The Last Roundup on Texas-S

Attempting to pick himself up off his backside, the Steerman's voice coming through his helmet speaker sounded pained. "Damn, you kick like a mule. What's your name, filly?"

Without smiling, and with her pistol trained at his head, she answered, "Benefit of being half horse. Just call me Night Mare."

Electricity starting to crackle around his armor, he sounded more confident. "You're dreamin'. Time to get back in the herd. We have to get through City Center before morning."

Ships headed to the auction passed by overhead as they faced each other down. She warned, "I didn't say you could get up, Steerman. I'm not part of your herd, and Centaurs aren't cattle to be rounded up."

The Centaur herd watched intently, murmuring as they backed away, hooves pelting the smooth metal.

"Law on Texas-S says different," he said defiantly, energy still building in his gauntlets.

Firing a laser past the side of his head, she said, "I don't give a damn what Texass has to say about it. I'm a Proxima Centaurian! I'm nobody's property. Now power down before my next shot cuts through that soft spot under the chin of your helmet."

The crackling diminished, but the Steerman's attitude didn't. "'Nobody's property,' huh? So no one's put their brand on your hind end yet?" He tsked, which through the helmet sounded like a static squelch. "Shame."

She sneered.

"You'd fetch quite the price," the Steerman taunted.

The Centaur snorted, taking two angry steps forward, hooves banging on the hard metal. "Yeah?" she said angrily.

"Yeah," he barked. "As dogfood!" and suddenly his left gauntlet powered fully, firing at her feet. She reared up, shooting wide as she did so, giving him time to roll to one side and jump from the ground. As he did, the grav units in his boots fired, and he took to the air. Firing two more pulses at her, he growled, "Maybe I'll just brand ya myself!"

Bringing her gun up quickly, she fired and clipped one of his boots, shorting the grav unit. As he spiraled towards the ground, she called out, "Now who's dreamin'?"

The herd cheered.

As he crashed and clattered across the walkway for the second time that night, he rolled to a sitting position, quickly pointing a gauntlet in her direction. She was already on top of him though, and her right front hoof to his chest pushed him firmly flat on the ground. Grabbing the wrist of the powered gauntlet with her right hand and twisting it away from her, her left hoof stood on his other wrist, and her left hand brought the pistol up under his chin.

The armor protected him from being crushed under her weight, but the immobility was clearly not to his liking as angry breaths came like static over the helmet's speaker. "Well?" he shouted. "What are you waiting for?"

Leaning down further so her face was inches from his, through gritted teeth she demanded, "What's my name?"

They stared each other down for long seconds before he finally spat the words, "Night Mare!"

"Damn right," she said angrily. "Your worst," and she fired.

The Steerman's body went limp. The herd gasped collectively, and they all fell silent.

Night Mare turned towards them, and raised her pistol in the air. "Centaurs! It's time to take back your lives! It's time to fight back!"

The herd murmured. Some agreed, and some sounded panicked.

"Proxima Centauri once belonged to us! It's time to show these Texasshats that it still does!"

The murmured agreement began to grow. The agreement mingled with cheers of support.

"I'll be a nightmare to these people until they agree to live in peace! I live free! I'll die free!"

Throughout the herd, Centaurs reared up and crashed down on the metal walkways, cheering defiantly at the night. The sounds were explosive.

"We need to shut down the auction that sells our people like animals, separating families, and shipping them to other planets!"

Wild screams went up from the herd, as if hearing their plight aloud released years of repressed torment.

"Will you stop being part of their herds? Will you fight with me?"

A long, collective roar went up from the Centaurs, and as one, they turned and galloped full tilt after Night Mare, heading for the auction. The sound of their hooves on the metal combined with their war cries thundered through the city, and cowered all who heard it. War was coming to Proixma Centauri, and those who called it Texas-S weren't ready.

Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew in: The Menagerie

"Alley-Kat Abra, what is that?" asked Captain Carrot.

Abra looked at the sword in her hand with a sadness in her eyes that made everyone in the room want to scratch her behind the ears. Then with a light sigh, she answered, "It's the sword of Catana."

Holding his pointer finger in the air, Rubberduck said, "Ah! You mean that cat fu vixen from the Outsidecats?"

Fastback scratched his head and said, "Ah thought Vixen was a member of Just'a Lotta Animals?"

"Wrong universe," said Yankee Poodle.

With one finger on his great, metal lip, Pig-Iron said, "I thought it was 'quack fu.' "

"Gah!" blurted Captain Carrot. "Wrong universe, Pig-Iron! Whattaya trying to do? Get us sued?"

"Huh?" asked the giant purple pig.

"A'right then," said Fastback, quickly stepping back into the conversation. "So Catana was with the Outsidecats. Weren't they led by Bat-Bat?"

"YOU GUYYYS!" screamed Captain Carrot, almost pleading. "Wrong universe! It's not bad enough that we lost the Z-Building when those turtle ninjas sued us over Fastback's Halloween costume last year? Now you're trying to tick off the Mouse?!"

"I'm not mad," squeaked Little Cheese from a nearby hole in the wall.

"Duh, and The Tick is the wrong universe, Captain," said Pig-Iron.

A green arm suddenly shot out, coiling three times around Pig-Iron's mouth. "Hey!" shouted Rubberduck. "Listen, you big dumb ox--"

"--He's not an ox," came Little Cheese's voice from the hole.

"I don't know how you know all these other universes," continued the flexible fowl, "and I don't wanna know. What I doknow is the Zoo Crew is currently headquartered in the fabulous Califurnia home of Byrd Reynolds, an--"

"Isn't he dead?" Fastback asked no one in particular.

Rubberduck's head stretched over until he was nose-to-nose with Fastback, and he yelled, "WRONG UNIVERSE!"

Putting his hands up in front of him in mock surrender, Fastback's head sank into his shell as he said, "Okay, sorry, y'all." As Rubberduck's head and neck curved back around to Pig-Iron, Fastback's eyes peeked over the edge of his shell, and he added, "Actors. Such primadonnas."

"I'm surprised you know that word," said Yankee Poodle from nearby, "but you're not wrong, dahling."

"As I was saying," continued Rubberduck, "we're headquartered in the well-feathered nest of my Byrd Reynolds alter ego, and I don't plan on losing it to some corporate lawyers because you guys can't keep your traps shut about other universes! SO SHUT UP!" he bellowed.

"Can we get back to the sword now?" asked Captain Carrot. "Abra, why do you have Catana's sword?"

"She doesn't," came a voice from the living room's doorway.

The group looked over at a Siamese cat in a samurai-like costume, and a short-haired Persian floating beside her that trailed rainbow colored energy behind her.

"Catana!" gasped Alley-Kat Abra.

"Yes," answered the Siamese. "And this is my friend and teammate, Hola."

"I thought it was Halo," said Fastback.

"Ah thought Halo was a video game," said Pig-Iron.

"Wrong universe," said Hola.

"I thought your soul was in your sword!" cried Alley. "How did you get out?"

"Nevermind that," said Byrd in a mild panic, looking around quickly. "How did you get in?!"

"Nevermind that," said Captain Carrot. "We have to keep this story moving. So what's the story with your sword?" he asked.

"Quite simple, Captain," answered Catana. Reaching behind her back, she pulled a weapon from its sheath, and said, "That is not my sword."

"My Magic Wanda revealed to me that this sword holds the souls of all those that it's killed," said Abra.

"Ew," said Yankee Poodle. "Really, dahling."

"That is kind of gruesome," came Little Cheese's voice from the hole.

"There's only one sword like that in all the world," continued Abra. "Yours," she said to Catana.

"Correct," said Catana. "So what does that tell you?"

Looking at Hola, Fastback said, "Ohhh, I get it! It's from another planet!"

"No," said Alley, slapping her forehead. "Of course! It's in the--"

"--Wrong universe," said the entire group.

Captain Carrot's ears perked up straight as he pointed a thumb towards the sword in Abra's hand, and asked, "Uh, then wait. Who does this belong to?"

"Hola?" Catana asked her friend.

"Si," she answered as she formed a weird glowing sphere.

"It belongs to Hola?" asked Pig-Iron. "An' she speaks Spanish?"

"Espanol," came the voice from the mousehole.

"I thought she was Persian," continued the pig.

"Buddy," said Fastback, patting his pal on the shoulder, "let's not get ourselves in any more trouble, okay?"

Pig-Iron shrugged. "Okay, Beagly-Beagly."

"Huh?" said Fastback.

Pig-Iron hunched his shoulders and grimaced. "Sorry. Wrong universe," he said with a weak smile.

Fastback shrugged.

The sphere glowed brighter as it grew, and then a large moose-like being stepped through the portal.

"My friends," said Catana, "This is Carrie Boo."

"Of course she's a caribou," said Yankee Poodle, a bit perturbed, "but what's her name, dahling?"

"My name is Carrie," answered the caribou. "Last name: Boo. Carrie. Boo."

"No need to get testy, dahling," answered Poodle.

"I thought it was BumpyBoo," said Byrd.

"Wrong universe," said Little Cheese from his hole.

"And that's my sword," Carrie added, pointing to the weapon in Alley-Kat Abra's hand.

"How is it that it has the same ability as that of Catana's sword?" asked Abra.

"I don't know. Lazy writing?" answered Boo. "It's true that it holds the souls of all those it has killed. And like Catana's sword, they can be brought back with a ritual. All those held in the sword, and the sword itself, are called The Menagerie. I need it back."

"To do more killing?" asked Captain Carrot. "I don't know if we can allow that," he said with grim determination.

"I only use it to kill mosquitoes," she said.

"Couldn't you do that with a flyswatter?" asked Fastback.

Whipping a flyswatter out of a sheath on her back, Carried said, "Yes, but the sword is for the main mosquito. I have to trap his soul in The Menagerie to free the souls of my Caribou Clan that he's enslaved."

"Enslaved how?" asked Rubberduck.

"By biting them, and turning them into mosquitoes."

Looking at the team, Rubberduck said, "Do mosquitoes do that here?"

"No," said Alley-Kat Abra. "Magic Wanda reveals to me that in another universe, they'd be called 'vampires.' Grisly creatures that drink blood."

"Well, they do that here," said Rubberduck.

"Yes," said Yankee Poodle dryly, "but you don't turn into one afterwards, dahling."

"Ah, I see now," said Byrd. "Continue!" he said happily.

"It's imperative that I have The Menagerie back if I am to win my battle," said Carrie Boo.

"Well, of course," said Captain Carrot as Abra gave the sword back to Carrie. "Maybe the Zoo Crew should go back with you to help you fight this menace?"

"What? And get my writer sued? Are you kidding?" she asked as she headed through the portal. "Thanks, but no thanks," she said with a wave, and then the portal closed behind her.

"I still think we could have helped," said Captain Carrot.

"We have our battles here, Captain," said Alley-Kat Abra. "There, we would have merely been in the..." she paused, smirked, then continued, "...wrong universe."

The group groaned loudly, and pelted Abra with pillows.

The History of Labberanth

The ship had landed on a broad, round surface surrounded by sculpted canyons that ran in every direction. The landing pad was part of the walls dividing those canyons, had its own watchtower, and was connected by bridges to several points at the top of canyon walls. These points were varying distances from the pad, each had their own watchtowers, and all were guarded by fierce, winged soldiers called Daedalons. One of these Daedalons stopped me as I debarked from the ship, and demanded, "What's your business on Labberanth, off-worlder?"

"I'm here to see The Labyrinthian," I answered calmly.

The Daedalon laughed. "We're all Labberantheans here."

"No," I said with minor aggravation, "not..." I sighed in frustration, but let it drain away. Then I said, "Okay, fine. Asterion; I'm here to see Asterion."

The Daedalon lost all traces of mirth as he eyed me suspiciously. After a few seconds, he pointed to a bridge on the other side of the pad. I nodded, and turned towards the bridge. The soldier called after me, "Sir--"

"--I know, soldier. 'Be careful of the crosswinds.' Thank you," I called as I waved over my shoulder. "It's not my first visit," I muttered.

The canyons beneath the bridge are mostly dark, so there wasn't much to see on my way to the next watchtower. There wasn't much to hear either. Despite the teeming populace in the canyons, stealth had always been the custom on Labberanth. Man, woman, and child alike learned to sneak before they could talk. Labberantheans were highly sought after for these skills. Whether for reconnaissance, thievery, or assassination, a target would never detect them coming or going. As a visitor, it was best to stay to the web of bridges that crisscrossed the canyons, to take care of any business in the watchtowers, and depart, leaving life in the ebon canyons to be explored only in the depths of imagination.

I was here for a story, and since the bridge was a long one, I swiveled the mic over my ear in front of my mouth, and started dictating some preliminary notes. "The story of Labberanth is an old one. There used to be a place called Greece, a king called Minos, and his queen, Pasiphae. Having angered their gods on multiple occasions, the final insult came when Minos did not sacrifice a bull that was provided to him for this purpose by one of the gods.

"So, Pasiphae was made by the gods to want for the bull. She enlisted the aid of a genius named Daedalus, and his son, Icarus, to satisfy this want, and the result was a half-man, half-bull that became known as the Minotaur. Enraged, Minos made Daedalus design a labyrinth to imprison the man-bull child, and then shut Daedalus and Icarus in there as well. His punishment for Pasiphae was knowing that she could not see her son. Pasiphae's revenge was to name her son after her husband's father; she named him Asterion.

"It's not the same Asterion as I'm on my way to see, of course. By this point the name has become more of a title passed down from generation-to-generation. This Asterion has called for me, apparently to ask a favor. This is rare, but my curiosity was too much for me. I have to see what this is about." I finish as I reach the watchtower at the other end of the bridge, and before the Daedalon can ask me my business, a voice from inside the tower's door tells him to let me pass. Surprised at the voice, the Daedalon steps aside immediately. I enter.

"I figured I would have to cross several more bridges before seeing you," I said calmly.

The man-bull with the white fur stepped out of the darkness, munching on a long sheaf of grass he carried in his hand. "Do you really believe I'm not the same Asterion?" he asked.

I couldn't hide my astonishment.

"Daedalus' genius covered many areas. Surveillance was one of them." The bull face seemed to smile.

I looked back over the bridge, trying to tell where the devices used to listen in on my narrative would have been. Seeing none, I looked back to Asterion, and nodded appreciatively. "Are you saying immortality is another area of his genius?" I asked in reply to his question.

Asterion snorted. "No. Immortality is granted by the gods. The white bull that fathered me was created by Poseidon. He was created to die, but when Minos didn't kill him, part of Poseidon and Athena's revenge was to grant me immortality, that Minos would be reminded of his folly for all of his days. He shut me away in a labyrinth, but he could never be rid of me."

"How does that story come to all of this?" I ask in official reporter tone.

"Bulls are herbivores," Asterion said simply. "All those teens brought to my labyrinth as tribute were never in any danger from me, but if anyone knew that, the labyrinth would have been destroyed, and all within its walls would have been put to death. Thus, our custom for stealth. Daedalus put his genius to work, giving us ways to expand the labyrinth, both above and below ground. As time and technology grew, we even expanded between the spaces, creating dimensional pockets for the tributes to live in, safe from harm and detection by the outside world."

"Tesseracting?" I asked.

Asterion nodded. "It allowed us to expand the labyrinth until the very world belonged to us."

"Dimension hopping seems to defeat the purpose of a labyrinth."

"The labyrinth is for outsiders, to make it hard to find our people," Asterion said simply.

"Sir," came the voice of a Daedalon entering the watchtower chamber.

"I said we are not to be disturbed!" shouted Asterion.

"But sir," protested the guard.

"Go! Now!" he roared.

As the Daedalon left, I said, "Are they really clones of the original Daedalus?"

"They are, and they're the reason I've asked you here," said Asterion.

"I don't follow."

"Somewhere in one of the tesseracts of Labberanth, Daedalus still lives. The Daedalons, as you've seen, have become... well, dumber," said Asterion. "We need Daedalus to fix this. Their stupidity could be the end of us all."

I considered for a few minutes. This was a story that would make my name with every news site across the solar system, but it would mean having to enter those dark, dangerous canyons of Labberanth. I would have to enter the Maze World. The choice was clear. "I'll do it," I said simply.

"Welcome home, Labberanthian," Asterion said gratefully. "The only one of us to escape this world unescorted. You, Icarus, are our only hope of finding your father."

Pandora Jones and the Crab Man's Corpse

A woman walks up to a crime scene looking like she just found her way back from an Eighties punk rock concert. She wears pink high-tops with no socks, black combat trousers, a pink-and-white tank top under a long, ratty black coat, and an equally ratty black fedora that doesn't quite hide her hair. It's pink, shaved to stubble on the sides and back, and with the top coming up in lazy, pink curls that poof out from under the hat in the front. She wears a black, fingerless glove on her right hand, and a silver-sequinned, fingerless glove on her left hand.

A uniformed officer is about to stop her at the edge of the cordon, but she reaches in her pocket and pulls out credentials with a badge. Sounding bored, she recites, "My name's Pandora Jones. Yes, like 'Pandora's box.' Yes, I am a detective. No, I don't know Jessica Jones. She's a P.I., and she's fiction. It's not funny anymore. It was never funny. Yes, you were going to say all of that. Yes, I do know. Yes, I am a scary bitch. It's late. Who's in charge?" The officer only manages to stammer for a couple of seconds before she says, "Speak!"

The officer barks.

Before Jones can respond, a voice from behind the officer says, "It's okay, Officer Sashen. Let her through." A tall man with a handlebar mustache and no hair steps up next to the officer and offers his hand. "Agent Heironymous."

Rather than take the hand, she rubs the officer's face, and then scratches him behind one ear. "He's cute; has a good sense of humor. Can I keep him?"

