembering they were bound. “My belt, please. I have a hologram of her taken right before we sent her to safety. Not more than a cycle old.”
Kate retrieved the tiny disc from a pouch on the princess’s belt and with the ingenuity of a human, or luck, turned it on. A three dimensional picture popped up. It showed a young Tamaranean, somewhere between thirteen and sixteen if humans were used as the measuring blocks. Her skin had only a slight orange tint to them, her eyes did not yet proper glow. She wore a slinky, purple gown that hung off her all wrong. This was a Koriand’r on the verge of womanhood. One not yet finished growing.
All five pairs of heads turned slowly to focus on the same lovely creature Jaime had returned to staring at slack-jawed. Booster couldn’t blame the boy. The Koriand’r on the stasis table was full grown. Statuesque, voluptuous, beautifully endowed. She was every bit the sort of Starfire Booster had known in more than a few realities. The tiny bands across her chest strained to hold her in. They stretched as no human woman could ever make them stretch.
“Booster, I don’t know if Skeets has the right sensors for this but,” Jaime’s voice unintentionally let out a squeak, “That right there is a temporal anomaly. She shouldn’t be here.”
Silence followed the revelation. Booster, accustomed to time travel, figured it out before the others. This wasn’t the present Starfire. This Kori had successful journeyed back in time to give her people a grave warning in their darkest hour. She had saved her younger self. Tried to save Tamaran. There simply was no telling when she was from short of asking.
“Wake her up,” ordered Booster Gold. “I need to know how she got here.”
Booster’s mind raced. If the Scarab’s sensor could detect the temporal displacement then chances were Dan did too and in turn, Ted had been privy to the knowledge. Her imprisonment started to make sense… As did the lengths Ted was willing to go.
“Like Timey Wimey shenanigans? Well you’re in luck, Doctor Who is returning this fall to BBC and BBC America.”
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