Scott was the oddest man Oberon had ever met. If he weren't Scott Free, Oberon would think he was bipolar. He would loosen up while planning a new stunt, laughing and joking with Oberon, then he'd fall into deep melancholies after he pulled one off. Oberon left him alone when he got that way. When he came back to the house Scott lived, it would either look like a tornado had blown through it or would be fastidiously clean. Oberon didn't ask.
Thaddeus Brown's house was, slowly but surely, conforming to its new owner's tastes. Each of Scott's little episodes transformed it a little further. The Goya prints of war that Thad had bought when his son was sent to the frontlines… Scott threw them out and it was only Oberon's quick thinking that saved priceless artwork from a garbage heap.
As much as Oberon joked about Scott growing up in a barn, he was starting to think it bore more resemblance to a war zone. He never stayed in that house long enough for Scott to sleep, but sometimes he caught Scott in a nap. They were always restless, fitful affairs. Nightmares.
His phone rang. Oberon fought his way out of the warm embrace of his bedsheets, hoping for Scott's sake that boy wasn't calling to figure out a dishwasher. Oberon's apartment was no paradise, but it was infinitely preferable to a trek to Thaddeus's house in the country.
"Yeah?" he answered.
"Oberon, Ted Brown is here. He's Mr. Miracle's son." Scott's voice was still as neutral as ever, that sell-you-something voice that always made Oberon wonder what Peter Coyote sounded like as a young man, but there was a quickness in it that betrayed his apprehension.
Oberon grabbed his car keys.
Ted Brown didn't like Scott Free. There was something a little too ethereal about his boyish good looks. His eyes were too blue, his graceful movements too quick and sure. And yet he was having trouble brewing tea.
"I'm really not thirsty," Ted demurred.
Scott struggled to untangle a teabag. "I insist." He accidentally ripped it open, reached for a new one. "Oberon will be here soon. If you have any questions about your father…"
"I'd rather hear it from you," Ted interrupted, standing up from the leather couch Scott had invaded the living room with. He remembered this home growing up, constant, and now this stranger was turning it into something it wasn't.
The teakettle whistled. Scott shut the stove off, abandoning the teabags to the trash and the boiling water to the sink. Steam wisped up from the sink as Scott leaned over it, hands bolted to the counter.
"Your father died doing what he loved. He was doing an escape. A criminal named Steel Hand sabotaged it. He died..." Scott choked on emotion, quickly spat it out. "A good death. I brought Steel Hand to justice. The matter's resolved, all except for the wisdom you take away from it."
Ted almost guffawed in disbelief. He settled on the obvious: "You're not him." It was as much an accusation as a statement of fact.
"I try to be."
"Why?"
Scott shrugged. "I admired him. His mission."
Ted walked to the bookshelf along the far room, Scott shadowing him out of the kitchen and into the living room. Some of the dust-covers were clean, others still unread. There seemed to have been some new books added, glossy sides next to frayed and yellow pages. Dickens, Shakespeare, Twain… authors no one read unless they had a paper to write.
"What mission was that?" Ted stuck his hands in his pockets, examined the bookends closer. They were new. "My father was a great showman. The cape, the mask, the name. But that's all he was. An escape artist."
"Just an escape artist? He was so much more than that." Scott held out his hand, two fingers in, two out, in an operatic gesture. As if offering the truth of his words to Ted. "He put a little wonder, a little mystery, into life. He gave people hope that everything hadn't been filed away in dusty drawers. He gave them an escape from the ordinary. If you don't understand that, maybe you don't know your father as well as you thought.
Ted steamrolled over the space between himself and Scott, stopping only when he was in the other man's face. "I spent five years in an enemy prison camp. I knew my death would destroy my father. I stayed alive for him. Then I got out to learn he had died. Never knowing if his own son were alive or dead. I came home to find a billboard about how Mr. Miracle was escaping from a flaming straitjacket. And you tell me I don't know my own father. You have no idea what it's like to stay in chains so long you forget what freedom is like. No idea what it's like to live each day for someone else."