The agent raises an eyebrow, and the officer smiles stupidly. "He's not a stray." Fixing Sahsen with a scowl, he adds, "And he's not off the clock." Then he waves for Jones to follow him.

As she steps under the cordon, the officer hands her a card, and whispers, "I'm off as soon as things wrap up here."

She purses her lips at his bravado, then pats him twice on the cheek- the first is light, and the second is more of a stiff slap. She says, "Down boy. Stay," and smirks as she walks away.

"Bitch," whispers Sashen.

Pandora turns and faces him, but has not lost her smirk. "That's scary bitch, Al. And fug you; you liked it," she says with a wink. Her smirk broadens a bit as she turns back to catch up with Heironymous.

Al smiles stupidly again, and wonders briefly how she knew his first name. He hopes to see her later only for a moment before he's slapped in the back of the head, and a short-haired blonde says, "Get back to work, Al."

"Dammit, Salt!" he complains.

"Agent Salt!" she corrects. "And fug you, jagoff," she says smiling over her shoulder as she walks away. "You did like it." She flips him off playfully as she turns to head after her partner.

Al rolls his eyes and waves her off as he turns back to watch the cordon. Then he smirks, and shrugs to himself. He did like it.

Up ahead, Pandora catches up to Heironymous, points a finger so close to his face that his mustache twitches, and she says firmly, "You stay too."

Heironymous stops involuntarily, and blusters, "What?"

Turning to walk backwards, she continues on as she says, "I don't like dragons, 'Agent.' I'll deal with your partner." Without another word, she turns and heads down an embankment to the crime scene.

Heironymous watches her descent for a few seconds before Salt reaches him. "What are you waiting for, partner?" she asks.

"Apparently, I'm staying here," he answers, sounding only slightly perturbed.

"What the hell?" balks Salt.

"It's her," he says, nodding in the detective's direction. "She told me to stay, and I stayed; can't go forward."

Agent Salt scoffs. "Damn, Heironymous," she says as she starts down the embankment. "I'm going to have to get her to teach me that trick."

"Crystal," calls Heironymous. She looks back at him. "Be careful of her."

His partner just nods, and continues down to the crime scene. Stepping up beside Jones, she looks down at the corpse, and says, "Agent Crystal Salt."

"Detective Pandora Jones. Paranormal Crimes Unit," she answers, never taking her eyes off the body.

The body is contorted, standing on its hands and feet in an inverted bridge pose, shuffling back-and-forth, and babbling in a language that nobody understands. The head is at an odd angle on account of the broken neck.

"What's it going on about?" Pandora wonders aloud.

"You tell me," says Salt. "You're the Ghostbuster."

Jones sighs. "It doesn't matter. It's not him. He's dead. The gibbering nuisance is a demon."

"Y'don't say," Salt deadpans.

"This boring you, Agent Salt?"

Crystal shrugs. "Yeah, kinda."

"Seen one supernatural freak, seen 'em all, then?" Pandora says with a little amusement.

"Girl," Salt sighs, "I could tell you stories." Shaking her head, she says, "So, what do we do about the Crab Man, here?"

Pandora just looks at Salt for a few seconds. She's not used to someone acting so casually about a case she's called in on. She chuckles lightly, and pulls a small, highly polished brown box from her pocket. She reaches her sequin-gloved hand palm out towards the body, and it flashes a bright flare. Whether it comes from her or from the glove isn't immediately apparent. "It's the glove," she says to Salt's unasked question.

The corpse collapses as a shadowy, growling something is thrown away from the body. It's sleek, and kind of humanoid, but with what looks like a tail and claws. It growls furiously, but then Jones tips open the box, and says, "Hope?" Something much like the shadowy form flies from the box, but appears to be made of bright, white flames. It grapples with the shadow, and drags it back into the box. The lid slams shut behind them of its own accord. Pandora puts the box back in her pocket, and turns to go up the embankment.

"Wait!" calls Salt, sounding perturbed.

Jones turns towards her with a questioning look.

"That's it?" Salt balks.

Jones taps the box through her pocket, and shrugs, "Demons go in, but they don't come out."

Salt looks stunned. "That simple?"

Pandora shrugs again. "Like I said when I got here- it's late. You want more action, go see a movie."

Salt just shakes her head as she watches the detective go.

"Agent Salt!" Pandora calls back, turning to look at her. "You have--" she starts, then seems to be searching for the right words. "You have a very interesting... timeline." She seems to be searching the air as she thinks about it, and then nods. "Yeah, 'timeline.' Even without the dragon." Then she turns to leave.

As she gets to the top of the embankment, she flips off Heironymous without saying another word to him, and keeps walking. Heironymous and Crystal just stare at each other for a long minute before she heads back up as well.

Alien Life As We Know It (S1:E1)

The smooth baritone voice of a station announcer calls out, "You're watching ISPN: The International Super Person Network!"

In HD where available

The voice of a male narrator says, "Welcome to Alien Life As We Know It."

Serene music starts to play.

"Earth. For thousands of years, we thought we were alone in the universe. Now, we know we were wrong. After all of our searching for intelligent life in the universe, aliens finally came to us- The Accord. We thought they were the first, but again, we were wrong. The Accord had long been preceded by Hyper-Parasites, or Parasitoids. You might know them by another name."

SUPERBUGS

"We first became aware of the Superbugs when Superblonde, the daughter of Osmosis, attacked Supermodel at the Richmond Rotunda, and revealed them to the world. With this revelation, other information soon came to light."

A clip of the U.S. President addressing the United Nations plays.

"The governments of the world have been aware of the existence of Superbugs for decades, and have worked actively to not only keep them a secret, but to wipe them out wherever they find them. They are considered a threat to public safety. They are attracted to fecal matter, and are easily destroyed if they're not bonded to a host. We have had measures in place to trap and destroy them since the Eighteen Nineties. As evidenced by Supermodel, Superblonde, and others like them, these measures are not one hundred percent foolproof."

"Not only are they 'not foolproof,'" continues the show's narrator, "but some are not sure that they can be wiped out, because it's believed that every meteor crater on the planet is a potential spawning ground for the Superbugs. Going all the way back to the oldest crater on Earth: the Vredefort Dome, created in South Africa some two-point-oh-two-billion years ago.

"However long ago they really appeared on Earth, our introduction to them was through Superblonde. We soon realized that many of the world's superpowered people were bonded with Superbugs. Through these people, Superbugs have irrevocably changed our lives- our very way of living. They're super strong... virtually impervious to harm... and they breathe fire. It's this last trait, and one of their most famous, that has gained them their best known moniker."

The Dragon Men

"There are easily a hundred Dragon Men across the planet, and that's just the ones we can put a name to. Here's just a brief list of some that have had world shaking impact:"

Special Agent Heironymous

"Before Superbugs were common knowledge, Special Agent Heironymous covered his secret with the claim that he was actually a dragon in human form. Although he's never spent time as a superhero, he was in Detroit on the Day of the Dragon Men, where he fought against The Accord. He was reportedly dispatched by the President of the United States himself, as Heironymous is a member of the U.S. Secret Service. Interestingly, there are rumors that he has been in the Secret Service for longer than humanly possible, and he's probably the only one of the Dragon Men who still sticks to his cover story. He stubbornly insists that he is a dragon, and not just a man empowered by a Superbug."

Hyperman (aka Super-American)

"Hyperman is the founder of the Super Corporation. Whe he started the company, he started going by the name Super-American, after the long-thought-lost World War II hero. He's responsible for the creation of The Sponsors, and Hyper-Parasites got their name from him once their existence had been revealed, as Hyperman had arguably been the most famous of the Superbug-powered people before the Day of the Dragon Men.

"On that fateful day, once the Accord was defeated, Super-American was killed by the Black Sultan, who had long been his arch-enemy."

The Black Sultan (aka Turkeyman)

"The Black Sultan is probably the one that best sheds a light on our darkest fears- a Dragon Man bent towards evil. Once empowered by a Superbug, The Black Sultan- quickly dubbed Turkeyman by the press- used his power to become enemy to Super-American, whom he saw as the very symbol of America and capitalism. This enmity found its culmination on the Day of the Dragon Men when Turkeyman fought Super-American for the final time, killing him. This quickly led to his death at the hands of another of the Dragon Men."

Supremacist (aka The Grand Dragon, aka The True American)

"Supremacist is sometimes called 'the biggest racist on Earth.' Once empowered by a Superbug, he took leadership of the Ku Klux Klan. That and his ability to breathe fire quickly earned him the moniker The Grand Dragon. Supremacist has always referred to himself as The True American. Bent on race war in America, Supremacist, like the rest of the planet's Dragon Men, put that aside long enough to battle The Accord. Once that war was won, Hyperman was killed by Turkeyman, and Turkeyman was in return killed by Supremacist who looked up to Super-American - a fact that Hyperman found detestable. Ironically, it was this act that heralded the return of the real Super-American who battled and defeated Supremacist."

Supermodel

"Supermodel was Hyperman's girlfriend, and the promotional face of the Super Corporation. After Hyperman's death, she took over the leadership of S-Corp. Her name is forever intertwined with the history of the Superbugs, as it was her fight with Superblonde that revealed them to the world."

Superblonde (aka The Blonde Bombshell, aka American Beauty)

"Her debut to the world not only revealed the existence of the Superbugs, but resulted in the death of several people, and the injury of many more when she fought Supermodel at the Richmond Rotunda. Indicted, she was convicted, and sentenced to work with the Major League. She served her time, eventually joined the Sponsors, and later moved to England where she joined The Protectorate, and became known as American Beauty."

Lord Protector

"Speaking of The Protectorate, they get their name from their leader, Lord Protector, although there have been two Lord Protectors so far. With exactly the same powers as American Beauty and any other Dragon Man, Lord Protector's impact on the world stage comes from the fact that he enforces the will of England's monarch, Iron Liege."

Ankara (aka Odalisque, aka The Sweet Sultan)

"After the death of Turkeyman, Ankara took the sultanate of Turkey for herself in order to fill the vacuum of power there. Strategically, she offered asylum to The Accord refugees stranded on Earth after the Day of the Dragon Men, and used Superbugs in her possession to transform the Black Sultan's former harem into The Harama. Despite all of this, and although Turkey is a closed state, Ankara has become known to the world as The Sweet Sultan."

The Harama

"Feared the world over should they ever step outside Turkey's borders, The Harama are the women who had been trafficked to Turkey by The Black Sultan. In revenge for their 'treatment at the hands of men,' The Harama embarked on a genocidal swath across Turkey that killed all but about eight percent of the Turkish male population."

Heavyweight (aka Champion of the World)

"Not much is known about Heavyweight. He became known to most on the Day of the Dragon Men. Wearing gloves that somehow increased his strength, he launched himself at the Accord ship like a missile, bringing it down, but destroying Detroit in the process. He currently resides there, monitoring the Motor City that has built itself on the ruins, and is dedicated to rebuilding it."

Idol

"Before we knew about the Superbugs, Richard Idol claimed to be empowered by the old gods of the Mayans. He was worshiped by some, and took over a good portion of the Yucatan jungle. It is believed that he wiped out much of the drug trade there, but also rumored that he took over the drug trade himself. He fought alongside the rest of the Dragon Men to defeat The Accord. Once that battle was won, he went back to the Yucatan."

Cassiopeia

"Leader of The Accord, it was Cassiopeia's will that the Accordian hive mind centered on. The computer intelligence known as Crayniac nearly took over The Accord, but it was the combined effort of Cassiopeia and Doctor Boom that pushed Crayniac out, and led to it merging with Doctor Boom. Cassiopeia initially took asylum in Turkey with the rest of the Accord refugees, but was made persona non grata a short time later. Her current whereabouts are unknown."

The Accord Refugees

"Although hive-minded, The Accord was not a single race, but many races that had been convinced to 'be in accord.' Most are in Turkey, adding to that country's might. In addition to Cassiopeia, a few of the known members of The Accord are: Antarmada, Aquila, Centaurus, Corvus, Draco, and Lupus. There are others of course, but these have become the most known."

Newsman and Cameraman

"And then there's me," says the narrator as he appears onscreen. "You've come to know me as Newsman- the Dragon Man who's willing to follow the stories wherever that may lead me. And my Cameraman- also a Dragon Man- who films the stories I report. And thanks to ISPN, whether Dragon Men or some other extraterrestrial, I'll be reporting them to you here, on Alien Life As We Know It. Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time."

The Seven Deadly Days of Danger Man

Sunday

On Sunday, Danger Man was seeking the Circle of Seven. This team had long been his worst enemies, and he had heard that they had a plan to traverse the timestream in order to bring back a dragon for him to duel. He dueled dragons all the time, but it was tiresome, and they'd sometimes eat bystanders before he could beat them- very vexing. Since this dragon was coming from another time, chances were that it would be particularly problematic. Danger Man just didn't understand why the Circle of Seven hounded him so. Nor why they were called the Circle of Seven when there were only six of them.

Unfortunately, though Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest, there was no rest for Danger Man. He had to stop a volcano in Venezuela, a tidal wave in Taiwan, and an avalanche in the Andes. By the time he had neutralized these natural disasters, the day was nearly done, and he had to get home to feed Desmond, his diamondback snake. The last time he forgot to do that, Desmond ate his companion, Danger Dog, and the Society of Super Pets had refused to let him have a new superdog since.

Monday

On Monday, The Circle of Seven devised a set of dastardly deeds with which to defeat the dreaded do-gooder, Danger Man. They had tried to demoralize Danger Man a decade ago by doing in his companion, Danger Dog, but their diamondback operative, Desmond, had defected. This left them a bit downhearted until Desmond decided to dine on Danger Dog anyway for reasons that were unknown to them. But these new schemes would surely send the superhero to the insane asylum if they were successful. They had already done a dry run the day before with an Unnatural Disaster Deadly Energy Ray, built by one of their members. Having kept Danger Man busy all day with the U.D.D.E.R., they now contemplated ways to continue to keep him distracted until their diabolical genius was done with the time machine, which he promised would be the big finish to finally fix the fate of their foe, Danger Man.

While the Circle of Seven finalized their fearsome plans, they had kept Danger Man busy with a giant robot moth that they'd sent to eat Tokyo. Danger Man had help from the gigantic Godzilla, but it didn't go as well as it could have. Due to the fact that Godzilla breathes fire, and looks somewhat like a dragon, Danger Man couldn't decide if he should duel Godzilla, or defeat the robot. Once Godzilla had singed his suit, but then turned his attention to the giant moth, Danger Man decided that perhaps helping defeat the mammoth mechanical moth monster was the way to go.

Tuesday

Rubies were needed to power the time machine being built by their diabolical genius, so on Tuesday, the Circle of Seven sent a pretty pink Pythopotamus to rob the Ruby Return. The Ruby Return is like the Diamond Exchange, but more alliterate. A Pythopotamus is part python, and part hippopotamus, but you may have already guessed that. It was also gigantic, because one of the Circle of Seven had a thing for commanding titanic creatures with which to torture citizens.

Caught in the coils of the pretty pink Pythopotamus, Danger Man was squeezed into unconsciousness, and left among the rubble of the Ruby Return, while the Pythopotamus departed with its purloined prizes. You might think that the Circle of Seven could have been rid of Danger Man right then and there, and you'd be correct, but fortunately for the fate of our hurting hero, the Pythopatamus thought itself much too pretty to commit a crime as hateful as hero homicide. And besides, not one of six of the Circle of Seven had given such an order, as it would have wasted what was looking like a week's worth of work to whip the time machine into working order. And wouldn't that just disturb their diabolical genius to no end?

Wednesday

Danger Man had dirtied three of his costumes on Sunday when dealing with the U.D.D.E.R. disasters, Godzilla had singed the fourth one on Monday when they battled the giant moth, and the Pythopotamus had stretched the fifth one out of sorts on Tuesday when it squeezed him into unconsciousness. He had a sixth costume which he was wearing now, and it was only Wednesday, so Danger Man spent the day doing laundry.

If he hadn't, then he would have had to spend Thursday at the laundry mat wearing only his Danger-briefs, and a paper bag over his head to keep his identity secret. It had perhaps worked for Arachnerd in the past, but he was concerned that he could get cited for indecent exposure, even though wearing only his Danger-briefs was little different from wearing swim trunks in public, and people didn't seem to mind when The Swimmer did it.

Still, he preferred to clean his clothes before trouble arose, because the only costume he had after this one was much too formal for fighting anything. He wore it to parties and fundraisers when they came up, but he usually saved it for Saturdays as he was a Seventh Day Adventist. Besides, the formal costume was dry clean only, and the cleaners charged extra for costume repair.

The Circle of Seven had been preoccupied with cleaning on Wednesday as well. It turns out that a pretty pink Pythopotamus isn't a very stable genus of genetic engineering, and in a spectacular splash of self-destruction, it splattered all six of the Circle of Seven with pretty pink Pythopotamus goo. And thanks to their teammate's penchant for particularly leviathanic lizards, that was a lot of goo gumming up the great hall of their headquarters. It also decidedly delayed the debut of the device being designed by their diabolical genius.

Thursday

Needing to distract Danger Man from discovering their putrifacted plans, the Circle of Seven spent Thursday enacting an elaborate but breathtaking break-in of Danger Man's Palacio de Peligro. Their goal? None other than to kidnap their former ally, Desmond the diamondback. Succeeding in snatching the slithering snake, they returned to their secret headquarters which still had the stale smell of pretty pink Pythopotamus goo.

They had managed to multiply the mess with a mixture of their scientific and mystical knowledge, and turned half of it into a gargantuan green Gorillaphant- because apparently they didn't learn from the pretty pink Pythopotamus mishap- which they sent to fight Danger Man. Fighting the Gorillaphant is how Danger Man spent his day.

