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!

THE GOOD SHIP WAVERIDER
Prelude to ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH
(19 of 24)

Location:
THE TIME SHIP WAVERIDER
(GRANT INNOVATIONS designation)
THE BREACH SHIP WAVERIDER
(ARGUS designation)

MAIN EARTH – A FEW YEARS AGO

Sitting in a holding cell at ARGUS was not how he had seen his return home going. After what he'd gone through to even make it here… he might not have known what he intended to do with his 'prize,' but he'd been eager to start exploring his options. How could anyone be anything but inspired when they found themselves at the helm of a time traveling space ship? Leonard Snart certainly had potential glowing in his mind. And then he'd made the mistake of getting on to ARGUS' radar by navigating – by accident – through a breach and back.

It was their good luck that he was still getting to know the ship, or he would have been able to evade them. Instead, they'd cornered him. They'd boarded him. They'd apprehended him. And now here he was.

Finally, someone had come for him, to escort him from holding and into an interrogation room of some kind, maybe an office. There he had been met by a man who asked him one thing only: where had he gotten that ship? He guessed there was little to attempt in saying this was simply his ship. The way they had caught him, they would know. So, he told his story.

It was odd to think it had all started only days ago. Less than a week ago, he had just been going about his day, and then he had come across… An anomaly was all he knew how to call it. Something in the air that felt wrong. What he had been doing at the time, well that was neither here nor there. But then he had held something in his hands, and he'd felt fused to the ground, weighed in place, blinded by a light. When finally he had been able to let go, the light had died out, the ground and he were separate once more, with such sudden release that he'd almost lost his balance, brought back to his senses as he heard the object clatter heavily to the ground. He'd looked down to find it again… but it was gone. To add to the great confusion around him… he was not where he had been a moment before.

The place where he found himself… How could he even explain it? He guessed if he narrowed his eyes a bit and got a look around, he might say it was the same building, but he really had to search out those identifying markers because this… this all looked like something out of a sci-fi movie, a far leap into the future.

He hadn't stood there wondering for too long. He had been very aware of how he stood in the open, so he had found his way out of the building and there… there the questions had only gotten bigger. Before long, he realized his earlier estimation hadn't been so far off. He was in the future, the distant future. He didn't know how he'd ended up there, what that object he'd picked up had been, but it wasn't as though he could inspect it and try to understand. So he could only focus on finding a way back to his own time.

He had considered just staying there, making a new life for himself in the future. It certainly had its appeal, all this new tech, this place where he wasn't known.

It had taken a few days, but then by some miracle his way home had very practically fallen into his lap. It was all over the news reports, some company was about to unveil its brand new innovation in time ships… That was a thing they had. Time ships. So, there he was, with a need, and the means to achieve it. What else was he going to do? Go to these people and say 'I was hurtled into this time by accident, would you care to give me a lift back to my own time?' That had all the markings of something that would get him locked away. So, back up option? He'd broken into the place and stolen the ship.

Now here he was, and whether or not they deemed him to be this ship's rightful owner, he didn't care. This was his ship. He may not have managed to evade them, but he had succeeded in doing one thing, exceeding all expectations. He'd made it so the ship would recognize him as being the one meant to sail it. He'd installed certain coded commands, and if ARGUS tried to keep him away, well then he'd just have to show them whose ship this was, wouldn't he? And the fact that they had finally pulled him out of that holding cell was proof enough that he'd done his job right. They were locked out, and they would remain that way. He wasn't too good of a pilot yet, but he was damn good with this.

The boss man had him escorted back to that holding cell. Hours passed. When he was pulled from there next, he thought he might be taken back to the same office room. Instead, he was brought to what might have been a briefing room, with a long table surrounded with chairs, and screens on the far wall, where he was met with a tall woman, a steely gaze in her eyes as she examined him, sitting there. Finally, she came to stand before the screens and faced him again. She introduced herself as Ava Sharpe, ARGUS agent. She went on to inform him that, following his being apprehended and brought into the facility, she had presented her superiors with a project. This project hinged on whether or not they were to have access to this ship he'd brought into their midst, and now, as it appeared they would, ("Debatable," he'd cut in.) she had been granted permission to read him into this project.