"You'd be surprised," Scott said, shaken but still carefully neutral. "I don't know what your relationship with your father was like. Five years' worth of nostalgia can do a lot to the human memory. But I do know that fighting with a stranger for your dead father's love doesn't make you a good son."
An electric jolt turned Ted's body rigid. With the preamble of a thunderbolt on a clear day, a tear rolled down his cheek. More followed. Ted turned away, scrubbing at his eyes with his sleeve. He coughed, choking with misery, and it turned into a strangled sob. His hands were curled into fists that boiled with impotent rage.
"You son of a bitch," he said, voice cracking. A hand was spidered over his eyes, like a mask.
"It's quite possible." Scott's voice was moving closer, a tremor of sympathy in it. "I wouldn't know."
Ted tried to tell Scott to take his sympathy to hell, but the words refused to be summoned. Strong hands spun him around, so fast Ted thought it was an attack, but then Scott had pulled him into a hug. The embrace was too harsh, too tight, like an amateur trying something he had heard about but never done before. Still, Ted felt himself drawn to the freely offered intimacy from the man who had been insulting him just a minute ago.
"Your father was proud of you." Scott had such raw humanity in his voice that Ted didn't doubt a syllable. "Prouder than he was of himself. Anyone could see that."
"He's right, kid," Oberon said from the doorway. "You think Thaddeus wanted you to follow in his footsteps and that Scott usurped your birthright."
A nod. Ted still clung to Scott unashamedly, a drowning man with a life preserver. A man who'd been drowning for five years.
"But Thad never wanted you to do anything but walk your own road. He told me once that it takes guts to fight for your own freedom. That's human. But to fight for other people's freedom is heroic. Thad wasn't a hero. But he was proud to be father to one."
Ted broke away from Scott, leaving the shoulder of the other man's T-shirt wet. He went for a box of tissues and found it right where his father used to keep it.
"Thanks Oberon." He blew his nose. Wadded it up and dropped it in the trash can. "And thank you… Mr. Miracle."
"You don't have to call me that," Scott said, his armor back up.
"I know. You keep doing what you're doing, okay? Don't stop. Don't stop for nothing."
"Eh, maestro, I hate to interrupt the moment, but I heard something on the radio while I was riding over here. Take a listen."
Oberon flipped on the TV. Scott examined it quizzically as Oberon turned to a news channel. Watched as the news report played out. Two hours ago an impenetrable forcefield had appeared around Galveston. A man inside claimed responsibility; the police believed him, owing to the personal forcefield he wore. He'd gathered some local legbreakers into a feudal army and was going to start executing hostages at the city limits, just inside the forcefield.
"What are his demands?" Ted asked. "He's gotta want something."
"He wants the name of Darkseid to be feared," Scott said. "I know that guy. He's a big shot as long as he's got his shield, but take it away… Oberon, where's this taking place?"
"Galveston." Scott's look was a prompt. "Texas. Why?"
Scott was already off, pulling his costume out of the wall vault and throwing it on. "Shieldos has a forcefield that protects him from any damage. They can't get through it, but I can."
"Wait a minute, Shieldos?" Ted interrupted. "You used to fight this guy?"
"Not really…" Scott pulled his mask on. "I served under him."
"You were one of them?"
"Oberon! Ted! I know you have a lot of questions and believe me, I'm willing to answer them, but right now there's a maniac tearing up my home and I'm the only one who can stop him."
Illinois to Texas was a short-trip by Boomtube, even a short range one that had a tendency to… wiggle. Texas was warmer than he was used to, a burst of warm air greeting him that reminded him of a Fire-Pit. That was quickly tempered by the chill of the sea and the night. The night was lit up by gathered police and other rescue workers, unable to do anything but wait. Scott could already feel the tension they were generating. Although he knew it was sawhorses keeping the press back several tens of feet, from his bird's eye view it seemed as if the tension itself were separating them.
Lit by portable lights and flashing sirens, seven hostages knelt, chained, just inside the forcefield. Only one of them was still begging for help. The rest were either crying or stoically staring forward… either accepting their fates or just plain checked out, Scott couldn't tell.