The other half of the mess they fought over, and it caused two accidents. The first was that it made Desmond into a very large purple diamondback. The second was that it smashed the six members of the Circle of Seven into a single sentient pile of pink goo resembling a big, bubbling brain that called itself the One Mind. It had all of their knowledge, but had the misfortune of being ruled by their diabolical genius.

Desmond attempted to stop the One Mind.

Friday

All of Friday, Desmond and the One Mind fought, until Desmond managed to swallow it. Unexpectedly, the One Mind took over Desmond, and the diabolical genius declared himself Desmond Diamondback! Desmond Diamondback then began to form his plan to finally fix Danger Man. To begin, he sent the hero a cryptic message that was supposedly from Danger Dog.

Saturday

Oops! We're out of time! Tune in tomorrow, Danger Fans, for the thrilling conclusion of The Seven Deadly Days of Danger Man!

Wild Dog and The Punisher: Doubling Down! The Return and Retreat of Killer Bea

Sitting together in the red truck, the man in the hockey mask and jersey asked the man with the skull on his shirt, "Tell me again how we got this?"

Loading bullets into his clip, the man with the skull on his shirt answered, "The Legonzas recently lost their boy, Joey - a trafficker of girls, and general scumbag.* The Carmontis recently lost their capo, courtesy of yours truly. Now--"

"--Wait a minute! You killed Carmonti? That's my girl's father, man!"

The man looked up from his gun. "You care?"

The other tsked from behind his mask. "Nah, man. She's gone, thanks to jerks after that douchebag. Him and everyone like him can go straight to hell for all I care. Just surprised is all, Frank."

"It's Punisher, Wild Dog. At least while we're doing this."

Wild Dog scoffed. "Sure. Whatever."

Frank nodded towards the clubhouse of the White Pines Country Club. "Anyway, sending everyone like him to hell is exactly why we're here. This wedding is meant to cement their families together. I don't plan to let that happen. Time to crash the party."

Wild Dog popped the clip into his machine pistol, and checked his nine millimeter. "I'm all about that."

"Let's go," said Frank, and they both got out of the truck and headed for the clubhouse.

They had barely gone twenty yards when security noticed them coming. Frank shot one, Wild Dog shot another, and then the Punisher lobbed a grenade straight for the clubhouse. It landed five feet from one of the floor-to-ceiling windows near the main ballroom. It both fragged the security in range, and blew them an entryway through the glass and brick.

The clubhouse was thrown into a panic. While most scrambled for other exits besides the one made by the grenade, surviving security started trying to find positions to fire from. Punisher and Wild Dog were taking them out pretty easily- adrenaline giving them laser-like focus.

Until they heard a woman from inside scream, "Hold your fire! Those motherfuggers are MINE!" As the firing died down, a woman in a form fitting, black-and-yellow striped dress stepped out of the gunsmoke, and through the gaping hole in the wall.

Wild Dog stopped short, and threw his mask off to get a better look. "No way! Beatrix?! Is that you?"

"What the--? Rene? What the fug are you doing here?" she said.

"You two need a minute?" Punisher asked with a growl.

"Oh, sh!t!" Beatrix said when she saw the Punisher. She dove behind a huge cement planter for cover.

Rene looked at him and shrugged, "Hey, man, look at her. Back in the day, we had a thing, y'know?"

Punisher scowled. "Jack Wheeler must be turning over in his grave."

"Hey. Fug you, man," Rene said, pulling his mask back down. "Not everyone hates their past, ass."

Without another word, they stalked forward as one.

"Castle! I've had about enough of you," shouted Beatrix. "You're making me look bad!"

"Killer Bea," said Frank. "It's not me. It's that dress. You really got married in that?"

"I'm the maid of honor!" she shouted, firing a few shots from behind the planter.

"Demoted from bodyguard, then?" Frank called, provoking her.

Killer Bea screamed, then shouted, "Kiss" blam "my" blam "black" blam "and yellow" blam "ass" blam "bitch!" klik

"Damn, Bea!" called Wild Dog. "Sounds like the only thing you're shootin' off now is your mouth!"

A nine millimeter came spinning through the air from the middle of the topiary in the planter. "You're still an ass!" she screamed as she ran low behind the patio wall, heading for the parking lot.

"Say hi to your sister for me!" Wild Dog called back.

"You mother..." Bea trailed off as she got further away.

Wild Dog looked back at Frank, who was still scowling. He shrugged. "I make no apologies, man. She was fun."

Frank said nothing.

"So was her sister."

Cocking his head towards the ballroom, Frank seethed, "Can we get back to this now?"

Wild Dog snickered, refreshing his clip. "Sure, man. Hey! Jagoffs! You know she bailed on you, right?" A few shots rang out towards them. "Yeah, I think they know."

They moved in towards the patio as they started to take out shooters again. Finally, Frank smiled.

I stand very still in the darkest corner of the darkest room of this old plantation house- the library. It ain't much to look at these days. It's been pretty well looted by both North and South as troops come through looking for "hospitality" to resupply they needs. I think the sooner this war is over, the better it'll be for everybody- not just slaves.

The war ain't over yet though, and the South still trying to hold onto what they got, including slaves. And they trying to round up any runaways they can get they hands on. And if you a free black not working in they fields, then you must be a runaway. I ain't been a slave in a long time- since well before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Not since... well, it was a dark night then too, pretty much like this one.

The moon is near full, but it's hidden behind clouds that have been threatening to storm all day, so it's no help to anyone for lighting the house. Which is good for me, since there are a dozen men inside looking for me right now. Not just because they think I'm a runaway slave, but also because they think I'm the one they've called The Midnight Cowboy. A marauder and a thief of slaves who comes and goes like a night wind. A killer with dozens of men's blood on his hands.

And they right. That's me.

Candlelight flickers at the doorway before one of the men hunting me stalks into the room. All but my eyes are hidden behind a bandanna that is the same dark blue as my clothes, hat, and boots. That's right, even the boots- it cost a lot to have the leather dyed, but when I started hearing what they say about me, I thought maybe it might help if I looked like what was scarin' 'em.

It helps me blend into the shadows too. The shadows that the candlelight's not getting very far into- not that it would matter. I'm beside the man before he has a chance to notice. I stick my knife through the bottom of his mouth, douse the candle with my hand, and watch the light go out in his eyes. I lower him to the floor quietly, and hope I can get done with all this before he get cold.

I move quickly through the foyer, breaking the neck of the man that was left to guard the door before he can see me since he don't have a candle. I pass into the parlor, walking right up behind a man who decided to sit on a couch and wait for the others to find me. I cover his mouth with one hand, and plunge my knife into the top of his head with the other. I push him over on his side like he sleeping, and pinch the wick of his candle so the light go out. I cross the room to the doorway leading to the dining room, and run right into another man searching without a candle. He shouts as we fall together to the floor. I scramble to straddle him, and punch him hard in the face, knocking him out before slitting his throat.

I hug the wall and blend in with the shadows as the other men head my way. I hear 'em on the stairs, across the ceiling from the second floor, banging through the kitchen, and even a couple coming in through screen doors from outside. "He's this way!" one of them shouts. I head toward them, drawing my gun.

I shoot two men on the stairs- one at the bottom, and one about midway down. A shot clips my hat from the right, taking a piece off the brim. I back into a doorway by instinct, and take a shot down the hall that catches him in the cheek and through the back of his head.

Another shot whizzes by me from behind. I drop to the floor and blend into the darkness. The gunman shoots in that direction, but when he doesn't hit anything he shouts, "Hey, boy! Where'd you go? You better come out!"

I don't answer. He listens nervously as he hears a man cry out in pain from a bedroom. He hears two more shouts as I end men in the hallway. And he shoots one himself when he mistakes him for me as he enters the room.

"Boy! Where you at? You come out now, boy!" he screams, clearly afraid.

From the darkness, I growl, "Are you sure that's what you want?"

He jumps and shoots in the direction of my voice. "We gonna kill you, boy!"

"What we?" I ask from another spot. "It just you, now."

He whimpers and shoots in my direction again. "You may as well give up, boy! There ain't nowhere else to run!"

From behind him, I whisper, "Who's runnin'?"

He whips around and fires, but I just smile beneath my bandanna. I club his hand with my gun, and he drops his weapon. He screams, and I knock him to the floor. As I drop on top of him to hold him down, he screams, "Who are you?"

I lean into his face, and growl, "You know who I am! Say it!"

"Ohhh," he moans. "You are him! You're that Midnight Cowboy! But I shot you! Why ain't you dead?" he pleads, plainly terrified.

"Mist," I answer, knowing he won't get my joke. Just then, thunder crashes, and the clouds finally let they rain go like they been bustin' to do all day. It's loud, and pounds the ground and roof hard.

For a moment, I'm distracted by the ferocity of the storm, and the light from the lightning flashing outside. I feel the man's body go limp under me, and I figure he done fainted. I look back at him though, and another flash of lightning shows me that his eyes still open. Died of fright right there.

I stand up off the man, and look around. This was over quick. I walk back through the house silently, making sure I haven't missed anybody. I get back to the library, and find myself standing over the first man I killed. I look at him for a few seconds, and kneel down so I can feel his face. Just like I hoped, this all got finished before he got cold.

I pull the bandanna off my face, and let it hang around my neck. I take a long, deep breath through my nose, tilting my head back as I take in the smells of blood, candle wax, and gunpowder around me. I roar as I let my teeth grow out, and I fall upon the man's neck to feed. I'll do the same with his friends, and then I'll sleep. And tomorrow night, The Midnight Cowboy will ride again.

Black Panther: Dogs of War

Somewhere in Wakanda

The village was a smoldering ruin, and T'Challa strode into the midst of it in full Black Panther regalia, including the cape which Okoye had insisted upon. He didn't like it, and it felt especially ostentatious in this horror. He was not happy at what he saw. Everywhere he looked, people were wounded or dead, and the rest were crying over their loved ones. "Shuri, who did this?"

The speaker in his earpiece answered, "I do not know, brother, but there are a large number of heat signatures a few miles beyond the village. They are moving fast, but appear to be on foot, not in vehicles."

"My king!" called out one of the villagers. He was kneeling, with the limp body of his wife in his arms. "They were dogs that walked like men! There were many of them!"

Pulling his mask back, and kneeling before the man, he put a gloved hand on his shoulder to comfort him. After a few moments, he asked, "What happened to your defenses?"

"They were disabled. We don't know how." The man looked at his king for a long few moments until he was overcome once again, and he hugged his wife closer as he cried.

T'Challa stood, looked down on the man for a few moments, then around at the village. "W'Kabi," he said to the commander of his forces, "Go."

W'Kabi nodded, and ordered his men in pursuit.

As they left, a small drone floated up from behind, and settled at shoulder level for T'Challa. "Brother- my king," came the voice of Shuri. "Where are all of the children?"

T'Challa looked around, and realized that she was right. "This is a Jabari village. Contact Queen Divine Justice, and let her know that we may require the aid of her men."

"Immediately," answered Shuri, and the communications went silent.

T'Challa pulled his mask back on. Black Panther crouched, leapt, and backflipped onto the royal hovercraft. Okoye landed just behind him, and they started after W'Kabi and his men.

"We are at top speed, my king," said Okoye. "We will overtake them in minutes."

Black Panther made no reply. He only watched the terrain before them.

Minutes later

"My king, there they are," said Okoye. Then, in disbelief, she asked, "Are those--"

"--Werewolves," answered Black Panther. Looking below, many of the wolves ran in a pack, and each carried one or two terrified children in its arms. W'Kabi and his men surrounded them in their hovercrafts, like cowboys riding herd. Touching his earpiece, he said, "Shuri, send the mobile armory with the silver/vibranium weapons to our coordinates." With that, he cut communications. Just then, a grenade came from the ground. He whipped his cape around, and an energy shield formed ahead of him and the craft. The grenade exploded harmlessly against the shield.

"Aren't you glad you had the cape?" asked Okoye as she put the craft on auto-pilot.

Panther merely glanced over his shoulder, and Okoye raised an eyebrow as he shrugged the cape off. Then both of them leapt into the throng. He slashed at werewolves with his claws, and Okoye used her spear. Both of them could do little but take the children they wrenched from the wolves' grips, and throw them aside. W'Kabi's forces swept the children up in nets, and hauled them onto the hovercrafts, a bit battered, but safe.

"W'kabi!" shouted Black Panther over his communicator. "Check the children! Isolate any with scratches or bites!"

Just then, Panther was tackled, and the two tumbled to one side. "The kiddies are fine, mate!" said the attacker. "No money in 'em if they're damaged. Worry 'bout yourself."

T'Challa came to a stop in a crouch, and narrowed his eyes at his attacker. "You are not a wolf."

"Nope. Name's Dingo. Nightshade made me more like m' namesake, and then let me rent some of her boys for this trip."

"For what purpose? Stealing children from their families?" growled the hero.

"Well, yeah, mate! Your closed off little country is a media black hole! No one knows what goes on here, so no one cares! Perfect place for grabbin' kiddos for the black market!" The dog-man laughed, yipping as he did so.

"You would profit through the exploitation of children? My people's children?! Raaaaaghhhh!" Black Panther roared in anger as he leapt at Dingo. He swiped at the villain's head with his claws, but only nicked one of his ears. Dingo caught Panther with a punch to his midsection when the hero flew over his head, and used it to throw him into the surrounding pack of werewolves. His armor glowed purple everywhere that it was hit.

The werewolves were about to pounce when they were distracted by a bright flash in the sky. Overhead, the massive Wakandan mobile armory emerged from a hole in the sky. Immediately, silver/vibranium-tipped spears fell from the sky, raining down on the pack of wolves, killing some, wounding others, and some merely sticking in the ground. One landed in Dingo's foot, making him howl loudly. One warrior staying with each craft to protect the children, W'Kabi's forces descended from their hovercrafts, and took up the newly-arrived weapons to join in the battle against the werewolves.

Over his earpiece, T'Challa heard, "Black Panther! This is Manifold! SHIELD sent me, and their regards." Before the monarch could ask how, Manifold answered, "Thank your sister!" Then just like that, he and his wormhole were gone.

As he jumped to his feet and charged Dingo, Black Panther growled, "Thank you, sister!" He hit Dingo full force, the tackle ripping his foot free of the spear that pinned him to the ground, and making Panther's armor glow more purple than before.

"YAAARRRGGHHHH!" cried the wounded animal man.

"W'Kabi!" growled T'Challa over the communications.

"My king?" replied his commander.

"Put down these dogs!"

And the fight was on. Panther swiped his claws against Dingo, and Dingo rained blows on Panther, making the armor glow more and more. W'Kabi and his forces used the silver/vibranium weapons to end many of the werewolves. Finally, Panther threw Dingo away from him, leapt toward the centermost mass of werewolves, and landed in their midst with a punch to the ground. All the built up kinetic energy in his armor transferred to the punch, and the shockwave sent werewolves and Wakandans alike flying, knocking most out.

T'Challa looked up at the armory, and said, "Send down more troops immediately, and finish these werewolves." He looked over to the fallen Dingo just in time to see a square of white light materialize beneath him before he disappeared. His growl was guttural as he seethed, "Doom!"

Castle Latveria

As Dingo materialized on the Time Platform, he began to come to. He was still groggy when Doctor Doom grabbed him by the throat, and hauled him off the floor. "Fool! Have you taken leave of your senses?"

Dingo merely gurgled. His eyes grew large when he looked over Doom's shoulder, and saw Nightshade tied to a giant X at the end of the room, nearly lifeless.

"I sent you and Nightshade's dogs to Wakanda to attack its people, and to draw out their leader, killing him if you were able!"

Dingo gasped, "That's... urk... what... we... did... urk."

"Did I say anything about taking their children?!" Doom roared. Not waiting for an answer, he raged, "Do you not know that every year I fight Mephisto himself for the soul of my own mother?!" Dingo, holding onto Doom's armored wrist with both hands, merely gasped. Doom roared, "DO YOU?!" He turned and threw Dingo into the wall near Nightshade, and the dog-man slumped to the floor.

Wakandan Royal Palace

"My king," called Okoye from the door of T'Challa's private chambers. "You have a package. It's from Latveria." The package hovered next to her on a small Wakandan hover transport.

T'Challa touched his necklace, and the Black Panther armor formed around his body. He tapped it again, and the mask flowed off of his head. "Have you--"

"--Scanned it? Of course," answered Okoye, sounding almost offended.

T'Challa laughed lightly. "Fine, Okoye. Let's open it then." He touched a button on the package with one of his claws, and the box hissed, the top popping open only slightly. A stench emanated from it that made both recoil slightly. The monarch held out his hand, and Okoye handed him her spear. He tipped the box open with the weapon, and was shocked to see the heads of Dingo and Nightshade. Attached to Dingo's ear was a note. Pulling it free, T'Challa read:

My attack was meant for you,

not your nation's children.

Find enclosed a sample of the cure

for Nightshade's lycanthropy,

along with instructions for its manufacture.

I extracted it from her myself,

and it has been tested.

The note bore the flag of Latveria at the top, and Victor Von Doom's personal seal at the bottom.

Okoye growled, "Is this his idea of an apology?!"

Her rage shook T'Challa from his concentration on the note. "Wha...? Oh, yes, it is. Don't worry, Okoye. We will deal with Doom another time." Handing Okoye her spear, he started for the door, ready to start his day as king.

"What should I do with this?" she said, indicating the package.

Without looking back, T'Challa answered, "Burn it. Then bury it."

Okoye looked at the box, then spat in it. Tipping it closed with her spear, and waving at the hover transport's motion sensors, she left to carry out her king's orders. "Good riddance," she said with no satisfaction.

