The monochrome city was in the midst of late evening. A light fog had descended upon its streets, causing everything within it to take on a more eerie atmosphere.

A sole figure walked along through the mist, ignoring the fact that this scenery would've sent a normal person running for home. He was wearing a wide-brimmed fedora and a trench coat with a nice big collar. He absently smoked a cigarette as he walked along, focusing more on his latest case.

He finally walked up to the building he was looking for. He walked up the stoop and through the archaic wooden doors with the thick brass door handles.

He was greeted by the doorman, who was reading a newspaper in a chair nearby.

"She's waiting for you upstairs," he said without looking up, pointing at the elevator.

"Thanks, Louie," Tracer Bullet replied in his slightly gruff voice.

He pressed the button on the elevator, and the door slid open. He stepped inside, pressed the appropriate button, and the door slid closed, and he felt himself start going up.

As he travelled, he briefly noted that there was no elevator music to keep him company on the journey. This pleased him. It meant that he wouldn't have to waste any bullets on the speaker.

At last, he made it to the thirteenth floor. He was grateful he wasn't like some of the more superstitious detectives in town, or else that alone would've scared him off. He walked down the long corridor, not even glancing at the other doors on the way to read the numbers on the front. He knew where he was going. He'd been down this corridor more times than he could count.

Finally, he arrived at Room 619, and he reached up and turned the doorknob. No point in knocking. He knew what she'd be doing when he got there.

And he was right.

She was sitting on her desk, legs crossed, wearing a rather silky getup, high heels and her hair up in a bun. She was smoking a cigarette as well.

"You wanted to see me, Tracer?" she purred.

"Susie," he said shortly.

"What brings you here, darling?" she asked, before taking a long draw on her cigarette.

"You know why I'm here, Derkins," he snapped. "I need information. Your ear's always on the pavement, listening in on every single thing that goes on in this city. How about passing some of that info on to yours truly?"

Susie smirked, blowing a smoke ring around Tracer's neck. "You think you can get me to talk, Bullet?" she asked smugly.

"I know I can. I need information on diamond smugglers from Newark. I need to know where their hideout is. I know for a fact that they hid out in this building for a period of time. I've got witnesses who saw them coming and going. Now where were they headed?"

"What makes you think I even knew they were here? This building has fifteen floors with fifty rooms on each of them. There could serial killers and drug dealers all over this building, and I wouldn't even notice."

"You make it a habit of noticing people, Derkins. Don't think I haven't noticed."

"Awww, what's the matter, Tracer? Jealous?"

"Where'd they go, Derkins? Don't make me get rough!"

"Promises, promises."

"I still haven't forgotten all the times you ratted me out and hung me out to dry."

"Only when you deserved it."

Tracer finally reached into his trench coat and pulled out his gun. "I'd like to see you rat me out for this."

Susie just chuckled. "Ohhh, big mistake, Bullet," she said. "You know I'm not the kind of dame who'd stay in her room all on her own." And she snapped her fingers.

Tracer heard footsteps coming from his right, and he turned around and saw a guy about twice his size stepping out of the shadows, cracking his knuckles and not bothering to brush the hair that was over his eyes.

"Well, well, well," the thug said in a raspy voice. "If it isn't Twinky…"

"Moe…," Tracer grumbled. "Of all the lousy thugs you could've hired for protection, you hired this behemoth?"

"He works cheap, and he does good work," Susie replied with a playful shrug. She took another drag on her cigarette before addressing her henchman. "Now then, Moe – be a good boy and rip him apart."

"With pleasure," Moe replied, reaching for Tracer.

Tracer tried to retaliate by aiming his gun at Moe, but the big dumb jerk was able to rip it out of his hands and toss it across the room, holding his fists instead.

"Fine," Tracer said. "If that's the way you want to play it, we shall."

Secretly regretting that he hadn't spent more of his life working out, Tracer suddenly leapt into the air, tackling Moe to the floor, and they knocked over a table with papers on it.

Susie just rolled her eyes and leaned back to watch.