They (the ever-omnipotent They) had called out the big guns for this disaster. Superman, Aquaman, the Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman were all searching for ways in. The longer this dragged on, the more would show up. Scott wasn't going to let it drag on.
"Superman," Wonder Woman cried, pointing out Scott.
Scott skidded to a stop on his aero-disks, waiting as Superman hovered up to meet him. They regarded each other, Scott feeling the tingle of Superman X-raying through his mask.
"You're the one from Apokolips," he said, a note of judgment entering his voice. "If you have anything to do with this…"
Scott held up his hands quickly, pleadingly. "I'm here to put a stop to this, same as you. That forcefield is basic ionic. I can bypass it with a simple application of quantum vibration."
Superman looked to the Flash, who stopped an attempt to shake his way through the forcefield to nod. "It could work, but it's hard to imagine anyone trying it without being shaken apart."
Scott drew a device from his belt. "This shakes me. The mesons built into my suit will keep me together."
"And if they don't?" Superman asked.
"Well, then I won't be your problem."
Superman stared into him, unsure. Scott let out a deep breath. He'd known Apokolips had a bad reputation… one well-earned… but he felt sure that by keeping his nose to the ground and coming as far from the galactic mainstream as Earth he could avoid the worst of it. And yet, here he was. Funny, in a way. After all the convolutions he'd gone through just to decide to fight, now he couldn't.
"You let me help these people. Please. Just give me a chance."
Superman crossed his arms, turning it over in his mind. "Are you sure you can handle him?"
"Oh, believe me. I'll handle him."
"Then get in there." No longer had Superman spoken the words than Scott was flying past him. "And be careful."
Scott spun to look at him. "Where's the fun in that?"
Smiling, he flew backward through the forcefield.
Mr. Miracle felt a shiver of something not quite anticipation as he came out the other side. As alien as they were to him, the sight of the strange costumes of the Justice League and their law enforcement helpers were comforting… after a fashion. It had been their ilk who had dealt with Steel Hand so efficiently, sometimes asking for and giving Scott help during his adventures… although he had tried to steer clear of the superheroes, who had more perceptiveness when it came to extraterrestrials. He still had no wish for his origins to be common knowledge.
But now they would be no help to him. For most of his life, he'd had someone to rely on… Himon, Barda, the crew of his freight, Oberon… now he would face Shieldos on his own. Fear. That was the word for it. He was actually afraid.
How novel. How entirely inconvenient.
Mr. Miracle landed, retracting his aero-disks into his bootheels. With a razor hidden in the index finger of his glove, he severed the hostages' bonds. From across the forcefield, Superman nodded in approval.
"Where should we run?" the crying hostage asked, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Or should we hide?"
"Neither," Scott said, turning on the city. "You're going to want to watch this."
The further Mr. Miracle got in the city, guided by the freed hostages who stayed a safe distance back, the easiest it was to spot Shieldos's attacks. A fire here, an overturned car there… but no people. They passed an eighteen-wheeler that had crashed halfway through a building. A scent of sea salt filled Scott's nostrils.
Then an intersection. The buildings surrounding it were scarred with power-blasts. There must have been two hundred people, all kneeling with their hands on their heads. The occasional thug with a shotgun or impromptu melee weapon wandered their borders. At the center, Shieldos was raking extensions of his personal forcefield over the concrete like giant fingernails. He always had been an idiot.
Scott cold-cocked the nearest guard. Caught his shotgun and pumped it empty, then dropped it to the ground amidst its discarded shells. Shieldos noticed. He looked as brutish as ever, his tusk-mouthed visage hidden behind the distortion of his shield. With a huff of irritation, he waved more thugs towards Scott. They ran, a pair of them, converging on Mr. Miracle from either side. Scott kicked some shotgun shells towards the one on his right, causing him to slip, fall, and face-plant. That one dealt with, he pivoted on his heel to face the one on his left. That legbreaker was armed with a crowbar. It swung, slow as ketchup coming out of the bottle to one of Scott's reflexes, and then Mr. Miracle was easily under it and coming back up with an uppercut. The man dropped, his crowbar clanging as it settled beside him.