*******

NOTE: Dingo is my OC for this story. The bit about Doom fighting Mephisto for his mother's soul was from What If? #22- one of my favorites. -cb

The Coming of Dick Laser

A bullet whizzes by, just missing the man and woman hiding behind the freight car, but hitting the fuel tanker several tracks over. "Miss Mann, get down!" The man pushes the woman to the ground, shielding her with his own body as the tanker explodes. As the explosion subsides, the man stands up. Peeking around the back end of the freight car, he pumps his shotgun. Reaching back without looking, he offers his hand to help Miss Mann up. As she gets to her feet, he says, "It's time for me to lay down the law."

"Hart! No! Don't do it!" cries the woman.

"I have to, Anita," he says grimly. "It's all--"

"--We interrupt this broadcast of Kohl's Law for this breaking news. We take you now to the Channel Seven Newsroom with Phillip Thyme and Paige Webb."

Channel Seven Newsroom

"Hello, I'm Phillip Thyme," says the grim-looking news anchor.

"And I'm Paige Webb," says the co-anchor, looking equally grim.

Phillip looks at the camera and says, "A situation has developed downtown where armed gunmen have attempted to rob the Larsen City Bank. Police having arrived on scene before they could make their getaway, the gunmen have taken the employees and afternoon customers hostage."

Sounding deeply concerned, Paige adds, "We take you now to our man in the field, Mike Rofon. Mike?"

Looking to the monitor behind them, Mike Rofon appears center screen. Flashing police lights can be seen behind him, as well as uniformed officers, fully armored S.W.A.T. personnel, and bystanders crowding the yellow taped cordons.

His hand to his earpiece, leaning in towards the camera as he listens for his cue, there are a few seconds of delay as the sound reaches the field reporter. Finally, he nods, and answers, "Phillip, Paige, you've already summed up the situation here, and it is tense! Larsen S.W.A.T. are onsite, and have taken command of the situation. We've been told that snipers are in place, and a hostage negotiator is about to attempt contact with the gunmen insi--"

Mike's words are cut short as the gathered crowd becomes excited, pointing at the sky. The camera pans upwards, then swings down quickly to catch the superhero landing of a man clad in nothing but red bikini swim briefs that appear to be made of hard plastic.

Mike fumbles briefly, but falls back on narrating what he sees. "Phillip, Paige, a man has just flown onto the scene. I'm not sure who he is, but--"

Larsen City Bank

"Hey!" shouts the S.W.A.T. captain. "Who the hell are you?" Looking at the spot where the man landed, he adds, "Great, just what we need- another pothole."

Fists on his hips, skin glistening in the sun, the African-American man turns towards the captain, flashing a perfect white smile. "Name's Dick Laser. I'm here to help." He walks towards the captain, hand extended for a handshake.

"Aw, give me a break," grouses the captain. "Get the hell behind the cordon, and for God's sake, put something on!"

A couple of S.W.A.T. officers move in to escort the man to the edge of the cordon, but he brushes them aside casually, which sends them stumbling back several feet. "Captain, trust me," he says as he reaches for a bullhorn set on the command table next to the S.W.A.T. van, "I've got this."

The captain protests "Hey!" but is cut off by Laser speaking through the bullhorn.

"Attention, inside the building! My name is Dick Laser!" Raising his free hand above his head, and turning completely around as he starts towards the building, he continues, "As you can see, I am completely unarmed! I'd like to come inside, and see if we can resolve this peacefully!"

Panicked, the captain shouts to his men, "Get those people back! Now!"

The uniformed officers herd the crowd back quickly, just in time as automatic gunfire rages from inside, pelting Dick Laser and the area immediately around him. Fortunately, most of the bullets that miss him hit the S.W.A.T. van behind him. The crowd soon disperses from the front of the bank, hiding behind cars, and ducking into nearby buildings.

Unharmed by the bullets, Laser continues towards the bank doors, ripping one open with his free hand, and walking inside. "I'm only here to negotiate!" he declares over the bullhorn.

The answer is more gunfire. When that doesn't stop him, two of the gunmen quickly rush him. Dick doesn't resist as they hurry him inside, out of sight of the police. He gives them the bullhorn. "You can use that to communicate with the S.W.A.T. officers outside."

"Shut up!" growls one of the gunmen, hitting Dick in the stomach with the butt of his machine gun, only to have it crack on the man's abs. "What the hell?"

The second man runs his hand through Dick's hair, looking for any hidden weapons, which Laser tolerates patiently. When the man reaches for his trunks, Laser grabs the man's hand quickly, and spins to face him. "DON'T... touch... the trunks," he says seriously, but he doesn't fight the men. As they reach the bank's main lobby, he can see the hostages lined up in front of the teller counters, and three gunmen positioned behind them. Another takes aim at Dick from the vault, and one from either side of the bank's front windows, behind him.

"Eight men?" asked Dick. "Must be anticipating a big score then?"

"I'll ask the questions here," growls the man with the cracked gun. "What the hell's with the plastic underwear? And why is it glowing?"

Dick looks down at his briefs and the weird red light that pulses across them. "Oh, that," he chuckles. He raises an eyebrow and smirks as he says, "Long story."

"Amuse me," said the gunman. "What are you? One of them freaky Dragon Men?"

Dick shrugs. "That is why I'm bulletproof, but these?" he says, indicating the briefs. "Well, would you believe alien abduction?"

The men and even some of the hostages laugh. "No," says the man nearest him.

"It's true. I was out for an early morning run on the beach when I was beamed up by aliens. They... did things. Yes, probably what you're thinking, and more. They probed, they implanted, they ran tests, and by the time they sent me back, I was packing some cybernetic enhancements. Including one," he says, flicking his eyes downward with raised eyebrows, "that shoots lasers. Trouble is, that doesn't work like they expected, so I couldn't just aim it at will. So they took the swim trunks I was wearing when they captured me, replaced them with these special alien quartz things, and--"

"Whattaya take me for," the gunman interrupted angrily. "You think I've never seen X-Men? Your cyclops shoots lasers, and is hidden behind quartz to keep it from getting out of control? Really?!"

Laser laughs. "Well, no. The quartz material is part of the cybernetic enhancements. It doesn't contain the lasers. It helps me aim. Well, that and the targeting computer linked to the enhancement. I don't call it 'Cyclops' though. I call it 'Prince Albert.' You know, because... well, you get that."

The man with the cracked gun says, "You a wise guy? My name is Albert."

"Oh? You don't say," says Dick. "Al? Eight."

"Targeting," his shorts answer.

"What the hell," gasps Albert as he and the other gunman back away.

Dick Laser doesn't answer. He just puts his hands behind his head, laces his fingers together, closes his eyes, and thrusts his hips. As he gyrates, lasers shoot quickly in different directions, taking down all of the gunmen. Opening his eyes, he throws his arms wide, stomps once, and yells, "Wooo! Way to go, Al!" Grabbing the bullhorn from the floor, he turns towards the door, and shouts, "This is Dick Laser! The gunmen are down, and the hostages are coming out!" Turning to the hostages, he says, "Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll please head for the exit quickly, and keep your hands above your heads, the police will escort you to safety."

The hostages waste no time complying, and soon they're all safely out of the building, and the would-be robbers are rounded up by the police. Dick stands on the bank steps, smiling triumphantly, when the S.W.A.T. captain storms up to him angrily. "You! That was a hell of a stunt you pulled! Wh--"

"Captain! You're welcome," says Dick with a smile.

The captain is caught off guard momentarily at the man's audacity. "Get the hell out of my crime scene," he finally growls angrily.

"Happy to help," says the hero. Then he shouts, "Dick Laser! Awaaaay!" as he leaps into the sky and flies off.

"Seriously?" mutters the captain. "Is there no end to these freaks?"

Channel Seven Newsroom

The camera having swung upward to catch the departure of Dick Laser, it now swings back down to Mike Rofon, again center screen on the newsroom's monitor. "Phillip, Paige, as you just saw, the situation here has been resolved by the intervention of a new hero called, believe it or not, Dick Laser. I'm not sure we could possibly see much more of him, but I'm sure that we will see him again in the future! For now, we're just glad that the situation has been defused, and all of the hostages have been rescued. Back to you."

"Thanks, Mike," says Phillip, turning towards the camera. "Tense afternoon at the Larsen City Bank, now resolved by another Larsen superhero."

"And here's hoping we see more of Dick Laser when the need arises," says Paige with a smile.

"For Channel Seven News, I'm Phillip Thyme."

"And I'm Paige Webb."

"And with Mike Rofon in the field," adds Phillip, "we thank you for tuning in to this breaking news. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming after the following messages. We'll be back at six and eleven with the evening's normal news coverage, as well as any updates to this amazing story. Good day."

"Good day, Larsen," adds Paige.

The camera pulls back from the closeup, the news team's theme music plays, and the Channel Seven News logo appears onscreen. An announcer states, "We now return you to Kohl's Law."

"Oh, Hart! That was amazing!" gushes Anita.

"That was nothing," he says, then pulls Anita into an embrace and a long kiss.

They turn and walk away, each with an arm around the other. Just as their bodies are fully in frame, Anita's voice is heard saying, "I think you might need to lay down the law again," and she reaches down and squeezes Hart's butt. Hart's body stiffens in surprise, the theme music plays, and the show cuts to the credits.

Benny Fitz's Benefits

The Gold Bar, New York City

Benjamin Fitzgerald, aka Benny Fitz, wasn't just an enforcer. He was Goldface's enforcer. Goldface gave him a name, and he went and took care of business, whether that was kicking their ass, or something a little more permanent. Enough times that he kept a shovel and a mattock in the trunk for when he needed it. Whatever the job, he loved to take the person's jewelry when he was done- especially rings, and especially if they fit his fingers. He called them "Benny Fitz's benefits," and he had a pretty decent collection piling up in an old chicken bucket on his kitchen counter.

Fitz had been with Goldface a number of years, and the only thing he was better at than being an enforcer was playing cards. So when that barfly, Kyle, dropped a gold ring into the pot in a last ditch effort to win his money back from Benny, he recognized it immediately. Guy Gardner had used it to toss him and the rest of the guys around once. It's not something he'd forget easily. "Rayner, where'd you get that? It's damn sure not yours."

Kyle almost looked scared. "Ah, crap. It's not yours, is it, Fitzy? I found it out in the alley earlier." A bit sheepishly, he added, "Too much to drink- I had to puke."

Benny laughed. "Nah, kid, it's not mine, but I know the guy it belonged to. Too bad for him. 'Finders keepers,' right? You can cover your bet with it if you want. Call."

"Alright!" exclaimed Kyle as he laid down his cards- two kings, and three jacks. "Full house! Ha, haaa!" he said excitedly, sure of his win.

Benny smirked, and laid down his cards slowly, one-at-a-time. "Let's see... I've got a queen, and one, two, three, oh! Look at that! Four deuces," he said smugly. "And 'losers weepers,' huh, kid?" He reached for the pot, and plucked the ring off the top. Putting it to the middle finger of his right hand, he said, "And lookit that- just my size! Benny Fitz's benefits, yeah?"

Kyle rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, and slumped back in his chair, looking a bit lost. "Yeah, Fitzy, lucky you."

Fitz took a couple of twenties out of the pot, and dropped them in front of Kyle. "Get yourself a cab home, Kyle. I think you've had enough tonight."

Rayner dropped a hand on top of the bills, and dragged them to the edge of the table as he stood up. Pocketing the money, he said, "Thanks, Fitzy. I'll see ya around," and he weaved away towards the bar to ask to use the phone.

Benny turned the ring around on his finger for a minute or so before asking aloud, "Now what am I going to do with you, little ring?"

"Ninety-five percent charge remaining. Awaiting commands," stated the ring.

Benny arched his eyebrows at that. Pursing his lips for a few seconds, he smiled quickly, then said, "Well, then. I think it's time I gave Goldface my notice."

The Gold Bar, New York City, Owner's Office, One Week Later

The "office" was most of the Gold Bar's second floor. It had a large desk at one end, a meeting table next the floor-to-ceiling windows on the industrial side of the building, and a private bar, and large, comfortable couches and chairs near the matching windows on the side of the building with the view of Central Park. There was a fireplace at the other end of the room, and above it, Goldface's helmet was mounted on a large trophy plaque- a neat hole in the back of it, right in line with the one in the faceplate.

Benny was seated on one of the couches, sipping champagne with a couple of ladies, and enjoying the view from his new office when a couple of his guys crashed through the double doors, breaking them down. A few seconds later, in walked a cape he'd never seen before. He was wearing a black-and-white costume with a gaudy, red and orange cape with yellow stars. His head and hands glowed, and he was rubbing a ring on his right hand. "I am Starfinger," the cape declared, "and you have something that I want."

"That so?" asked Benny, as his two companions ran for another door.

Rubbing his ring a little harder, two women appeared next to Starfinger. "Yes. The ring you wear. Starlight and Starbright here will relieve you of it."

Fitz scoffed. "That supposed to impress me? I can do that too," and with a wave of his hand, two yellow women appeared- mirror images of Starfinger's women. Only Benny's 'Starbright' held a shovel, while his 'Starlight' held a mattock. Faster than anyone could react, his constructs lashed out and knocked the real Starlight and Starbright out, making them disappear back to the ring on Starfinger's hand. "Starfinger, meet Starfist," Benny said mockingly.

Starfinger growled, and fired energy blasts at Benny. Without getting up from the couch, a yellow shield appeared around Fitz, and it simply absorbed the energy blasts. "Now at ninety percent charge," said the ring.

"Thanks for that," said Benny, "I've been losing charge all week." A big, yellow hand appeared from the ring, flipped his foe the bird, and then rammed the villain while staying in the form of the rude gesture.. "How's that for a star finger?" Benny said dryly.

Starfinger began crackling with energy, but Benny formed yellow spheres around his face and hands, and waited. Starfinger soon passed out from lack of oxygen. Leaving the spheres in place, Benny got up, walked over, formed a yellow shovel, and put it in Starfinger's neck. Letting all the constructs fade, Fitz looked at his attacker's body for a minute, then bent down, and took the ring off of his finger. "Starfist," he said to himself. "I like it." Placing it on the ring finger of his right hand, right next to his power ring, he rubbed it, summoning Starlight and Starbright. "Benny Fitz's benefits, yeah?" he said with a smile. "Ladies, would you like some champagne?"

*Picture was Get out, by Deborah Lee, on Inprnt.com.

The Origin of the Paper Tiger

Maharashtra, India

Armand Hammer had heard of Waghia, The Lord of Tigers, many times in his years of martial arts training, and he had spent a great deal of money and time to attempt to track him down. That search now had him traipsing through a jungle, hoping for his long-awaited audience with a god. As he neared a clearing, it appeared that his hopes were being rewarded.

A tiger approached him with a second one trailing behind, and a third trailing behind that one. The lead tiger carried a sword in its mouth, and its eyes trailed a low-hanging smoke; enough to make it appear that the other two cats stalked through fog. As it got within pouncing distance, Armand bowed to the beast, but held out a fist, ready to defend himself if he must. The sword still between its teeth, the great cat growled, "Get out!"

From behind, the other two cats echoed, "Get out! Get out!" There seemed to be a muffled chorus of like cries following them, but he could not tell if anything else was out there.

In a low fighting stance, Armand answered, "With respect, I cannot. I seek an audience with Waghia."

"And why should Waghia want to speak with you?" asked the second tiger as it came up and sat on its haunches, just behind the first tiger.

"I have trained many years," replied Hammer. "I wish to hunt men, like the tiger itself, and seek his blessing, in the form of whatever boon he is inclined to give me."

"Tigers do not hunt men," purred the third tiger, now reaching the group. It was her voice that had provided the echoes, as "hunt men" whispered in the air several times at the end of her sentence. Her tail wagged in short flits, and seemed to leave afterimages as it did so. She teased, "Unless they have tasted of man, and become maneaters. Are you a maneater then?" As she spoke, she dipped her head and rolled it upwards, leaving more afterimages, like her tail. A smile, a roar, a yawn, a snarl, a wink and a licking of her lips. "Are you?... Are you?... Are you?" drifted on the wind.

"I misspoke," said the human. "I will hunt men with or without your gift. However, as the tiger is the mightiest of hunters, what I wish is to learn the way of the hunt from the Lord of Tigers."

The first tiger chuckled, lowered its head, and let the sword drop softly to the ground in front of him. "Oh ho. I think you flatter us, manhunter. Do not humans call lions the king of the beasts?"

Armand gave a look of disgust, and waved off his accusation. "Bah! Lions let their lionesses do their hunting for them!"

"Careful," whispered the third tiger with a low growl, and all of her afterimages seemed to agree, as "Careful... Careful... Careful," echoed from each.

"I'm only saying that their males are lazy," retorted Hammer. "By what right do they call their groups 'prides?' What do they know of hunting? I wish to stalk my own prey, not have my meals brought to me by another."

The second tiger nodded slightly. "You are right to come to us for what you wish. We are hunters. Our groups are even called an 'ambush.'"

"Or a streak," added the third tiger, "streak" repeating all around them. "As in 'fast' and 'number of victories.'" And again, the afterimages echoed, "Victories... Victories... Victories."

"Oh ho," laughed Armand, imitating the first tiger. "Have I come to you then? I've come seeking Waghia."

"And you've found him," said the first tiger. "Blake called me 'Tyger Tyger, burning bright.' I am Fyyr; Waghia Today. I can give you this sword- the Baagh Nakh; the Tiger Claw- a weapon that can cut through nearly anything. And with it, the gifts of strategy and stealthiness; the best weapons of a hunter."

The second tiger stepped forward, coming alongside Waghia Today, and said, "I am Wotyr; Waghia Yesterday. I can give you the gifts of the tiger's reflexes and grace, and not carrying the wounds of past battles; an ability to heal quicker than most any man on Earth."