Though he had gone through a breach and back, an act which had gotten them to notice him, he had not done it on purpose. How could he? Until that day, he'd had no idea such a thing as breaches existed. If he had, then his trip into the future might almost have felt a little less impossible. Now, Agent Sharpe was informing him, on breaches, on the other Earth. For a time already, ARGUS had been set with the task of looking after the breaches, and any crossings that occurred. At this point, making the trip was much more difficult than he could have imagined, at least for them. But when the ship ("My ship.") had made the crossing with the ease it did, she had gotten an idea, one that would very easily revolutionize how they got to do their job. They could use the ship in conjunction with agents on the ground on either side of the breach, and, most importantly, aboard. If he was going to maintain a grip on this ship, then maybe a deal could be struck.

If he wanted to retain control of the ship, that was fine… under one condition. He would allow a team to join him, and he would work with them.

This wasn't exactly what he would have agreed to do, if it was only up to him. It had taken some more convincing, more perspective as to why this new asset could be one he would want to help provide. He wasn't heartless, he had seen some value in his becoming associated with them. So he'd agreed to give it a try, all the while telling himself he would toss them to the curb the moment it felt like the better solution. What he told them was that he wanted two things: one, to have a say in who did or didn't come aboard his ship, and two, no one but the two of them in that room would know of this deal or how he'd gotten hold of the time ship. This was granted, and thus the breach ship was put into the service of ARGUS.

In the beginning, there were four of them on the ship. Agent Sharpe was to be the representative for ARGUS, and Leonard took some small pleasure in referring to her as his second in command. Two more agents rounded up their initial quartet. The first was Lucy Lane. Before long he would learn how, even before joining ARGUS she had been aware of her metahuman status and abilities, though she had kept them secret. Only someone – Agent Sharpe – had discovered her secret, and used this knowledge to convince her to join up on her team aboard the ship. The last of the trio coming on to the Waverider in the beginning was Winn Schott. This one had been as human as they came when he'd first joined up with ARGUS, recruited for his technical knowledge and ability. However, an incident had led to his being selected the recipient of a new compound they had developed. This compound had granted the young agent the ability to turn his body to steel… and taken away whatever hope he might have had to remain out of the field. In essence, joining the Waverider team could be the best of both worlds. He'd still see his new abilities put to good use, but in a much more controlled setting.

And so they were off, the four of them. What faith Leonard had or didn't have in this becoming anything he'd choose to stick with… that was still an uncertainty.

MONTHS LATER

Against all odds, he was still there, and so was his team. He made a great show of not displaying any sign that he wasn't still debating whether or not he would stick this out, whenever he and Agent Sharpe shared a private conversation. Neither Lane nor Schott was aware of his deal with ARGUS, which was in itself part of that deal, and his relationship with those two, if it could be called that, maintained a reasonable amount of distance. Maybe it was that they were essentially cops and he was made into one, too, for cooperating with them. So then, of course, when their crew of four took on two new members, it had to be cops…

The first was Ed Thawne. Leonard had run across him a few times already in his time with the Waverider and its small crew, when their dealings with breachers took them down to the streets of the city beneath the breach. And though the man was a metahuman, that wasn't what had earned him his place on the crew. Instead, he had pointed out to his captain that, if ARGUS got to have an active say in the handling of this situation taking place in their city, then the police department deserved that same say. Thawne and his partner were thus offered the position, and they'd taken it. Thawne's partner was a man named Quentin Lance. He had no powers to speak of (at the time, at least), but he had also kept the secret of his partner's abilities for some time, which already said something about him. His reasons for agreeing to join the crew remained his own in the beginning, though they knew something about his having lost a daughter.

The sudden shift from four to six had given whatever rhythm the crew had developed its first challenge, but it also made Leonard feel something new. The crew had never quite felt his, not like this. But now it did, and in his own way, he managed to show them as much.