That made Shieldos sit up from his throne – a two-ton car compressed by a forcefield into a chair's shape.
"In Darkseid's name, who goes there?"
"I go decidedly not in Darkseid's name," Mr. Miracle said in the Apokoliptian language as he pushed his way through the crowd of hostages. Some of them were tentatively standing. "You're a fool, Shieldos. You serve a greater fool. Darkseid doesn't care about you. He doesn't care about anyone."
Shieldos replied in the same guttural dialect. "And you serve these people. You think they're any different? If they knew who you were, if they knew where you came from, they'd turn on you in an instant."
"That's an instant more than Darkseid ever gave me."
With a wave of his forcefield, Shieldos cleared the civilians between himself and Mr. Miracle. Scott grimaced as he heard bones break.
"So, New God," Shieldos said, leering foully. "What do they call you on this pissant little world?"
"They call me Mister Miracle!"
The forcefield swelled around Shieldos like a cloak kicked up by the wind, giving him the appearance of being infused with St. Elmo's Fire. Mr. Miracle dove to the side just in time as Shieldos pointed to him, the shield extending from his arm in a river of energy. The attack just cleared his heels, punching a car behind him. Scott ignored the sound of it rolling end over end, preferring the sound of the Thanagarian death-circle he drew from his belt and hurled at the man from Apokolips.
It bounced off his personal shield.
"Different frequencies for your armor and the city shield." Scott snorted. "Why can't evil be dumb?"
The forcefield burst forth from Shieldos in a shockwave, flattering the hostages to the ground. Mr. Miracle held on to a streetlamp, staying upright. He reared his head up in time to see the liquid shield flowing upwards like an upside-down waterfall, supporting a car full of people.
"Granny trained us for heroic interference!" he shouted. "There's a high probability that you will go to extraordinary lengths to prevent ordinary collateral damage. Senseless, but true. Catch!"
He hurled the car towards a head-on collision with a skyscraper. No time for aero-disks. Scott hopped on one foot, peeling the deactivated aero-disk from his heel, then took off up the side of the building using his grav-directors. Usually wall-walking wasn't nearly as useful as flight, but it came in handy.
Mr. Miracle skidded to a stop on the window the car was about to hit, holding out his hand and deploying the aero-disk in his palm. The car came to a gentle stop. Its front bumper was a foot from his head. Inside, the family buckled their seatbelts. Mr. Miracle closed his hand, shutting the aero-disk off, and the car dropped ten feet down onto its wheels.
"This could get boring," Shieldos said. "Me, throwing cars, you catching them." The forcefield slithered out from his hands, wrapping around two cars. "Let's cut this short."
"Let's."
Scott threw the aero-disk forward like a Frisbee, belly-flopping onto it in mid-air. He slanted down into Shieldos, tackling him head-on. With the shield at a different frequency, he couldn't penetrate it, but the attempt knocked Shieldos for a loop. Scott flapped the aero-disk down on the ground, having set it to expand from a foot in diameter to a meter. Shieldos recovered, threw a punch. Mr. Miracle rolled with it, but the blow tugged the bottom of his mask from his neckline. It flapped in the wind. Scott ignored it, busy dashing behind Shieldos and grabbing him in a full-nelson.
"Let's get some air," he hissed into his enemy's ear.
The aero-disk carried them upward and out, skimming over the city's skyline. It was all Mr. Miracle could do to keep hold of Shieldos as the man elbowed him in the ribs, headbutted him in the nose, delivered body blow after body blow knowing it was impossible for Scott to retaliate. The solid/ephemeral feel of the forcefield became a constant companion to Mr. Miracle, racking him as he carried Shieldos away.
"How much punishment can your body take before you give?" Shieldos taunted, gut-punching Scott.
"Enough," Scott gritted out.
Shieldos ripped the mask off, Scott too weak to resist.
