A/N: I was meant to start writing and posting these back in January, however life happened, and progress didn't happen, so now here I am, a little over two months late but finally kicking things off! This coming July, as I've done for the past two summers, I'll be leading a 100-day countdown story set across the Arrowverse (featuring Supergirl, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow). I decided to do things a little differently this year. For one thing, the entire 100 days will be a single story spread over 100 days, one chapter to every day. And for another, the more planning I did, I saw the possibility and the need to lay in some ground work in the form of preludes.

Twenty-four prelude one-shot stories, six each to the four series (again, it was meant so that each month from January to June would have one of each show, but now… yeah ;)), posted every 5 (or 6) days.

The story this will all be leading to, Once More Unto the Breach, is an alternate universe story (not another Earth, ha :D), which will soon become evident enough. It's very possible you do not watch all four of the shows, but I highly encourage you to seek out the other preludes, as they will help to fill in this world I'm very excited to share with you guys!

Alright, enough chit chat, let's go! If you have any questions, send them my way and I'll be happy to answer them!

HOWLS & CRIES
Prelude to ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH
(5 of 24)

Location:
MAIN EARTH, THE CITY BENEATH THE BREACH
(ARGUS designation)

Night time brought out all sorts of characters, he knew, but the ones he was interested in, they weren't the common criminals, the shady dealmakers, none of that. It wouldn't be in his habit to simply let them do as they pleased if he happened on one of them on his patrols, but then they weren't the ones he was out there to catch, not really. No, the ones he was after were the breachers.

He hadn't known they were a thing, not at first, and he might never have known a thing about them either, if one of them hadn't killed his father.

He still remembered the day the man had come to their door, to tell his mother that his father had been killed in the line of duty. He'd been fourteen years old, and up to that point he had believed what he had been told, that his father worked in an office. Even before anyone told him anything though, he only had to look at the man who'd come to deliver the news to know he wasn't some paper pusher. He walked like a cop, like an agent, and that was what he was. It took until the day of the funeral for him to learn the truth. These people who said they'd worked with his father, they all that same look about them, and the funny thing was, once he saw it in all of them, if he called back the image of his father, he knew… he had the look, too.

He had become determined to find out what was going on, maybe too grief stricken, too 'betrayed' to think about whether he might have been causing some scene he shouldn't be causing. If nothing else though, it had been effective. One of those colleagues of his father's had taken pity on him, pulling him aside and telling him the words that would change his life. Jimmy, your father was an agent with ARGUS.

What that was or what it meant, he didn't know it at first, but the woman had told him what she could. They were special ops, meant to act covertly, which was why his father had never told him what he really did. He might have, in time, had he lived, but then the time would never come and so he'd have to learn it from her instead. Now, his father, and the woman, and the rest of their department, had a specific task set to them. Their job was to track down certain people and put them back where they belonged. Here was the first point where the woman showed some amount of hesitation as to whether or not she should tell him more, he knew, and though he tried to get her to tell him what she wouldn't say, she had held her ground.

"You need to understand something, Jimmy," she'd said. "All your father ever wanted was to keep you and your mother safe, and if he could decide, I don't see him wanting for you to get involved in all this. It's better that you go on in the knowledge that your father was a hero, and that what he would want above all would be for you to get to live your life."

She hadn't told him more that day, but she didn't have to. They might have seen him as still being a kid, but he knew enough to be able to reach some definitive conclusions. These people his father and his ARGUS colleagues would seek out… One of them had killed his father. He was as sure of it as he was of anything, and he was also sure that, if he ever got the chance, he would find out who that person had been, and he would put them away. He may not have known his father's secret while he was living, but he knew it now, and it was his deep belief that his father would have believed in justice above vengeance.

For years after that, he had been guided by that private vow, his life becoming a preparation for a future duty he still knew very little about. He knew now that he would go and he would become what his father had been, at ARGUS. All he had to do was find them, get them to take him on as one of their agents. Easy enough, no? Well, as it turned out, yes… The woman who had come to him at his father's funeral, as it turned out, was the director of ARGUS, and either it had been protocol or she had seen something in him back then, but either way she – and ARGUS – had kept an eye on him, and she knew what he meant to do, so, in his father's memory, she had given him a shot, to at least apply. And he had been hired.