The third tiger stepped forward, past her compatriots, and circled Armand. Her afterimages circled with her, just out of sync; all of them looking him over from head-to-toe. "I am Wynnnd; Waghia Tomorrow." The jungle whispered, "Wynnnd. Wynnnd. Wynnnd." She seemed to smirk.

"Why do you leave afterimages when you move?" asked Armand.

"Because the future is not set," answered Wynnnd. "There are always multiple possibilities for tomorrow." She seemed to consider Armand for a few moments. Then she offered, "I can give you the ability to read your prey; to know their moves almost before they do."

"And why are you female when Fyyr and Wotyr are not?"

Wynnnd tossed her head back and laughed, her afterimages doing the same one-after-the-other just behind her. "I am a god! I can be whatever I like!" She seemed to grin, and licked one side of her mouth.

Wotyr spoke up. "Are these the boons that you have sought from us, Armand Hammer?" When Armand was visibly shocked to hear his name, Waghia Yesterday added, "We are gods."

Armand nodded slightly, and recovered himself. "These gifts are very generous, Lord of Tigers. Even more than I'd dared hope for."

"It's good that they are more than you'd hoped for," answered Fyyr, "because you may only choose the gifts from one of us. Not all."

The three Waghias could see that the man was clearly torn. They waited a long minute while he considered, but finally he answered, "I choose the Baagh Nakh, with your strategy and stealth."

Fyyr nodded, picked the sword back up in his mouth, and offered it to Armand, who took it reverently. He looked it over, and pointing at some etchings on the blade, he asked, "What are these?"

Wotyr answered, "It's Hindi- the name of the sword- Baagh Nakh. Tiger Claw will serve you well."

Armand turned the sword over, back-and-forth, admiring it as the light played over the blade. He ran his fingers over the etching, and asked, "Waghia Yesterday, Waghia Today, and Waghia Tomorrow, right?"

"That is correct," answered Wotyr.

"But you are all Waghia? In all my searching, I had been led to believe that there was only one 'Lord of Tigers.' Not three."

"There is only one," answered Fyyr. "We are Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, but we are all the same Waghia. What are you not understanding?" the tiger asked patiently.

"I am merely wondering," began Armand. "If I could only choose the gifts from one of you, and you are all the same Waghia, and now I have the Baagh Nakh, what is to stop me from taking all that you have offered?"

The three tigers all perked up in alarm. "You would dare?" growled Wynnnd.

"I dared to come all this way. I will not shrink back now!" shouted Armand. With that he launched himself forward, swinging the sword in attack against the Waghias.

They reacted swiftly, defending themselves with tooth and claw, their roars declaring their outrage. It was for naught. In seconds, the fight was over. Baagh Nakh had cleaved the tigers into pieces, and they were strewn across the jungle floor.

Armand had not gone without his injuries. His legs. His arms. His torso and back. His face. He was carved with claw and bite marks all over his body. He was on his knees before the bodies of the fallen god, leaning on the sword which he had stuck in the ground before him. He breathed heavily, considering each and every pain. As he sat there, he was astonished to see his wounds begin to close themselves. His pain subsided to nothing, and finally only the blood on his clothes showed that he had endured any wounds at all. He would have laughed, but his body was still recovering the blood loss, and he was simply too tired for it.

Instead, he said to the destroyed bodies before him, "Strategy was not unknown to me before I came here, but then you offered me yours. I knew if I could take that gift first, I could figure out how to get the others." Warily, he gripped the sword's hilt, and pulled against it to help himself up. Pulling it out of the ground, and wiping the dirt and blood from the blade on the sleeve of his shirt, he said, "Thank you, Waghia, for these boons. I will use them as the mightiest hunter men have ever known." He touched the tip of the sword to his forehead, and swiped out slightly, saluting the fallen tigers. Then he turned and walked towards the clearing, still full of the smoke from Fyyr's eyes.

As he was approaching the far side of the clearing, the pieces of the Waghias began to twitch. The hunks of meat evaporated into tendrils of smoke, and as the tendrils coalesced into bigger clouds, the bodies of Fyyr, Wotyr, and Wynnnd reformed, whole and unscathed.

Watching him reach the treeline on the far side of the clearing, Wotyr said, "Bold."

As he re-entered the jungle, Fyyr's eyes smoldered. He growled, "Brazen!"

As he melted into the shadows of the trees, Wynnnd purred loudly, and whispered, "Beautiful." The breeze seemed to echo, "Beautiful... Beautiful... Beautiful."

The Rise of the Octopus Man

New York. Two months ago:

A private eye finds his lawyer struggling with an octopus man. "It's not funny, Jeanine."

"Oh, Solomon! Get this thing off of me!"

"It's not funny, Jeanine. Turn him back."

"Solomon Seal! This is no time for games! Help me! Shoot it!"

"I said turn my brother back, Jeanine. Now."

Suddenly undisturbed by the tentacles entangling her, Jeanine looked at the private eye coolly. "Damn! How'd you know it was him?"

"He's wearing my dad's watch. He hardly ever takes it off. Plus I was expecting him. Now turn Titus back to normal."

After another minute of bickering, she rolled her eyes, huffed, snapped her fingers, and Titus turned back to normal. "Oh, relax, crabby. We were just having some fun. Weren't we Up-Titus?"

Atlantic end of the English Channel. Two months ago:

He sits on a coral throne at the bottom of the Channel. He has sat there so long that he himself is covered in coral. So covered in coral that if anyone were to discover him, they would think him to be some ancient, lost work of art, or perhaps the body of some long forgotten sailor. They would be partially right on both counts.

Now though, he hears once again the eldritch call of the magic that created him. Ever so slowly due to the coral that has attached itself to his eyelids, he opens his eyes. He attempts to shift, but at first doesn't budge. He exerts himself again, and a low moan goes out that sounds like a monster climbing out of a nightmare. Then another moan. Then another. And another. Finally, there is a shift in the silt around the coral throne. The moans grow louder, until finally the coral cracks and breaks with a loud, echoing crack that causes a school of small fish to change direction and flee.

He lifts one arm, then another, and then both of his legs. More of the attached coral cracks, and he shakes it off until he is able to walk out of the pile of it. The strange creature from the throne reaches up tentatively to feel its coral-covered head, then balls up his fists, and punches both sides sharply, causing the coral to break and fall away. This reveals an old diving helmet underneath. He stands there only a moment before several octopus arms wriggle out of the helmet's faceplate, blue rings all along them flashing their iridescence intermittently, and then he starts to walk.

As he does so, he begins to recall his life before the ocean.

Times forgotten:

He has had more names than he can remember, but the first that man ever bothered to remember to any degree was Tyr. The Norse god of war. The Sky Father. He who gave up his sword arm to see Fenrir bound by the silken chain made from Sif's slender lock. As the gods moved around the world, he would be known as Ares in Greece, and Mars in Rome. Still a god of war.

1758-1805:

Even in England. Intrigued by the way the Son of God had lived a mortal life to win a great victory, the war god decided to try it for himself. Born anew and whole in Norfolk, he grew into a flag officer and was known as Lord Horatio Nelson. Even there, he could not escape his true nature, as Lord Byron- a god in hiding himself- rightly called him "Britannia's god of war."

Britannia's wars took an eye from him, and true to his roots, he lost his right arm again as well, this time having to amputate it himself in a naval battle. This was the end of his mortal life as Nelson, as he returned to England to recuperate from his wound, and this is where he met Miss Fairchild.

Miss Fairchild had been hired as his nurse during his recuperation, and they had become quite taken with each other. It was some months before he found out her true nature as a vampyre and witch. What does a god care of these things though? Having not yet come back into the full of his own power, he asked Miss Fairchild to heal him.

Her own powers didn't quite extend into healing, but she did have a solution that shocked him to his core. Jeanine knew many things about animals. Even animals that lived beneath the sea. Something she knew about the octopus was that it could grow back lost appendages. She suggested that she could transform Lord Nelson into an octopus-human hybrid, he could grow back his own appendage, and then she could turn him back into a man. By this time, perhaps his godhood would have reasserted itself, and he could move on to his next life elsewhere.

The plan was carried out. A special water tank was built in Lord Nelson's library which would sustain him during his transformed state. While the construction was being carried out though, whispers of its purpose began to circulate among the house servants, and these soon spilled out to the community. Miss Fairchild performed her magics, Lord Nelson was transformed, and transferred from bed to tank.

The hybrid state was a strange one. His body was still mainly that of a man, but his head had become the body of an octopus. The head rested horizontally upon his neck, and the octopus beak pointed forward from roughly the position of the human mouth, surrounded by the eight tentacled arms of the octopus. Submerged in the tank, he found that he could breathe just fine, but as his head was now octopus, he could not speak.

Almost immediately, the house was stormed by commoners, nobles, and military alike. The tank was destroyed, and Lord Nelson might have been as well if the trauma of the attack had not brought on his godhood once again. Between his godly might, and the vampiric powers of Miss Fairchild, they were able to fight off their attackers and flee, but not together.

Miss Fairchild, now exposed, and in dread fear for her own life, boarded a boat for the Americas, and was never heard of in Britannia again. Most unfortunate for Nelson, for although a god once again, he found that he could not reverse this transformation, because it did not originate from his own power. In short, he was stuck in this octopus-man state until such time as he could find Miss Fairchild again.

Unable to explain his appearance or visage to his attackers, once he had them at bay, Horatio's only option was to flee. The chase led through the countryside and to the harbor, where he took to the water, and discovered that he could emit a dark cloud of ink to aid him in evading his pursuers, which he did. Once he had eluded them, he took to the seabed, and there he stayed while he tried to figure out how he could find Miss Fairchild again.

Of course he had thought of boarding another boat bound for the Americas. Unfortunately, he could not get around his odd appearance, and could not see any sailor doing so either. So he remained in the English Channel, biding his time. Eventually, he found a discarded diving helmet, and put it on to help protect himself against any potential predators. As the years passed, the possibility of reversing his fate gave way to anger, and then to despair as even revenge seemed unlikely. And so he sat on his coral throne, brooding until he became one with it.

Mid-Atlantic floor. One month ago:

Until thirty days ago when he felt once again the stirring of that strange magic that Miss Fairchild had used to transform him. Now, he followed the pull of it- as strong against him as the current against an anchor, but he moved with it willingly. As he did so, he felt the stirrings once again of hope. The hope of transformation back to man-god. The hope of new life after the ocean. The hope of revenge.

New York Harbor. Midnight tonight:

As he waded to the shore, that hope had turned into an all consuming desire. Revenge would be his. He would find Miss Fairchild. She would reverse his transformation. And then, as surely as he was a god, he would punish her. Cruelly. For ages. Be wary, Miss Fairchild, he thought. For I am coming. Revenge is coming. The Octopus Man is coming. I am coming. I...

New York City. Midnight tonight:

"HORATIO!" gasped Jeanine Fairchild as she jerked awake from her dream.

"Hm? What?" came the sleepy voice of the man stirring beside her.

"Nothing, Solomon. Go back to sleep," she said, wondering what her dream meant.

"Mnnn," he moaned in objection. "I don't know if I want to. I was having the strangest dream. Some guy walking underwater with a light-up squid for a head. Creepy."

"It's a blue-ringed octopus," Jeanine corrected absentmindedly.

"Oh, yeah, like that's better," said Solomon as he rolled over.

Then, "HEY! Wait a minute!" they both shouted. "You dreamed it too?!"

The Race

It was early on a Saturday morn', before the sun had shown.

I was cruisin' in my GTO, headin' on my way home.

The chrome was shined to the nines, and glowed in the full moon's light,

While the paint was just so blue and dark it nearly blended with the night.

These wheels of mine had tamed this road; we'd run it down for years.

We knew every last twist and turn, and in a race we had no peers.

But when you're king, you know one thing: someone wants your crown,

An' when they're beat, this here street will bring someone new to town.

It had gotten so I would just know when a challenger was game.

Sure enough, this road is rough, and today would be the same.

I looked up in my rearview mirror, and whatta you think I saw?

A phantom, hellbound eighteen wheeler, rollin' outta the fog.

The cloud that it was shrouded in seemed to come from its two stacks,

And the driver, if it had one, was hidden behind a window tinted black.

It's wheels were barely touching pavement, it's paint so red it gleamed,

And it just kept comin' down the highway, slowly gainin' like in a dream.

As it got closer, I got colder, but I managed to keep control.

I pushed my gas just a little harder, and let my two-door roll.

I looked back up into the mirror, and said, "You ain't gettin' me."

As if in answer, a shriek of laughter came over my CB.

Well that was all it took my man! A chill ran down my spine.

I slammed the shifter, and I punched the gas, and I let my car unwind!

We were screamin' down the highway, and I whispered, "What's your game?"

The CB crackled to life again, and said, "Tell me boy- what's your name?"

"Who are you callin' 'boy'?" I spat as I grabbed the CB mic,

And I answered, "My name's American Muscle, and I'm the king of this turnpike.

So if you wanna race this is the place, but don't think you're gonna win.

I'm gonna beat your ass so bad, you won't never show your face again!"

Fire spat from the truck's twin stacks, and it came roarin' up the road.

It got so close I got a gander at what it was carryin' for a load.

It was like a cattle car enclosed in bars, jam packed with souls he'd fought.

That's when I knew, "I just can't lose, and I damned sure can't be caught."

The driver blared his horn and laughed, and started tauntin' me:

"You think that you can outrun hell? Your loss is meant to be!"

I leaned my head just out the window, and shouted at the air,

"You're dreamin' son! It can't be done! I don't lose, and I don't scare!

But put your money where your mouth is. My car against your rig!

If my stake's my soul, then it's only fair your stake is just as big!"

The static crackle of the speaker became the laughter of that trucker,

Then he said, "You're already dead, but what you after, sucker?"

I gripped the wheel, took a breath, and said, "Those souls. I want 'em all.

Everyone you've chased to death; when you lose, I get your haul.

You're so sure you'll win? Let's bet then, because no one beats me behind the wheel.

Tell me, devil, if you're on the level... do we have a deal?"

The radio went silent, but that truck stayed there on my ass.

And for just a moment when I glanced, I saw eyes glowing in the tinted glass.

I couldn't help but smile as we ticked off miles, no sounds except our engines.

I knew for certain he must be hurtin' with the pounds of his decision.

Finally he roared, long and loud, over both radio and wind,

"Fine! We have a bet! But know this race will be your end!"

"From here to where the highway curves," I said, knowing he could hear.

"Last one there makes our bet square. While I'm waiting, I'll have a beer."

"You're all mine!" he howled as he made gears grind. "Another soul for my collection!"

"You're wrong," I said, "and about to get schooled. I call this course 'Correction.'"

Then just as planned we reached the span where the road becomes one section,

And I slammed the brake, and jerked the wheel, and shot in the other direction!

The driver laughed, "What have you done? I've already won! You've given up so fast?"

"Just keep thinkin' that," I answered back, "'Cause that laugh will be your last."

"What do you mean?" the devil steamed. "You've gone the other way!"

"I told you, demon, I am the king! So kiss my ring! The crown's still mine today!

I said 'from here to where the highway curves.' Well, that's back the way we came.

You better know who you're dealin' with when you try to run this game."

The truck jackknifed, and he howled for my life, because he was losin' face,

But it was too late, I was runnin' great, and I was about t'win this race.

Then the truck burned red like a furnace, and it flamed up like a rocket;

A last ditch effort to catch up, but this race was in my pocket.

The sun peaked over the horizon, this night about to become the past.

Just a few miles up ahead was the curve, and it was comin' pretty fast.

I can't lie, I was surprised, because that demon started gainin',

And I knew he had somethin' t'do with the way it started rainin'.

It came down hard, poundin' glass, and made it hard to see,

But this was my road, and I knew it well. My win was meant to be.

We reached the end, and I slammed the brake, driftin' through the curve.

That devil couldn't make that move, and screamed when he lost his nerve.

The truck went through the guardrail, and flew towards the risin' day,

But it couldn't stand the light, and it just up and faded away.

The souls that truck was carryin' swirled into the east,

And a joyous sound was heard as they were finally released.

So if you ever come to race me, just remember one last thing:

It's a waste of both our time, because on this road, I am the king.

Phantom Conversations

Stepping up to the podium, he sees that they've replaced the one he cracked a couple of weeks ago with one made of Absorbalite so that he can't break it again. He smiles as he looks at it, then chuckles nervously as he rubs it lightly with his weathered hands. Looking at the group before him, his face not nearly as stern as the white skull emblazoned on his chest, the old man in the blue and brown costume says, "Hi. My name is John Phantom."

"Hi, John," responds the room.

"I've been clean for thirty-five years, five months, and a day," he says evenly. The group applauds. "Some of you may remember that in the last month, my wife returned from the dead." The room murmurs a bit, but settles quickly. "When I first mentioned it, I said, 'sort of,' but..." he pauses as he brushes the podium hesitantly. Then he continues, "but memory is a funny thing. Especially as you get older. A lifetime of associations makes triggering a memory easier and easier until sometimes it's just the oddest little thing." He reaches into a fanny pack that he's added to his costume today, and pulls out an orange. Holding it up like Hamlet holding Yorick's skull, he says, "Nine days ago, it was this."

He turns the orange first one way, and then the other, then rolls it so he's holding it between his thumb and forefinger. "You see, thirteen days ago, when I told you all my story for like the seventh time that week, I also did an interview- you may have seen it on television if you didn't have anything better to do." He shrugs. The group chuckles good naturedly. "It got me brooding a little bit; thinking about my wife and daughter, and that went on for a few days. Until nine days ago, when I fell back on a familiar habit. I like to eat clementine oranges when I think of them, because, well, they were both named Clementine too."