"I know you… public enemy number one! Scott Free! So this is the hole in the ground you've crawled into." His forcefield slammed into Scott, nearly knocking him off the aero-disk. "There are standing orders for your capture. When I bring your head to Granny, I'll be richly rewarded."
The land under them turned to sea and still Scott absorbed the punishment. He remembered worse, but it had been so long. Each bruise not only hurt, but it brought back the memories of just how intense his childhood suffering had been. He was seeing double, Granny Goodness's cruel sport and Shieldos's current beatdown. Still, he could be strong. He would show them he could be strong. Show them all.
"Where's your woman, Scott Free?" Shieldos was focusing on the face now, punching it over and over again. Scott feared the next time he looked in a mirror. "I'll tell you where. She's the head of Darkseid's honor guard. She has slain millions in his name!"
"No! You lie!" Scott howled through a bloody mouth.
"She services a different Parademon every minute of every night! She revels in her degradation; she enjoys it as a born slut! I've seen it! It's an inspiring sight!" Shieldos laughed. "How can you live without Darkseid?"
Scott looked him in the eye fiercely, with such fearlessness that Shieldos was actually stunned silent.
"Better than you can live without air," Scott rasped out.
He shrunk the aero-disk back to its normal size.
Shieldos fell, his forcefield switching to a different configuration with each mile he fell. He realized they were all useless just in time to scream before he hit water. The shield protected him from the brunt of the impact, but couldn't keep him afloat. Scott watched as his counterpart sunk below the waves.
"Watch that first step, Shieldos," he said through the thin air. "It's a doozy."
He Boomtubed back to the Brown house before they could find him. Unmasked, he staggered through the backdoor and into the kitchen. He must've blacked out for a moment, or just not noticed them, because Oberon and Ted were helping him to the couch.
"You okay?" Ted asked. "You look like hell."
"Fucker got my mask," Scott said. "So I dropped him in the Bay of Mexico. He's not much of a swimmer."
"You fought him. We saw the pre-fight on the news," Oberon said.
"What are you, a superhero now?" Ted asked. "Mr. Miracle is just a gimmick. It's not…"
"I'm no hero," Scott interrupted, holding up a hand. "It was a smart choice."
"Yeah, looks like it," Oberon said as he filled a bag of ice.
"Part of my cunning scheme. Apokoliptian warriors all have the same weakness… once they get their blood up, they shut their brains down. Using my body as a punching bag distracted him long enough for me to take care of business." Scott smiled. "He's probably dog-paddling to Cuba by now."
Oberon pressed the ice-bag to the side of Scott's face that was slightly more bruised than the other. "Even Castro doesn't deserve that guy."
"I was being facetious. Shieldos had two options. Drown, or boomtube back to Apokolips."
"Couldn't he just… boomtube to dry land?" Ted asked, busying himself with getting Scott a glass of water.
"No. He's a low-level hack. Not trusted enough for a boomtube that isn't one-way. Those either go to the target, or back to Apokolips. Nowhere else."
"Why?"
"To prevent them from doing what I did: Escape." Scott graciously took the glass of water from Ted. "I suppose it's time both of you hear the whole story."
Shieldos coughed up what must have been a quart of seawater onto the floor before noticing he was in Darkseid's palace… the courtroom. Various minions scurried about, and Darkseid's generals were in attendance as well. Their chairs circled the great pedestal on which Darkseid's throne sat, a mountain with staircases at north, south, east, and west. Shieldos lowered his forcefield and kissed the first step. Dripping wet, he looked up at Great Darkseid, who beckoned him closer.
"My liege, I bring excellent news of Earth."
"You have recovered the anti-life equation?" Darkseid demanded… never asked.
"No. I have found a far greater prize. Scott… Free."
The room explored with murmurs. Darkseid silenced them with a mood, brought the Female Furies forth with a gesture.
"You're ready?"
Barda stepped forward, jaw set, but eyes downcast. "I've waited five years for this. Let me go to Earth, sire. I'll pay Scott Free back for all he did to me."