It had been the best day of his life, the first time he got to step out there with them, now knowing the whole truth of what his father had done for a living. These people they were seeking, they called them breachers. As the director had told him, there was a break, a hole, in the world, and across that break was another Earth. This other place, the one they called Breach Earth, had not always been there. It had emerged into existence some time ago, at which point ARGUS had set about investigating it. In doing so, they had learned that this Breach Earth was in itself a shattered thing, bound together and holding a number of localized breaches of its own, enabling those of them with the ability to do so, in one way or another, to cross from one… version of that Earth to another. They would be designated as quarters, and as far as they had been able to learn, they numbered in the dozens.

Jimmy's father and his team, now his team, had a very specific task. It hadn't been just ARGUS who'd figured out about the quarters, and the 'great breach' which had earned their own city to be designated 'the city beneath the breach.' People from Breach Earth, breachers, had started finding their way across to their Earth, and while some of them would land here seeking refuge, many more would make that crossing with the express purpose of chaos.

One of those people had killed his father. Had they caught him? Yes, and that was all he needed to know, the director had told him.

In the long run, maybe that been the thing that had started him on the path he'd ended up taking. His work had been without reproach for a little while. And then he'd started making choices that didn't seem to exactly… gel… with the rest of the team, and, in time, with the rest of ARGUS. He'd been with them for all of a year and a half before he was told that they would be parting ways. The sole explanation he'd been given had been that, much as they appreciated his dedication to the cause, they could not see themselves agreeing with some of his methods in implementing it. The final word had come down from the director, who had succeeded in making him feel like that same fourteen-year-old boy he'd been the first time he'd met her when she told him that they had to let him go, because they couldn't bear to encourage behavior that would get their former colleague's son killed.

So he wasn't with ARGUS anymore. But he was here now, wasn't he? Doing his part, even unofficially… That was the only way he knew to honor his father, and he would continue doing it. They couldn't stop him, could they?

He'd tracked one of them down. A breacher. After a while, they were almost too easy to identify. Some quarters were easier than others to peg them for, the war quarter breachers above all. This one wasn't one of those though, but he saw him, had him in his sights from the moment he was spotted. This one hadn't been here long, still had that look about him like he was trying so hard not to look amazed by what he saw all around him. All he had to do was get to him, apprehend him, and get him on his way back to B.E. He'd been following him for nearly an hour now, waiting for his moment, waiting…

The cry came, as startling as it was debilitating, for the breacher more than him, but he wasn't exactly spared. He knew what it was, of course. She had only come on to his old ARGUS team after he had been removed from it, but they had crossed paths before, him and the one they called the Black Canary. She was the one who had 'gifted' him with his own – somewhat less appreciated – nickname.

He might not have recognized her at first, with her being in street clothes, but that cry was not something you went and forgot, and as far as he knew, she was the only one who had it. He hurried off to intercept her – and the breacher – only to find she had already gotten him restrained and she was now calling it in. He had half a mind to just turn and go off on his way, grumbling to himself about how she had gotten ahead of him and collared the breacher after all the effort he'd put into tracking him down… all the time he'd put into it at least… But then just as he'd been turning to go, he heard the telltale click of the gun that was now aimed somewhere at his back.

"Well if it isn't Wild Dog," she called after him, and he stopped, feeling the slight bristling brought on whenever he heard the name. He was going to just leave without saying a word, but then she called to him again. "Hey, hold up, I need to talk to you!"

"Is that right?" he asked, stopping at least, though he didn't turn around. "Were you following me?"

"Not even," she replied, and he could have assumed she was lying, but for some reason it didn't sound like it. "Diner on the corner, half an hour. And ditch the mask."

He could have bailed on her. She hardly gave him reason to show up over there like she asked, as though he was at her beck and call, except… He couldn't explain it, but something in her voice had told him otherwise. So, as requested, he changed and went to wait on her at the diner. It wasn't as though she hadn't seen his face before, but for the exposure they'd had to each other, which was minimal at best, he only knew her code name, and as for her, he wasn't sure she knew more than his either.

"Jim Olsen," she arrived just in time to answer his question, standing next to the booth where he sat, looking just as she'd done half an hour ago. He was left unable to say anything in reply, unless she wanted him to call her Black Canary in the middle of a semi-crowded diner. She gave a small, understanding smile and held out her hand as she sat across from him. "Lucy Lane," she introduced herself, and the name had an immediate effect on him, of recognition, and she nodded as though to say 'that's right.' Looking at her now, he didn't know how he hadn't made the connection until now. She had Director Lane's eyes.