The room kind of splits at that, and mostly along gender lines. The women mostly coo at the sweetness of it, and the men mostly groan at the bad pun of it.

John just laughs lightly, and starts picking at the orange's peel while he talks. "I know it's silly, guys, but there's a reason for it. Y'see, when I first lost my Clementines, and wasn't completely stoned out of my gourd to numb that pain, all I could do was think about them. I mean all I could do." He nods as he says that, clearly reflecting on some silent horror of that time as he pulls at the peel.

"After Wartime and the others got me into rehab, and I finally started to commit to it, I knew I had to do something besides just dwell on their deaths, and h-" he falters. "H-how I..." he takes a deep breath, and pries the orange in half with his fingernails. "How I caused it," he finally finishes. "So, whenever I was stuck on their memories, I'd peel one of these and eat it, a section at a time," he says as he holds up a section, and then pops it in his mouth. He smiles as he chews, and after several seconds, he swallows and says, "I used this as a timer. I'd think about my wife and daughter for as long as it took me to eat one of these oranges. Or two. Or three. Or a bag." The group laughs. "Depended on how hard the memories were. Then, I'd go and do something else. Anything else. Whether it was brush my teeth, put a puzzle together in the rec room, or work out in the gym. It got me through rehab, started me on the road to getting through my grief, and frankly it helped calm the oral fixation I had with pills and pipes at the time." He ate another section of the orange, and the room waited silently.

"So, nine days ago," he says, getting back to his story. "Nine days ago, I'd been brooding for a few days already, and so I got a basket of clementines, and sat down at my table to eat. I bit into my first one, and man, that thing was awful!" he says, making a sour face. "I said, 'Ugh! Bad clementine,' and spat it out. And that's what triggered the memory." Holding up another orange section, he said, "I'm glad this one isn't bad. I needed this today." He eats the slice, and then without looking tosses the other half into a trashcan across the room with uncanny accuracy. "That's enough of that though," he says, wiping his fingertips lightly on the sides of his shirt.

"It was the oddest thing. As soon as I said it, that memory- half a memory, really, maybe not even that- that memory whispered in the back of my mind, and I shouted, 'This is bad, Clementine!' And although I didn't know when or why, I knew it was something I had said to my wife at some point.

"I call it a 'phantom conversation.' No pun intended," he adds, but the room chuckles anyway. "A phantom conversation is any conversaiton you have aloud with yourself- whether repeating a conversation you had at a previous time, or rehearsing a conversation you plan to have, or wish you'd had. I call it that, because with no one else around, it's like you're talking to ghosts, and it's kind of a waste of time. Still, I have them from time-to-time."

"So now I'm sitting there talking to myself: 'This is bad, Clementine! This is bad, Clementine! What's bad? What were we talking about? I was never fool enough to criticize her cooking.'" The group laughs. "'So what in the world? What's bad?' Y'know? It was like that. I just kept wracking my brain, trying to remember when I said, 'This is bad, Clementine,' and it was just refusing to come up.

"Man, it just drove me bananas. I tried, and I tried, and I tried, but I just couldn't remember when I had said that to Clementine. I started to doubt myself, and wondered if maybe it was something I had said to my daughter instead. I thought about it for awhile, and I really couln't make a connection there either. Clementine had always been a pretty good child, so I never really had to get after her too much. So I went back to when I might have said it to my wife, and it just wasn't there for me. So finally, after a couple of days of this, I just threw up my hands." He mimics the motion for the group, and continues, "I said, 'Ah, well, it's not the end of the world.' And that's when I remembered the rest of it. And the shock of it through me back across that universal divide, to the world with Sky Phantom and that other Clementine!

"Only, it wasn't 'that other Clementine.' It was her. My Clementine. And there she was again, in all of her glory. No older than the day I lost her. She was just... there... and she didn't even seem surprised to see me. She just looked over her shoulder like she was waiting on me to say something. My mouth had gone really dry, but I finally managed a weak, 'Clementine? It's really you, isn't it?'"

"She didn't answer. She just reached for a T-shirt on the bed, and pulled it on. Then she picked up a pair of sweatpants, and pulled them on as well, turning towards me as she slid them over her bare bottom. I hadn't seen my wife in a very long time, much less like this. I couldn't help it- I just stared for a long minute, both elated to see her, and horrified that she'd been in this other universe all this time. Finally, she walked to her nightstand for her watch, and said, 'What do you want, John?' She sounded tired when she said it."

"'Wha... what do I want?' I was dumbfounded. 'It's been... you've been... thirty-five years, Clementine! I saw you die, and you've been gone for thirty-five years! What do I want? An explanation would be a nice start!' I shouted at her. And then I realized I wasn't really so angry at her as I was just so damned happy to know she was still alive. So I moved towards her and said, 'And I want a hug. It's been too long, Cle--' She cut me off by drawing a gun from the nightstand drawer and pointing it at me.

"'A gun?' I asked her. 'Really?'

"'This is loaded with Time Stoppers,' she said.

"'Time... where did you get... only--'

"'--Wartime has them. Right.' Before I could ask, she answered, 'He gave them to me before he gathered everyone to stop you.' I couldn't hide my shock, and she just looked at me like I was stupid. 'You were that out of control, John. Blasted out of your mind on God knows what, and your worst enemy had to stop you! And you're going to give me grief over Time Stoppers?'

John looked at the room of anonymous addicts, and just shrugged. "She was right. I can tow loaded tanks under my own strength, fly, teleport through time, and nevermind the fact that I carry an ordinary loaded sidearm on my hip. I added a street pharmacy to all of that? She had every right to defend herself. After all, she had our daughter to think of too. That reminded me...

"I hardly dared hope, but I finally managed, 'Is... is Clementine with you too? How did you survive? I have so many qu--'

"She jammed a hand in her pocket and came out with a gold coin between her first and second fingers. 'This, John,' she said angrily. 'Remember? You gave me this Time Token in case of emergencies? "But it can only save one," right? Isn't that what you told me, John? And before I could get to our daughter, the damned coin "saved" me!'

"'Oh, God,' is all I could say to her," he said, hanging his head low over the podium. "Time tokens are... special. There's a group out there that uses them to lessen the effects of a disaster. They're called Operators, and they work from a... well, a Central Dispatch Station, for lack of a better term. Last Operation I know of was back in 2015, but who knows, there may have been more. That's the point- that they fix it, and no one knows about it. They try to head trouble off before anything bad happens, but when it does, a Time Token allows an Operator to go back in time just long enough to save one person." The hero shrugged again. "I don't know why it's like that, but that's how it works." He shook his head. "Unfortunately, it worked against Clementine. Oh, Lord, she was angry.

"She hurled the coin at my head, but I caught it, and looked it over. 'This isn't the Time Token I gave you,' I told her. 'It has a different year on it, and you "spent" yours. Where did you--'

"She just stopped me with a look again. 'You called an Operator?'

"Just then, Sky Phantom came in. 'Hey, I heard shouting. Is everything o--'

"I knocked him cold with a right hook and said, 'Stay out of it, kid. The grownups are talking.'

"Clementine only glanced at the other me on the floor. 'No, John, I didn't call an Operator.' she said warily.

"'Then who gave... Oh, come on! You went to Clockwise?!' Clockwise is kind of hard to explain. It's a little more complicated than this, but basically, he's a rogue Operator. Only, he's not a badguy. Well, most often he's not a badguy. He's kind of a... time vigilante, I guess. He's kind of paranoid. Kind of a conspiracy nut. But he knows more about being an Operator than almost anybody, and... ah, y'know what? Not important," he said, waving off what he had been about to say.

"'Yes, I went to Clockwise! He has Time Tokens! And I'll tell you another thing,' she said, thrusting her finger in my face like this," he said, mimicking her gesture. "'He knows how to bypass the Time Lock on your precious trophy room!'

"'You went into the Time Vault?!' I said with real horror. 'Do you know what could have--'

"'What could have happened, John? I know what did happen! That coin kept taking me back to right before you fired that damned chain gun from your car, but after Clem' had already started running to you! I tried, John! I tried, and I tried, and I tried! But I couldn't reach her! I couldn't reach her!' she wailed. 'I c-couldn't re-reach her-herrrrr!'

"I instinctively went in to hug her, and she thrust the gun back in my face. 'No,' she said through gritted teeth. 'No. You have no idea how long I spent trying to get her, John. None. Over, and over, and over! And before I could reach her, she'd catch a bullet, and disappear. And then I'd catch a bullet and disappear!'

"I realized what she was talking about, and it must have shown on my face. 'That's right, John- you gave her a Time Token too. She caught the first bullet, so her coin saved her before my coin saved me. She got back to the starting point before me, and all she knew was that she was in danger, and the only thing she knew to do about that was to run to you- her hero.' The way she said 'hero' was like a slap in the face. 'Her high, drugged out, miserable excuse for a hero father. Who got her shot.'

"I didn't realize I was backing away from her until I hit the wall. I couldn't say anything. 'My little girl took bullet after bullet after bullet because of you, John, and I couldn't do anything to save her. I couldn't even touch her before she disappeared. So you don't get to touch me. And that's why you haven't heard from me in thirty-five years, you miserable bastard!'"

The room was quiet. John was contemplating some point on the ceiling at the back of the room, and then looked at the group. "She was right. Completely right. I just stared at her for a few seconds, and then managed to stand up without the wall's help. 'What about this, Clem'?' I asked her, motioning around me. 'What about him?' I said, pointing at younger me. How?'

"'You again,' she said. 'Or your Time Vault anyway. Clockwise got me in, and I took everything. Everything, John.'

"'NO,' I shouted in horror," and that horror was still evident as he stood at the podium. "Clementine, what did you do?'

"'Everything I could! Time Tokens! The Stop Watch! The Cuckoo Clock! Everything, John! And all it did was cause problems, let me tell ya! And I... did... not... care. Wartime showed up though. He tried to warn me. Can you believe that? You completely screw the pooch. I throw all caution to the winds of time. But Wartime is the responsible one, and tries to warn me that too much focus on one point in time could destroy everything. Ha,' she laughed miserably. 'I still didn't care. I kept trying, and kept trying, until finally, me and Clem' dropping into the same point in time so much started to send out ripples, and then waves, and then... it just unraveled, John. Everything.'

"'You were there. Wartime had yanked you out of rehab to try to get you to talk to me. This is bad, Clementine! Real bad! you hollered at me. Big help there, turd. Finally, as the time waves started to get violent, Clockwise showed up with one of Captain Curley's Time-a-Rangs. A lot had been either leveled, de-aged, or flat wiped out of existence. There was a lot of energy just building out there, and he used the Time-a-Rang to send it all back to me.'

"'I absorbed enough time energy to be a hundred thousand of you, John. And I used it.'" John just looked at the group, and raised his eyebrows, nodding at the truth of this impossible-sounding story. Then he went on, reciting her words back to us. "'I walked between seconds, and saved Clem', sending her out of harm's way. But I don't know where I sent her, or when. I didn't have a good enough grasp on the power yet. So she's out there, and I've been through time and universes looking for her. And I'll go through more. And you can't stop me.' And she disappeared."

John through up his hands, and then rested them on the podium. "And I didn't know how to find her. And then I was back. So here I am. It's been a hell of a month. But apparently there was an apocalypse, and I was there, and didn't even know it. Hell of a thing." He just shook his head, and took a seat to let the next person speak.

C-Note: Wishes and Bitches

Norfolk, Virginia:

C-Note had been watching Smackdown negotiate with this crazy dude in gray armor, covered in what looked like some kinda blue samurai gear. Guy was saying he could give the Liberteens Wish- straight up wishes in a pill. Smack wasn't buying it though, and was about to walk away from the deal.

Crazy dude held out one of those glowing blue pills in his hand, and said, "Again- maybe one of you would like to try it."

It seemed impossible, but he felt like actual wishes were too great a chance to pass up. So C-Note said, "Yo, Smack. I'll try it. Just if things get stupid, don't let my moms see me until I'm right again."

Smack gave him a fist bump, and said, "A'ight, C-Note."

C-Note strutted back over to the crazy dude, looked at his inscrutable mask, and swore he saw light dance behind the white eye lenses. Sniffing once, he picked up the pill, looked at it, and said, "How's this work?"

"Just take the pill, and wish for something," the man said, sounding almost threatening.

"Wish for something?" asked C-Note, looking slightly confused. "Wish for what?"

The man pinched his fingertips together next to the pill in C-Note's hand, and flicked them open, pulling his hands outwards in an exploding motion, and whispered, "Anything!" The whisper seemed to echo around the warehouse, making the other gang members look around nervously.

C-Note snorted once. "Anything," he laughed. "A'ight, homes, we'll see." With no ceremony, he popped the pill into his mouth, and swallowed. He felt no different, but he looked at his chest, and watched the blue light shine from inside him, working its way down to his gut. He laughed aloud, and turned towards his homies, all of whom- even Smack- got wide-eyed. "Will you look at this?" declared C-Note. "A'ight! A'ight, homes!" he declared, pointing back at the man. "You want a wish?" Turning back to the gang, he nodded, smirked, held his arms wide, and said, "I wish I had twenty million dollars and some bitches to celebrate with!"

His boys started to cheer their approval when a stack of money appeared between them and C-Note, along with ten mutts of varying breeds. The cheering stopped, and the gang jumped backwards before inching forward slightly. "Yo, what the--?" said C-Note. "What's with these fuggin' dogs, dude?"

"You asked for bitches," stated the man. "Bitch: a female dog, wolf, fox, or otter." With a sinister chuckle, he wagged his finger, shrugged, and said, "You could have wound up with wolves, you know." Crossing one arm over his chest, and resting the other elbow on it, he curled a finger against his lip, and said, "The otters might have been cute though. But never foxes. No. Foxes are trouble."

Smack sounded pissed, "Yo. Peeps don't get what they wish for, they gonna start beef."

"Then I suggest you tell them what they should already know: be careful what you wish for," growled the man.

C-Note did a slow walk around the money, and the dogs jumped around him happily.

Smack was quiet for a minute. Finally, he asked, "How much?"

C-Note couldn't believe what he was seeing. Crazy dude just waved his hands, and oil drums of the glowing pills appeared before him. "I'll give you all that you want," he said with a bow.

"Huh," Smack scoffed. "What's the catch?"

"You have to give away the first hit, and you can't sell anyone more than three," said the man, holding up three fingers for emphasis. "A person only gets three wishes, after all. Remember: you can sell the second and third hits for as much as you like, and they're going to pay."

"You're pretty sure about this," said Smack, still sounding slightly doubtful.

"I am."

"Anything else?" Smack asked.

"Just two more things," said the man, holding up a finger. He suddenly disappeared, and reappeared right in front of Smackdown, making him flinch. C-Note hardly ever saw Smack flinch. It weirded him out a little. Then crazy dude whispered in Smack's ear, and for some reason, that made C-Note's heart race. Then aloud, crazy dude said, "And remember: you must tell them this before you sell them the third hit."

Smack looked shook, but he didn't sound it when he said, "I got one more thing too. The Liberteens don't work with no one that I don't know."

"Ah, a wise decision," said the man, sounding pleased. Bowing slightly, he said, "You may call me The Wishing Demon," and a guttural growl seemed to come from the masked man.

Smack began sweating, but he didn't sound afraid. "You said you had two more things. What's the other one," he asked.

"Oh!" exclaimed the Wishing Demon, suddenly standing bolt upright. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder, and growled, "Make sure you clean up after your bitches before you leave." With that, he disappeared.

The gang looked over towards C-Note and the money, and saw that a bulldog, a beagle, and a Yorkshire terrier were peeing on the cash.

"Damn, C-Note! Clean that crap up, and meet us back at the crib!" shouted Smack.

"Why me?" he complained.

"Because you're the one that wished for dogs, stupid!" Snapping a finger, he ordered, "Everyone else get those barrels on a truck."

C-Note just punched the air a couple times, pissed at himself for messing his wish up. Then he thought about something. "Yo, Smack. What'd he whisper in your ear? What we gotta tell junkies before they buy a third hit?"

The way Smack looked at him, C-Note knew he didn't want to say. But he did anyway. "He said if you make your third wish, you lose your soul."

C-Note scoffed. "Yeah, right. What the fug'd he say, man? I've already taken one of those things." He scratched a golden retriever behind it's ears while he looked at the leader of the Liberteens.

Smackdown just looked back at him, saying nothing else.

"C'mon, man, you jokin', right?"

Smack still didn't say anything. He just gave a tight shake of his head.

C-Note didn't know what to say to that.

Just then, there was a loud squawk, and Flipside shouted, "Yo! Where'd this danged chicken come from?"

Just as suddenly, there was a pop of air, and the chicken was gone. "Aw, man!" shouted Smack. "Get this stuff loaded up, and let's get the hell out of here!"

With a pop, the drums of Wish were suddenly on the flatbed. Behind it were twenty briefcases of money, and ten dog crates with the dogs in them.

The gang started buggin' out, and Smack and C-Note just looked at each other. "I think someone wants us to go, Smack."

"Yeah," Smackdown agreed. "Let's get the fug outta here."

***

C-Note's Mama's House:

"Hon'!" called C-Note's mama. "You comin' down for dinner?"

"Yeah, ma!" C-Note hollered. "I'll be down in just a minute. I just gotta finish brushin' this dog!"

"Don't be long! It's gettin' cold!"

"A'right, ma!" he called back. Really, he finished brushing the poodle awhile ago. Now, he was just sitting on his bed, staring at the twenty briefcases stacked in his closet. In front of the Liberteens, Smack had told him to take them home, and they'd square up when the Wish deal was done. Aside, Smack had said he was sorry about the soul thing, and told him to keep the money, but not to tell anyone else. Smack had never given up money that should go to the gang before. This stuff really had him scared then. The more he thought about Smack being scared, the more it made C-Note scared. He didn't know if he believed in a soul or not, but he had a feeling it was worth more than any twenty million.