Tracer and Moe fought tooth and nail. They were slugging each other and doing their absolute best to make the other one bleed. They kicked and punched and threw each other around the room, knocking things over and throwing office supplies everywhere.

Moe finally picked Tracer up and threw him through the door, smashing it to pieces, sending splintered wood and broken glass all over the floor.

Tracer, ignoring the throbbing pain in his sides, got to his feet, dusted himself off and prepared to get in his second wind.

Moe was just stepping out into the hallway to finish him off when Tracer sent a punch his way that knocked all the wind out of the huge thug as he was nailed right in the stomach. As he doubled over, Tracer then sent a karate kick straight at his head, sending him flying backwards on to his back, where he curled up into a ball, trying to regain his strength.

Tracer simply walked on him as he reentered the room. Susie was still on her desk, raising an eyebrow at him expectantly.

"So," the battered detective said, ignoring his bleeding nose that was possibly broken. "Am I going to get some answers or not?"

Susie just smiled sweetly. "I'll say this for you, Tracer. You never give up."

"Darn straight."

"Sadly, it's time for my next appointment. See yourself out."

And she unexpectedly kicked him square in the chest with her high heel, sending him falling to the floor and on top of Moe, who was still trying to get his strength back.

Susie leapt from the desk and pulled open the nearby window, climbing out onto the fire escape, which she proceeded to climb down.

Rubbing his possibly broken ribs in an attempt to ignore the pain he felt, Tracer staggered to his feet and staggered over to the window. He pulled it back open and followed her out.

She already had an impressive lead on him, and he was going to have to take on all thirteen flights in his current condition. Taking a deep breath, he steeled his resolve and took off down the fire escape.

Susie wasn't even really trying all that hard to outrun him. He was gaining on her rather quickly, managing to cover two levels for every one that she did. He was closing the gap rather quickly, and just as she was about to climb off the last one, she found her exit blocked when Tracer decided to skip the stairs and swung down over the railing and into her path.

"I need that information, Derkins!" Tracer snapped, out of breath. "Now tell me where they went and I'll leave!"

"Are you begging?" Susie asked coyly.

Tracer suddenly whipped out his gun. "Do I look like I'm begging?"

Susie blinked, clearly taken off-guard. "When did you get that back?"

"I never abandon a close friend. Now tell me where they went!"

After a tense moment, Susie's eyes flitted upwards for a brief second before she regained her smug grin and snapped her fingers.

Tracer's eyes widened in shock when he felt something land on the fire escape behind him, causing the whole structure to shake and rattle loudly. He whirled around and found himself face-to-face with a heavily-panting Moe.

"Sorry, Moe," he said pleasantly. "Did I make you exercise to get here?"

Moe responded by punching him across the jaw, sending the detective falling to the floor.

"I'll just leave you boys to it," Susie said, turning and making her way back up the fire escape. "Keep him alive, Moe, darling. I need to send him the bill for the damages to my office."

It wasn't clear whether or not Moe heard her. He was too determined to rip the detective to shreds.

Tracer found himself getting punched again, and when he fell to the floor, he lost his grip on his gun, and it went flying over the side and onto the pavement below.

"Say your prayers, Twinky," Moe growled. "It's time to see if your nose can reach the back of your head."

Tracer struggled to get out of the big oaf's grip. "You're lucky you're bigger than me or else you wouldn't stand a chance."

"True."

But just as Moe was about to finish him off…

…they were interrupted by a surprisingly colorful superhero that suddenly threw a fist at Moe, sending the thug flying through the air and over the edge of the fire escape, causing him to land with a loud crash in the trashcans below.

Tracer rubbed his forehead as he struggled to sit up. As he did so, he was surprised when a distinctly green beam surrounded him, and he found himself changing from his usual grayscale appearance to full color. He was surprised to find his trench coat turning light gray, as did his hat, which had a black ribbon going around it. Under the trench coat was a white shirt with a dark blue tie and a pair of suspenders.

As he was marveling at this change, he found himself being picked up and carried into the spaceship above.