WEEKS LATER

In all the cases the crew of the Waverider had dealt with since they'd come together, while they had travelled across many a quarter of the Breach Earth, Leonard couldn't say they had sailed very far when it came to their 'Main' Earth, definitely not near as far as they had done until they followed a trail that led them to some breachers all the way in Zambesi, in Africa. But they had gone there, and it was in this place that they met the one who would next become part of their crew. They hadn't known just what it was they came into contact with when they met M'gann, except that the necklace around her neck was a totem, and that totem granted her great power. She had already gained some control over the breachers when the ship had come along. They had threatened her village, and she initially joined them in order to see the breachers taken from her village and back to where they belonged. After that, having seen what they all did, she'd presented herself to Leonard and, as a mark of gratitude for what he and his crew had done, she offered her services, that she might repay them. None of them ever expected or demanded payment, but she had insisted on it, and there was something to be said for having the power she brought as part of their arsenal. So she was welcomed into their team. And there she stayed.

A YEAR LATER, BREACH EARTH

The longer they'd been doing this, Leonard couldn't say his perspective had been unchanged. He had seen things, since this had all started, and those things had slowly but surely become a part of him, made him want to… do more. This much he came to realize when a pass through War Quarter brought him in contact with the quarter who would soon round out their crew as it still stood to this day.

The four of them had deserted their posts. No… They had escaped. They'd been soldiers, all of them, which was hardly unexpected, coming from the quarter they came from. Three of them had been part of secret projects, and all three had run from those projects, though none of them came away unscathed. There was Slade Wilson, formerly attached to Project Mercury, which had been born out of the accident which had granted him his speed. And then there were the pair from Project Horus, Rip Hunter and the woman they only knew as Gideon. The first time Leonard had seen the great wings spring from their backs, it was something that left him startled and stunned, something in short supply these days, even for all that he did see. The last one was not part of one of those projects, no. Instead, Ralph Dibny had been tasked – or maybe he'd tasked himself – with tracking them down, to apprehend them and bring them back. Yet when he'd had his chance, he'd instead chosen to help them remain unfound.

It was sort of by chance then that they'd come into contact with the Waverider, and Leonard… well he knew a thing or two about chance encounters. This one, it felt to him like a different kind of chance, one that would enable him to make a difference, in these four's lives at least. It had always been his business to put breachers where they were supposed to be. These four weren't breachers, but they might as well have been. But if they became part of his crew… Well, they might actually get to do something good with the lot they'd been handed in life.

That was the pitch he'd given them. And they'd agreed to it. So there they were. Eleven strong aboard the Waverider…

TODAY, IN THE BOWELS OF THE WAVERIDER

"Afternoon, Mr. Schott."

Maybe he'd hit his head. Yeah, that would explain things. Either that or he was still unconscious… Except… When had he become unconscious? And where was he? And who was this woman, standing over him, and why did she sound exactly like the ship's artificial intelligence? Unless…

"Cat?" he'd blinked, wide-eyed. She'd rolled her eyes, and then she'd held out her hand, to shake his, and to help him up.

"Catherine Grant," she introduced herself.

"A-As in… Grant Innovations?" As little as the crew knew of the ship's origins, they had seen the company logo in countless places over the years. "I have so many questions, and I can't decide which one to ask first. How long have you been here? Why does the AI sound like you? Did you build the ship? How…"

"I've never been submitted to this derailed train of thought of yours firsthand, I'm getting to see why the others always get that look on their faces. Am I making it now?"

"Vaguely annoyed, yeah, that's the one," he let out a breath, finding a seat before his legs could manage to give out. After a moment, he finally decided which question was most important at the moment. "Have you… has it always been you, talking to us? You're Cat…"

"Intelligent, not artificial," she bowed her head in confirmation and he let out a small stunned noise. "And much as Mr. Snart would like to say otherwise, this is my ship. It has enabled me to pose as 'Cat,' these past few years, and keep all of you from becoming aware of my presence. At least it did, until today, when you started… roaming the halls."

"There was… something that didn't add up about this section of the ship, I… I wanted to figure out what it was," he admitted sort of sheepishly. "Wait, did you knock me out?" he looked back up after a second. She held up her hand, and he fell quiet once more.

"You will speak to no one about what you saw here. You won't tell anyone about me. If you do, I know a lot of ways to make your life miserable, are we clear?"

"Clear, very clear," he agreed. He was silent for a few moments. "We would have been dead a few times if it wasn't for you," he stated. "If we'd known you were an actual person, we… Thanks." After a few seconds of wondering what she would say or do, she'd smiled.

"My contribution to our crew."

THE END

Check out the next prelude, coming June 10th!