Then he reached in his pocket, and brought out two of the glowing blue pills. Smack had given him those too. "Yo, man, I don't know about this- we saw what it could do, thanks to you- but here. You earned 'em. Just keep it to yourself. Get it over with, or flush 'em, man. Whatever." They fist bumped, and C-Note had driven the truck home, dogs still in the crates.

He was gonna put them all in the backyard, but his mama loved them as soon as she saw them, so they all came in the house. The black lab and the golden retriever were in the kitchen with his mom. The bulldog and the French bulldog were lounging on the back porch. The German shepherd and the German shorthaired pointer didn't seem to want anything to do with each other, but they had both taken corners of the living room- one below the TV, and the other beside the recliner, next to the kitchen doorway. The beagle was at the top of the stairs, and the rottweiler and poodle had come to his room. The rott' had gone to his sister's room as soon as she got home, which she loved. C-Note didn't mind it either- maybe it would be good to have a big dog tagging along with his sister.

He put the pills back in his pocket, and headed down to dinner.

***

C-Note's Mama's House, Two Months Later:

"Oh, pleeeeeeease, can I have some bacon? Can I? Please? Oh, please! Lemme have some baconnn!"

"Dang, Tawny!" C-Note groused to the golden retriever. "Don't you ever think about anything else?"

"How can I?" asked the dog, crouched low to the floor. "It's so goooood. Bacon? Please? Bacon?" she whined.

"A'ight," laughed C-Note, as he dropped some bacon from his plate to the kitchen floor. "But you better start talking about something besides that all the time! Y'hear?" he demanded as the dog greedily snapped up the strips and ate them. "I didn't wish for you to talk so you could just say 'bacon' all the danged time! You supposed to be keepin' mama company, an' tellin' her what the other dogs want!"

"Ohhh, yesyesyes!" Tawny yipped, wagging her tail. "I'll talk to her whenever she wants!" she said happily. Tilting her head, she said, "Do I still get bacon though?" Her eyes begged for it.

C-Note chuckled, shaking his head. Throwing another strip down, he said, "That's the last one! The rest are mine!" Tawny gobbled her bacon, and C-Note had a piece for himself. "Mm! It is good though!"

That wasn't the only reason he had wished for Tawny to talk. He was a little scared to use the wishes on anything big. The money was turning into a fulltime job, and the dogs were all over the place, always up in his business. The other wishes were still tempting though. He kept thinking that he could use the second one at least- he wouldn't lose his soul until the third wish. He thought of so many things to wish for- it just consumed him. Finally, he couldn't take anymore, and he decided to just use the second wish and get it over with. The third wish wouldn't be as tempting, because that one would cost him his soul. So he wished for Tawny to talk, and that was it for the second wish.

***

C-Note's Mama's House, One Month Later:

C-Note wasn't just called that because of his sonic powers. He was also really good with money. He'd sent his sister to school, which honestly she wasn't that happy about, but she went. He'd set his mom up for life- paid off the house, bought her a car, and hired her to take care of the dogs, so she could get out of that convenience store- Mister Patel was kind of a prick. C-Note hoped it pissed him off. His mom was happy to take this new job, except for cleaning up the dogs' poops in the backyard. So he hired one of the neighbor kids to do that, making it more than worth his while. Kid still bailed a couple times a week. C-Note was thinking about hiring a landscape company to keep the yard clean instead.

Without letting Smack know, he'd invested a good deal of the money. Almost as soon as it was in, the market took a steep dive, and he took a big hit. It might have destroyed a lot of people, but he'd picked his investments well, and they were making a comeback. Slowly, but they were approaching what he started with.

He had part of it in banks too. At ten grand, a bank would have to report his deposit to the IRS, so he deposited less than that in each account. So, he had money in lots of banks. A few of them had been robbed by some chick in a pink costume. Totally wiped those banks out. Money's insured and all, but it pissed him off a little.

And part of it, he'd done what his mama told him. "You're gonna give your tithe to the church, young man! Y'hear me?" she'd scolded.

"What?" C-Note had balked. "What's the church gonna do with two million dollars, mama?!"

"Whatever the Lord wants 'em too!" she said, smacking his shoulder. "And you take it down there today, before the devil talks you out of it!"

C-Note shook his head. "A'ight, mama."

She rubbed his head, smiled proudly at him, and went on after the bulldogs, Tawny close behind her.

"Are you going to the kitchen?" asked the retriever. "Is there any bacon left?"

"Tawny! Quit worryin' me about bacon!" his mama shouted.

"Oh, pleeeease," begged the dog.

C-Note couldn't help laughing. Mama was gonna kill him over that dog. Then he thought about the church, tsked, and headed upstairs to get a couple of briefcases. He didn't really mind giving the tithe like his mama wanted him to do. It's just that the reverend was going to ask a lot of questions about where the money came from. Oh, he'd take it for sure, but he'd make C-Note feel real uncomfortable about how he got it. He sighed, and headed back downstairs. May as well get it over with.

Sitting on his bed, he thought about that long, uncomfortable conversation with the reverend, and just handing over two million dollars like it was Monopoly money. He sighed lightly, but just shook his head. It was done now. Besides, it made his mama happy, and the church wasn't a bad place to give money to. He didn't go as often as his mama would like, but something good always seemed to happen after tithing. Mama said that was just the Lord's way. C-Note considered it a good return on investment.

***

West Liberty Street Underpass of the Liberteens, Three Days Later:

The cops and some heroes had stormed their parking lot about twenty minutes ago. The fighting was brutal, and unbelievably, C-Note was having to fight off a little girl with the same powers as he had. He was winning, of course, but then there was a sharp pain, and he woke up in handcuffs, and in the back of a prisoner transport truck.

Smack filled him in. They'd lost, obviously, and were on their way to jail. One of the heroes had taken a pill, and wished all the Wish out of existence. They were done. C-Note was shocked, but found himself chuckling, then full on laughing. He laughed for a long minute.

"Yo, C, you okay?" asked Smack.

"Yo, man, I am better than okay! I am saved!" laughed Smack.

"'Saved?' Whatta you mean?" asked Smack. "You findin' religion all of a sudden?"

C-Note shook his head. "Naw, man." Then he thought of the tithe his mama made him give. "Well, maybe," he laughed, "but that ain't it. No more Wish, man! Don't you get it?"

Smack just looked at him.

"No more Wish, man! That means I can't make my third wish! I'm not gonna lose my soul, man! Ha haaa! Yes!" he said triumphantly.

Smackdown actually looked relieved. "Yo, man, that is good!" Then his face scrunched for a few seconds while he thought about something, and he said, "What did you use your second wish on?"

C-Note just laughed. "Same as the first, man: bitches." And he laughed some more.

Dial H For HERO: Drunk Dialing

New York City - The Gold Bar:

To many, Benny Fitz was known as Starfist- the owner of the Gold Bar- and Starfist had a unique way of dealing with barflies that didn't pay their tab. Today was Chris King's day to experience that personally. At the front door of the bar, a glowing yellow hand at the end of a slender tendril held Chris off the ground by the back of his shirt. Another tendril came out the door, formed a glowing yellow boot, and kicked him in the butt, sending him sprawling over the sidewalk, and into the street's gutter. The tendrils coalesced into the face of Starfist, and he shouted, "You drink more than you serve, ya bum! You're fired!" The face popped out of view, and the energy dissipated.

Chris rolled painfully to his back as Starlight and Starbright stepped out onto the sidewalk. They were a pair of alien women that were summoned by Starfinger's ring- also now in the possession of Benny Fitz. Benny had made them the bar's bouncers.

Standing over him, Starlight said, "Your last paycheck will be put towards your tab."

"Aw, c'mon," moaned King.

"And don't come back," snarled Starbright, firing a black concussive force blast at the pavement between his knees.

"Hey, now!" shouted Chris. "That's not necess--" He was cut off by a glare from Starbright. "Alright, alright, I'm going," he said weakly, as he used a lightpole to pull himself to his feet.

Starlight started, "Be glad he let you keep your--"

"--Hey!" Benny's glowing yellow face reappeared over the sidewalk. "Before I forget, get his watch! Benny Fitz's benefits, yeah?" The face chuckled with menace, winked at King, and then winked out again.

"Aw, crud!" said Chris as he took off running.

"Hey! Come back here!" shouted Starbright.

Chris reached for his watchface as he ran, and started dialing H-E-R, but was interrupted by one of Starbright's blasts clipping him as he rounded a corner into an alley. He fell to the ground as he transformed into a woman in a pink jogging suit, and then slipped into unconsciousness as he rolled into a pile of trash.

A few seconds later, Starlight and Starbright rounded the corner. "Where is he?" Starbright growled.

"Not here," said Starlight calmly. "Fast for a drunk guy. Dang!" she started. "He knocked this woman down as he ran?"

"What a jerk!" Starbright seethed.

"We should help her," said Starlight.

"Not our problem," Starbright said coldly. "Besides, the boss'd just put the moves on her."

Starlight shrugged. "You're probably right. Let's go."

The two women left the transformed Chris King lying in the alley. She laid there for just under an hour, and groaned as she awakened. Then she threw up from the stink of the trash she was laying in. The woman in the jogging suit reached up for the brick window ledge that was just above the trash pile, pulled herself up, and leaned heavily for a moment before looking at heself in the window. The reflection of the woman before him didn't just shock Chris King, it scared him. "Vicki?!" he gasped, and just then he reverted back to himself.

"Holy Hannah," he said, looking at his watch. "I've gotta get out of here." He ran up the alley, and kept running until he reached a bus stop. He boarded, and took the bus to Manhattan. Once there, he again began looking for bartending jobs.

Manhattan - Warrior's:

All you had to do to know who Guy Gardner was, was turn on the TV. His arrogant, over-the-top attitude got him on the news and Heroes Tonight way more often than the Justice League liked. Currently, he sported some alien markings, and could transform himself into all kinds of weapons. Today, Warrior's was entertaining the Justice Society- Green Lantern, Flash, Captain Marvel, Liberty Belle, and Stargirl who was apparently celebrating a birthday. Warrior himself was regaling them with stories that were probably only partially accurate. Chris was headed to the bar when Guy spotted him, and stopped his story to yell, "Hey, kid! Bar's closed for a private party! Come back tomorrow!"

Hopeful, Chris said, "I... I was actually looking for a j-job?"

Gardner guffawed. "Sorry again, champ! I only employ superheroes here!"

"I... um... I am a superhero."

Guy snorted. Starting over from the group, and them following, he said, "Yeah? I gotta hear this. Okay, kid, what's your name?"

"Chris K--"

"--Your hero name, man! What are you? New?"

"Give him a break, Guy," said Flash.

"Oh. Well, um, it... changes?"

Guy smirked knowingly. "I get that. I've been Green Lantern, just Guy Gardner," he said, looking at Flash, "and now I'm Warrior. Okay, so what's your power?"

Chris looked like he might be sick. "Um... it... it changes too," he kind of mumbled.

Gardner looked at him dubiously, "Oookay. I've had two power rings, and now it's Vuldarian DNA, if you can believe that."

"The current powers are a little hard to believe," Captain Marvel said quietly.

Stargirl giggled. Guy scowled at the Captain.

Then turning back to Chris, he said, "Hit me. What are your powers now?"

Chris was beginning to panic, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh, it's hard to explain. I don't have any powers right now. I--"

"--Look, kid, nice try, okay? But you gotta have powers. Now, if you don't mind..." Guy put a hand on Chris' back, and started to steer him towards the door.

"No! No!" Chris protested. "You don't understand," he said, ducking Guy's hand and backing away a couple of steps. Holding up his wrist, he said, "I dial 'hero' on this magic watch, and I become a different superhero every time!"

"Oh, come on," said Guy.

"We've both used power rings," Green Lantern said to Guy.

Guy was exasperated. "But a magic watch? Does it call Superman when you need him, too?"

"No," said King, "but I've met him- he can vouch for me!" Then, reconsidering, he said, "Of course, I did dial 'horror' that time."

Guy's hand shot out and grabbed Chris' wrist. Reaching for the watch dial with his other hand, the clockface dissolved to reveal the letters H-E-R-O on a sort of rotary dial. "HA! Well, how 'bout that? He was tellin' the truth! I gotta tell ya kid, this is funny. So funny, in fact, you know what else you can dial on here?"

As Guy put his finger to the dial, Chris tried to pull free, "No!"

"H-O," Guy started.

"That's not a good--"

"H-O," Guy continued.

"--idea." Chris whined.

"H-O," Guy finished.

There was a bright flash of light, and Gardner was thrown backwards on his butt. Looking where Chris had been, he meekly said, "Santa?"

Looking himself over, and at the large bag in one hand, Chris said, "Ho! Ho! Hoooo! I've become Jolly Old Saint Nick!" Looking at Guy, he shook his finger and said, "You might have to go on the naughty list."

Guy went pale. "No!"

Reaching in his bag, Santa brought out a small, wrapped package, and handed it to Stargirl. "I believe that someone is having a birthday?"

Stargirl was giddy with excitement as she took the package. She unwrapped it hurriedly, took the top off the small box, and brought out a small cloissone pin of Santa's face. She put it on her shirt, and pulled a string that came out of his beard. His face lit up from inside, and a small voicebox said, "Ho! Ho! Ho! Haaaapyyy Birthdaaay!"

"Ha!" exclaimed Stargirl. "Never heard Santa say that before! I love it!" She gave Santa a quick hug, and a kiss on his cheek, which made him blush.

"Wait a minute," Green Lantern interrupted. Forming the face of a long haired girl with his ring, he said, "I've got a transmission coming in from Roxy. Go ahead."

"Hi, GL. We've got a trifecta at Times Square- The Mad Maple, Uncle Elvis, and Olavlord are wrecking everything."

"We're on the way," said Lantern, and Roxy's image dissipated. "Flash, Liberty Belle- you run ahead. We'll catch up."

Flash and Belle were gone in a whoosh of air. Captain Marvel looked at Stargirl, and asked, "Why do they always forget that I have the speed of Mercury?" and with a whoosh, he flew after the speedsters.

Stargirl looked at Green Lantern, and shrugged. "Guess that leaves us playing catch up."

"Can I help?" asked Santa.

Green Lantern was speechless, and chose to fly away rather than answer.

Stargirl said, "Oh, yes, yes, yes! I've got to see what happens here! Come on!" she said, and flew out of the bar.

Guy looked at Santa, and sarcastically said, "Well? Think you can keep up?"

Santa hefted his bag over his shoulder with one hand, put a finger to the side of his nose with the other, and was gone with a whoosh.

Gardner was slackjawed with disbelief. He stared silently at the door for a few seconds. Then he shook his head, and said, "I'm havin' a beer." Heading behind the bar, he sneered and said, "Put that on your naughty list."

Blocks away, Santa caught up to Captain Marvel and the two speedsters. Their shock was apparent. Chris just winked, and said, "Quick as a flash."

They all smirked, then laughed aloud. "I bet Guy's face was priceless," said Liberty Belle.

Then they poured on the speed, arriving at Times Square in the blink of an eye.

Times Square:

"Okay, so who's who, here?" asked Chris.

Liberty Belle sighed, looking at the red-and-white clad man ranting from the top of the Coca-Cola sign. "The Mad Maple is one of mine. AKA Jim Burke, he's ticked that Canada isn't as popular as the United States. They're 'a free country too.' They 'have two official languages.' Blah blah blah. I've got him." With that, she leapt into the air, and zoomed towards the Mad Maple.

Captain Marvel looked embarrassed at the caped guy tearing into the McDonald's. "Ugh. Uncle Elvis, AKA Elvis Orten. He thinks I ripped my cape off from Elvis Presley. I don't know how he got powers like me. I suspect Black Adam was involved. I've got him," he groaned, and darted towards his evil counterpart.

"So I guess the armored guy by the Disney Store is--"

"--Olavlord. Right," said the Flash.

Santa made a confused face, and said, "Olav? Olavlord? Really? Who does he belong to?"

"You've got it wrong," said Flash. "He thinks we all belong to him. It's 'Olavlord,' as in Olav B. Lord- the older brother of Maxwell Lord. So, don't let him touch you, or you'll be fighting for him. And that armor gives him firepower and maneuverability. Stay alert!" Flash warned. Parts of the crowd were clearly under Olavlord's control, so Flash shot into the fray to start rounding them up.

He's going to need help, thought Santa to himself. Reaching into his bag, he brought out a few dozen tin soldiers with wind up keys in their backs. He reached into his coat pocket, brought out a handful of dust, sprinkled it on the soldiers, and they grew to eight feet tall. They started advancing on the mind controlled crowd, pushing them back towards the Flash. There were many of them though, and Santa thought, What else can I do? He got a twinkle in his eye, chuckled to himself, and called out, "Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen! Come Comet! Come Cupid! Come Donder and Blitzen!"

Just like that, eight reindeer shot from the sky into Times Square, pulling Santa's sleigh behind them. Santa unhitched them at super speed, and the deer started helping the tin soldiers corral the crowd. I knew I could do that, thought Chris, but I still don't believe it. This is great! He laughed, and threw his bag over into the sleigh.

From above, Green Lantern called, "Stargirl and I are here now... um... Santa."

Stargirl smirked as she fired a few cosmic bolts at Olavlord.

"I think you can call your..." Lantern winced, "reindeer back to your sleigh."

"Surely, Lantern," said Santa, and he began, "Now Dasher! Now Dancer!..."