"So I'm not the only one to follow the ARGUS legacy," he slowly nodded before tipping his head downward for a beat. "At least you're following it better than I did." He looked back at her, finding something in her face like deep dread, which she expelled after a moment, letting out a deep breath before sitting up.

"I hesitated for a while to seek you out, and I was telling the truth back there, I found you by chance tonight. I'm just back here a couple of days before heading back, but then the job never lets up, does it? Officially or not," she gave him a knowing look, alluding without words to his 'Wild Dog' endeavors. She breathed out again. "I thought you should know, my mother's passed away. I know she thought highly of you, even after she had to let you go." She was doing her best to remain composed, he could see, just as well as he could see that the loss still pained her deeply. In that moment, he was feeling it, too. Despite everything, that woman had changed his life, given him purpose.

"I'm sorry for your loss. She was a good woman. I never held it against her, what she did. I hope she knew it." Lucy smiled, nodding in reply. "If you don't mind me asking, who's taken over…"

"Henry Heywood," she told him. "It's been a while now, since she became ill and had to resign. She chose her replacement well." They were silent a while, save for putting in their orders when a waitress came around. It wasn't until after they'd been served that he got around to asking what he'd been wondering about for about as long as he'd been aware of what she could do.

"The thing you can do, your cry," he started uneasily. "Was that before or after you joined ARGUS?" For a second he thought she might not want to answer, that she'd either change the subject or leave, but eventually she spoke up.

"Before, and for a while after, too."

There had been an incident, some years before. She wouldn't go into specifics as to the nature of it, only that not long after that she discovered her ability and knew there was no other explanation than that it had been caused by the events of that day. Unlike Jim, she had always sort of known about what her mother did, and she knew about their research facilities as much as the special ops part. So she'd somehow gotten it into her head that, if her mother ever found out about what she could do, it would land her locked up in some lab somewhere. She felt silly about it now, but she couldn't have known back then, and so she'd kept it a secret.

Eventually, secret or no, she had taken up that legacy, as he'd called it, and she had gone to work with her mother at ARGUS, all the while wondering how long she could hold on to her secret. The answer, as it turned out, was one year, at least until they put her out of her misery and revealed that they had more or less known all along. And while her mother had been the ally to her she should have known she would be all along, there were others who were just teetering on the edge of respect to her connection to their director, who saw her differently, and it felt like something of a volcano waiting to pop. That was how she'd ended up with her current position, as one of three ARGUS agents on the team aboard the Waverider.

She had settled into that life, that task, which allowed her to do what she'd always set out to do, if in a different setting. But, and this she admitted to him in such a way that would suggest it wasn't something she so openly shared, she had resented the post at first. At the time it suggested that she couldn't take care of herself, that she couldn't hold her ground. But she'd adjusted since then, and she'd grown to feel like the opportunity, as unfortunately as it had been gained, was just what she had needed.

"So you've been out there then, on Breach Earth?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Yeah, more times than I can count at this point," Lucy nodded. "You know, a lot of those quarters, when we'll land, and walk out there, it doesn't feel all that different from here, not at first. Then there'll just be some things you start picking up on, and it can be these little things, but then we might come across some of their breachers and we'll know where they're from, just by those traits. Like the one tonight," she pointed behind herself, calling back on their encounter.

"Haven," Jim nodded, and Lucy tipped her head. Exactly. "Don't see many of theirs here, but when you do, you know. Now the ones from War…"

"Got some of them in our crew," Lucy cut him off, like snapping a protective warning across whatever statement he might have made. "Four, metas like me. Good people."

"I don't doubt that," he promised, keeping her eye. It was true, he couldn't deny, he had something of a bias against breachers, but then those on her crew, they were part of the effort, just like him, just like her. "And an alien?" he asked, unable to hide his curiosity, inquiring over a rumor he'd heard floating around.

"And an alien," she confirmed with a nod.

Their food eaten and gone, they had moved to leave the diner and go their separate ways. As a parting, Lucy reminded him that, regardless of how things had ended with him and ARGUS, her mother had always believed in him, and she hoped he'd keep that faith and her memory in mind as he went forward.

"Take care now, Wild Dog," she told him before walking off. He gave a nod.

"You got it, Black Canary."

THE END

Check out the next prelude, coming March 30th!