When he got there, he found he was surrounded by two other short people about his height, not to mention Hobbes, Galaxoid and Nebular.

Nebular approached him and took out a red strip that resembled a bandage. Before Tracer could ask what was happening, the alien stuck it on his forehead.

To the private eye's surprise, his wounds suddenly began to heal. Bloody nose dried up, his broken ribs repaired themselves, his cuts and scratches stitched themselves back together, and his black eye faded away. An instant later, the bandage on his forehead dissolved into his skin.

He rubbed the blank spot on his forehead curiously as he got back to his feet.

"What was that thing?" he asked.

"Special healing strip," Galaxoid supplied. "It has restored you to full health."

"Except for whatever all that smoking and drinking has done to you," Nebular added. "No cheats for that."

Tracer shrugged. "I was designed that way."

"I thought it looked cool," Calvin replied defensively. "How was I supposed to know this would happen?"

At that moment, a door opened on the side of the ship, and Stupendous Man entered. "Well!" he said heroically. "Moe has been dealt with. He'll be there until the police arrive and collect him."

"What about the Derkins dame?" Tracer asked.

"Escaped, I'm afraid."

"Darn."

"Sorry to pull you out of a case," Hobbes said, "but we need you for a bigger purpose."

"Understood," Tracer replied. "I was wondering where my narrator had gone."

Calvin cleared his throat. "All right, guys," he said, gathering his alter-egos around. "We know where this is going. I've brought the three of you together to give us a better chance of defeating Retro."

"Right," Spiff said with a nod. "I've got my Death Ray Blaster said to 'Deep Fry'."

"That's the gun that never works when it's supposed to, right?" Stupendous Man snorted.

"Hey! That's hardly my fault!"

"All you have is your ability to almost always get captured by weird aliens, and you only ever end up on planets that look like a Utah desert! At least I have superpowers! I have my stupendous intelligence, my stupendous strength, my stupendous speed – !"

"You've got every single superpower that every single other superhero has! I have to rely on my wits!"

"At least I'm not a huge ham," Tracer said blandly.

Spiff and Stupendous Man stared at him, both gasping in shock at the insult.

Off to the side, Calvin and Hobbes were watching this, fascinated and disturbed by the arguing.

"You know, this doesn't reflect well on my own personal creativity," Calvin muttered.

"Why is it whenever we have multiple Calvins in the room, they immediately start arguing?" Hobbes asked.

"Excuse us," Galaxoid said, trying to get their attention, "but if we have recruited all of your alter-egos, shouldn't we be getting to work on a strategy?"

"Yes! Thank you!" Calvin said eagerly. "All right, boys – listen up! The whole point of all of you being here is that you're my new army! Time to fight imagination with imagination! We need to find where Retro is and force him to reverse what he's done to the world, seeing as how he's probably the only one who knows how the Imaginator works."

"I could figure it out!" Stupendous Man declared. "I have my stupendous intelligence!"

"Oh, for pete's sake!" Spiff snapped.

"We'd rather not take any chances," Calvin sighed. "Any chance we can do this without yelling at each other too much?"

"I suspect it will be a bit difficult," Tracer mused. "Still, nothing's impossible anymore."

Spiff and Stupendous Man were still glaring at each other, but Calvin continued speaking.

"The fact is that the three of you work in the name of justice and freedom. Retro's taken over every single person on the planet, and he's changed them into my imagined views of them for his amusement. We have to save them – for justice and freedom! I've recruited you all – representations of my inquisitiveness, my gallantry and my acumen – to help us defeat him. What do you say? Are you all in? Can you work together?"

To illustrate his point, Calvin put his hand out, waiting to see if the others would join him.

His three other selves all looked at each other for a long moment, clearly making up their minds.

Finally, Spiff put a hand on top of Calvin's.

Then, Tracer joined them, placing his hand on top of Spiff's.

Finally, Stupendous Man smirked and slapped his hand on top of theirs.

Calvin grinned. "Well then, gentlemen – let's get to work."