Green Lantern almost looked defeated. "Oh, brother," he muttered. A few curved, green barriers lanced out from his ring, surrounding the crowd and pushing them back until the barriers formed a solid circle around them.

Flash landed a few hundred super speed blows on Olavlord which were mostly distractions until Stargirl got into place, and blasted him properly with her cosmic blasts. Thrown backwards into a wall, he was knocked unconscious, and that freed the crowd from his control.

The Mad Maple had thrown his leaf-shaped shield at Liberty Belle, but she had caught it at super speed, and returned it to the angry Canadian with a super strong body blow, knocking him unconscious, and throwing him from his perch atop the Coca-Cola sign. She caught him and headed towards the ground.

Captain Marvel had been exchanging powerful blows with Uncle Elvis. Finally, using the wisdom of Solomon, he managed to goad his foe into saying, "Black Adam," which brought down the lightning, and turned him back into his mortal form of Elvis Orten- an accomplished Elvis impersonator, even without his powers. Santa wooshed over with some duct tape, slapped a strip over Elvis' mouth, and Captain Marvel flicked the man in the head, rendering him unconscious.

"Put them all in the sleigh!" called Santa. "I'll drop them at One Police Plaza!" Snapping his finger, the tin soldiers marched back to the sleigh, and shrank back to toy size as they jumped back into Santa's bag.

Green Lantern plucked the three villains up with giant green ice tongs, and dropped them in the back of the sleigh. "Flash, go on ahead, and let them know we're coming." Looking at Santa, Lantern just shook his head, smiled, and said, "You were a big help. Let's go." Lantern, Stargirl, Liberty Belle, and Captain Marvel rocketed into the air as the crowd started cheering.

Santa looked as he got into his sleigh, and saw that many of them were cheering wildly for him. Giving a light hitch to the reins, the sleigh rose up behind the reindeer. Waving at the crowd as it sped away, he called out, "To all a merry evening, and that was a great fight!" The crowd cheered louder, but soon faded as the group got further away.

In the air:

Stargirl laughed. "I cannot believe that we fought supervillains with Santa!"

"Well, not the Santa," said Santa. "More like a magical stand-in."

"I don't care if you're from the Salvation Army," said Liberty Belle. "We'd have had trouble with the crowd without you. Besides, anyone that can shut Guy up is okay with me."

Santa's belly shook as he laughed, but then he said, "Um, Green Lantern? Do you mind catching me and the guys in the back?"

"Catching? What do you mean?" asked Lantern, but then the sleigh and reindeer faded away, and Santa turned back into Chris King. A green flying carpet caught Chris. The villains fell into a barred cage, and the top formed after them. "Well. You're back. That was... abrupt."

"Yeah," said Chris. "My changes only last an hour, max. Maybe less, if I expend more energy. At least, that's how it was when I had internalized the watch's power. Now that it's a watch again, I don't know for sure."

"So what do we call you now?" asked Green Lantern.

"Just Chris, I guess. That's what I was trying to tell Mister Gardner- I don't have a hero name when I'm me. I turn into a different superhero every time I dial. I mean, I could dial 'ho ho ho' again, and I might become Santa Claus, I might become Captain Ho-Ho, or the Green Giant! I don't know."

Captain Marvel said, "Holy moley! My changes are magic too, but I get to choose how long they last!"

"An hour? That's crazy," said Stargirl.

Liberty Belle said nothing. Just "Hm," to herself, and then they were at One Police Plaza.

One Police Plaza:

Once the villains were disarmed, processed, and all the paperwork had been done, Green Lantern asked Chris, "Can we, um, drop you somewhere?"

"Well, I'm actually between places. I was looking for a new job and a new room when I came into Warrior's."

"I might be able to vouch for you with Guy," said Green Lantern. "As for a room, we have some extras at our headquarters. You could stay there while you get on your feet. If Guy is feeling stubborn, you could maybe even help Ma Hunkel with the JSA Museum."

"That... that'd be great," Chris said with relief.

Morningside Heights - Brownstone Headquarters of the JSA:

Guy Gardner had remained stubborn, refusing to employ Chris at Warrior's. Stargirl joked, "He's probably afraid you'll find more reasons to put him on the naughty list."

Chris slumped his shoulders. "I was only kidding with him. I mean, he was ragging on me too."

"It's alright," said Green Lantern. "There's still Ma Hunkel."

Chris beamed.

They met with Ma Hunkel, and she agreed to hire Chris. Frowning, she added, "But I run a tight ship, mister! I smell alcohol on your breath! You don't drink on workdays with me, y'hear?"

Chris gulped. "Y-yes ma'am."

"It's Thursday. No sense trying to start you tomorrow. You can start Monday."

"Thanks!" Chris said. "Really!"

Green Lantern showed Chris to a spare room- more of an efficiency apartment- and left him to get settled in. Finding a case of beers in the fridge, Chris had several, and soon fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming about the past.

LA - The Past:

Things had not been good for Chris King in the last several years. Ever since Vicki Grant had tried to kill him, things continued to get worse. There were a few bright moments, if you could call them that. The Titans helped him fight Vicki off. STAR Labs had studied him after he internalized the powers of the H-Dial, and helped him understand how his powers worked. He had even entered UCLA to study sports medicine.

However, once on campus in California, he had decided to change his image from what he'd had in Fairfax, Virginia. He reasoned if he was going to be in sports medicine, he should get used to being around those who played the sports. He pledged to the jocks' fraternity- Alpha Rho Epsilon- and became something of a party animal. To King, this meant drinking. A lot of drinking. While he was known campus wide for his skills behind the bar, as well as at beer pong, and the beer luge, the alcohol took its toll. Chris became an alcoholic.

Nearly drinking himself to death one night at a party, he had to be transported to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. He recovered, but lost his scholarship, and was kicked out of school. To add insult to injury, the power he'd interalized left him, once again turning into the magical watch he once wore. He still had it, but he hardly ever used it. He didn't know where Vicki had gone, and he didn't want her to find him. He started taking odd jobs in LA to get by. Mostly bartending jobs. Most of which he lost when he had run up a tab higher than his paycheck.

Finally, he saved up enough money to take a train across country to New York City, where he hoped for a new start. What this meant to him was a new set of bars to run up tabs in while he bartended. Just like LA, he lost job after job over his tab, until he finally landed at the Gold Bar, where Benny Fitz was the proprietor.

JSA Headquarters - the next morning:

Chris wandered to the main kitchen, and found Power Girl and Doctor Fate having breakfast.

"Good morning, Christopher King," came the deep echo of Doctor Fate's voice. "Power Girl, Mister King will be working with Ma Hunkel in the museum. Mister King, you seem to wear on your face the unrest I sense in your soul."

"Huh?" Chris said groggily.

"He's saying you don't look like you slept well," said Power Girl. Then she made a stink face, and said, "And I can smell why. Had a few last night, did you?"

Chris blushed. "Um... yeah. Ms. Hunkel said I can't drink when working with her, so I thought I'd throw a few back last night, since I don't have to work this weekend."

Power Girl just raised an eyebrow. "You better get it together by Monday," she said. "Ma Hunkel is tough. She makes the rest of us seem like lightweights."

"Indeed," agreed Fate.

Chris couldn't help but look worried. He wanted another drink right now.

"You may need help that we cannot give, Chris King," said Doctor Fate.

Sweeping a hand over his face, Chris just shook his head in acknowledgment. "You mind turning down the volume a little?" he asked.

"You'll have better luck with aspirin and coffee," said Power Girl. Coffee's over there," she said, pointing at the counter. "Aspirin's in the drawer, just underneath."

"You guys take aspirins?" asked Chris.

Power Girl shrugged. "Wildcat, mostly."

Roxy's holographic form appeared next to Chris. "Power Girl, there's a Kryptonian causing trouble in a trailer park in New Jersey. Can you and Doctor Fate handle it?"

Power Girl let her head drop to the table, banged it softly, and then sat up, exasperation showing on her face. "Ugh. He's a Daxamite! Not a Kryptonian."

"Tomay-to, tomah-to," said Roxy. "How'd you know it was a he?"

"There's a difference!" groused Power Girl. "And there's only one trailer trash Daxamite on Earth. Gar-Baj." She sighed. "You coming, Doctor?"

"I shall accompany you," said Doctor Fate.

Chris sat his coffee down quickly. "Can... can I help?"

"I don't know. Can you?" asked Power Girl, referring to his hungover state.

Chris didn't know what to say.

"I shall transport you there with me, Mister King," said Fate. "We may need every second of your hour time limit against a Daxamite."

"May as well take me too then," said Power Girl.

"Very well," agreed Fate.

To Chris, Fate seemed to be making rock-and-roll horns with his fingers, but then two glowing ankhs appeared around his hands. There was a flash of light, and space seemed to fold around them, and next thing he knew, they were in a trailer park, presumably in New Jersey.

New Jersey - Kun-Lun Trailer Park:

"We are in New Jersey," Fate said in apparent answer to Chris' unspoken question.

"How dare you name this hole after Kun-Lun?" demanded Gar-Baj. "I knew Kun-Lun! This wasn't her style!" A trailer went flying overhead, and Power Girl rocketed after it, catching it before it landed in the roadway outside the trailer park.

"I guess I'd better dial," said Chris. "Hey, Kryptonians are vulnerable to a red sun, right? I seem to remember that from my Kryptonian Biology class in college. What's that Spanish word for 'red' again?" He thought for a second. "Oh, yeah! R-O-H-O," he recited as he dialed.

"That's not--"

"Far out! said Chris as he transformed into a transparent, red ghost. "I've become Roho! Maybe I should be called The Red Ghost?"

"That is a villain in another universe," said Doctor Fate.

Chris shrugged. "Doesn't matter to the dial."

"Do you think you can be of help?"

Roho thought for a second, and said, "I still think the red sun thing can work. Krypto Bio taught us that Daxamites are an offshoot of Kryptonians. Maybe I can convince Gar-Baj that I'm Rao?"

"Maybe he will be vulnerable to my magic," suggested Fate.

Rocketing past them towards the Daxamite, Power Girl called, "Are you guys coming, or what?"

There were thundering blows heard, and then Power Girl went flying back towards the road.

"I'll catch her," called Fate, flying away. "Stop Gar-Baj!"

Roho looked in Fate's direction, then looked back in the direction of the rogue Daxamite. "Right. 'Stop Gar-Baj.' Well... I'm already a ghost, right?" he said to himself. Drifting towards Gar-Baj, he wasn't sure what to do. Ghost or not, he still had a splitting headache. Suck it up, Chris, he thought. Here goes nothing. "Garrrrr-Baaaaaaj!" he called, trying to sound as ghostly as possible.

He got the Daxamite's attention. "What the frag is that?!" he shouted, as he tossed a Trans Am aside. "Lobo's never going to believe this."

He's seen you now, King. "Garrrr-Baaaaaj! Whyyy do you dishonorrr the Great Rao?"

"Pft!" spat Gar-Baj as he rose into the air. "The what? If you're Rao, then I'm a space dolphin."

Roho sensed something, and then made "OK" signs with both hands. "You daarrrre?!" he shouted, and then intense light shone through him, and struck Gar-Baj.

Weakened, the Daxamite fell the short distance to the ground, and he looked up, scared.

"You would challenge the god of the sun of your ancestral home?" shouted Roho, the light still shining through him, turning color as it passed through him, and bathing the area in a red glow. "You would challenge--"

"--Great Rao! Have mercy! I didn't know! I didn't know!" shouted Gar-Baj. "What would you have me do?"

"Leave this solar systemmm, and don't come baaaack," Roho continued in his horrible ghost impression. "Fiiind a new hoooome, and do gooood wherever you goooo! BUT GO NOW!" he boomed.

Gar-Baj looked horrified. He screamed, and leapt into the air, rocketing into the upper atmosphere until he broke the pull of gravity, and plunged into the darkness of space.

Floating in midair, Roho watched in disbelief as the Daxamite fled. "I can't believe that worked," he said. Looking back towards Doctor Fate, who was now turning visible, he asked, "How did you know I'd be able to hear you?"

"I did not know," was Fate's answer. "Nabu sensed that you could hear his spirit, so it was he that communicated with you."

"Huh," said Chris. "He sounds a lot like you."

"You are fortunate that the ruse worked, as well as the dial combination that you chose. Why didn't you just dial H-E-R-O?" asked the mage.

Roho didn't answer.

Flying from the other side of a trailer, sporting a black eye, Power Girl scoffed. "You were still fuzzy from your hangover, weren't you?" she demanded.

Roho still didn't answer. Still floating, he just looked at the ground. Then, he dialed O-H-O-R, turned back to Chris King, and promptly fell to the ground. Power Girl didn't catch him. Laying there for several seconds, feeling the various pains from his fall, Chris finally said, "Yeah. I wasn't thinking straight. I'm still hung over."

Power Girl just fumed for a long few seconds, then focused her eyes on Chris' body. "Nothing's broken. Get up. Let's go."

Chris rolled to one elbow, then both hands, and pushed himself up into a stand. Brushing himself off a little bit, he finally said, "Alright. I'm ready."

"Then let us return to JSA Headquarters," said Doctor Fate, and with the same brief flick of his hands, space folded once again, and they were back at the brownstone.

Morningside Heights - Brownstone Headquarters of the JSA:

Chris had returned to his room as soon as they arrived- mostly to avoid Power Girl. He had a beer while he took a long, hot shower, and then he passed out in his bed from exhaustion. A few hours later, Roxy had awakened him, and informed him that he was wanted in the main kitchen. The AI hologram looked him over dubiously, and added, "I don't know why though," before blinking out.

Chris threw on some clothes, and shuffled to the main kitchen. All the JSA'ers he'd dealt with so far were waiting for him, along with Roxy. They wasted no time with pleasantries. "We took a vote," said Green Lantern. "You can stay."

Chris looked relieved.

"For now," warned Lantern, "and it wasn't unanimous."

Chris looked at Power Girl, who scowled at him openly.

Green Lantern continued. "You don't start at the museum on Monday."

"I wouldn't have it," said Ma Hunkel.

Chris looked distraught.

"Mister King, you need help, son," said the Flash. "Guy got you into the misdial as Santa, but if you had become anything other than a ghost against that Daxamite, things could have ended very badly for you, as well as many others."

Chris didn't know what to say. He just waited.

Captain Marvel stepped up next to Power Girl. "We voted about something else too."

Chris braced himself.

"We want you on the team," said Stargirl. Chris looked at her in disbelief, and noticed that she was still wearing her Santa pin. He smiled weakly at that, trying not to cry.

"Wh-why would you want me on the team?" said Chris. "I'm a mess! My power's not even reliable. Even if I dial correctly with H-E-R-O, I could become anyone from a Superman to Zeep the Living Sponge. Why would you want to take that chance?"

Taking off the Helm of Fate, Kent Nelson said, "Because even with two misdials, you still successfully aided two missions today. We think you could be a valuable asset to the team."

"There are conditions though," said Green Lantern, "and they will require trust on your part."

Chris nodded somewhat tentatively.

"First," said Flash, "rehab. Non-negotiable. You kick the alcohol, attend some meetings, do the Twelve Steps- the whole business. We found a place. It's the same place where Time Phantom does his meetings, but you'll be staying there for a bit. Doable?"

Chris put his hands in his back pockets, looked at the floor for a minute, then looked up, and nodded his head.

"The second part might be a deal breaker for you, but as Flash said, this too is non-negotiable." Green Lantern paused for a long moment, and then said, "You have to surrender your watch while you're in rehab. I'd suggest either to me or Doctor Fate as we're senior members, and have both dealt with mystical objects. Can you do this?"

Again, Chris looked distraught. Vicki was still out there, might still be looking for him, and now that he'd used the dial, she knew where to look. Could he survive without it? He considered for a few minutes, and the JSA waited patiently. Finally, he decided there was no other answer he could give.

He started taking the watch off as he walked across the room. "I can do this, Green Lantern, but... if it's okay... I'd like to surrender it... to her," he said, holding the watch out to Power Girl.

"Me?!" she balked. "Why?"

"Power Girl," he said a bit shakily, "I just stood here in a room full of the world's greatest superheroes- all of you waiting on my answer, and all of you willing to help me... except for you. And hey," he shrugged, "you might be right. But I trust you to not give this back to me if I'm not ready, and I certainly can't take it from you. So, if you'll give this back to me when I'm straight, I'll do the rehab. What do you say?"

The Kryptonian looked at Chris King and his watch for what seemed like an eternity. Then, she nodded, and said, "Just so you know, I'm putting it in the Fortress of Solitude."

Chris nodded. "Even better."

"Okay then," she said, and she took the watch.

"Oh, there's one more thing," said Star Girl.

Chris looked at her, curious.

"You need a name," said Roxy.

He was a little taken aback, not quite sure what she meant.

"A superhero name," said Green Lantern. "One we can call you, no matter who you turn into. You can pick your name, of course, but we have a suggestion."

"Okay?" said Chris, not knowing what to expect.

Liberty Belle spoke up. "My husband's been inactive- he's sick. He had powers that only lasted an hour at a time too. I think his name fits you."

"Yeah. It's perfectly suited for addicts with one hour power sets," Roxy said dryly.

"ROXY!" shouted Stargirl. "That's not nice!"

"But it's accurate," stated the AI.

"Roxy," Liberty Belle fumed. "Rethink your approach."

The AI went quiet.

Belle bit her lip for a second, then continued, "You could be the new Hourman."

"No way," Chris said softly.

"You don't like it?" asked Liberty Belle.

"Are you freakin' kidding me?" said Chris. "I love it. I'm just feeling stupid that I never thought of it." He smiled broadly.

"Then it's decided," said Flash. "To Hourman!"

"To Hourman!" echoed the group.

END