Hello again. Here's episode 2. Sorry not sorry if I make anyone cry. This story will not always be so morose. I hope you all enjoy, leave a review, please.
Danger S1E2: Indestructible
Recap: "Henry, what are you doing here?" Schwoz asks in surprise.
"…I'm back, we're back, Charlotte, Jasper and I…"
"…we're back in Swellview now," Charlotte says as the plane touches down on the tarmac. "where the villains are comical and nothing too bad ever happens."…
Suddenly all the lights go out. The background humming of the fridge and the air moving through the vents are silenced… Then the ground rumbles, and a distant boom echoes across the city. "What was that?" Mr. Hart asks…
black smoke rising in the sky to the west… Does smoke normally swirl that way?...
"…when the blackout happened, I was able to trace it to Swellview power facility and Captain Man and Danger Force went there to see what the problem was…" Schwoz says. "…I can't keep the comms to the team open, it keeps dropping out. I need your help…"
"Ray? Ray, are you there?" Henry calls. A blip, the tiniest, faintest response that may be the word "Kid" follows but is lost as quickly. "Ray!? Captain Man?" …
"I'm going to go help them." Henry states firmly, standing and walking purposefully to the tube platform. He pulls his gum tin from his pocket and pops a gumball into his mouth…
The darkness at the Swellview power facility is somehow greater than everywhere else in the city. More than the lights being off they seem to be pulling the natural light in, giving the place an eerie feel. Henry, now dressed in his Dystopian crime fighting costume with a mask newly added for his return to Swellview, sneaks around the facility…
"What do you guys know about what they want?" he asks.
A long moment of silence passes while they all try to come up with something. "I really have no idea." Shoutout says, folding her arms and looking upset at her own lack of information…
"…their leader was heading for the central control tower."
"…the leader?" Henry questions
"A shadow man." Brainstorm responds. "Captain Man chased him." …
…something red and blue comes flying out of the window on top of the tower….
Captain Man continues to lay completely still on the ground…
"Captain Man?" He rolls him over onto his back. He's limp and heavy, his blue eyes are open but unfocused. He's so unmoving Henry can't even detect breath. "Captain Man? Ray!?" he shakes the man, trying not to panic. Clumsily he lifts one of Captain Man's wrists, pressing his fingers to the radial artery, searching for a pulse…
Volt forces red lightning into Captain Man's chest. His entire body jerks before falling flat again. "Check him." Volt says, clenching her hands already prepared for a second try.
Henry resumes his CPR and Shoutout tests a wrist. "Nothing." she says.
"Try again." Henry says.
They pull back again as Volt repeats her attempt…
Volt is now crying as she slams Ray with an absurd amount of energy. Henry is still holding his wrist, barely noticing the second-hand shocks he's getting. The wrist is stiff and cool to the touch. The situation had reached the point of doom.
"Henry?" Charlotte inquires at his silence. She takes a breath, "What's wrong?"
The dread inside him solidifies and drops straight through his heart, tearing it. "Captain Man…" …Breathing deeply, he forces the words out, voice cracking despite his efforts to remain calm. "Captain Man is dead."…
He stares at the body he can't believe is Ray and can only manage one coherent thought: What now?
(Theme song: Henry's voice dubbed over the image of Captain Man sculpted in bronze. "It all just kind of happened. This isn't how it was supposed to be…)
June 18, 2021
All Henry can hear is crying; from the young superheroes around him, the friends on the other end of the comm line, and inside himself. Lights flash around, he knows cops and reporters are nearby, but he can't be bothered with any of them right now. Ray lying in front of him has all his attention.
Staring at it he still can't believe, nor even understand how it could be possible. It must be some kind of trick because Ray, Captain Man, can't be dead. Nothing could've killed him, he's literally indestructible. He'd taken every kind of beating, been in too many explosions to count and once he'd swallowed an atomic bomb only getting a short-lived stomachache for it. So, there is no way, by any kind of logic that he could be dead.
Yet, there he is, cold and still. His eyes stare blankly into empty space; and Henry feels as lost as the gaze.
Someone, in a small, scared voice, asks, "What do we do now?" so perfectly echoing Henry's thoughts that it takes him a moment to realize they were spoken aloud. He looks around to Miles, who's shaking and holding tight to two of his friends on the other side of Ray. The boy is looking around at each of his teammates. Miles, Bose from beside him, and Chapa from her place against Henry, all converge their looks onto Mika, kneeling between the two boys. She's the smart one and they know it, so they look to her to have the answers.
Seeing all their eyes on her she shrinks, her face showing how equally unknowing to them she is right now. After taking a shaky breath she turns her own eyes to Henry, deferring to him, as she had only moments ago, to take the reins, because she cannot cope with the pressure amidst her own feelings on being unprepared for this situation. The others' eyes follow hers and Henry knows he cannot shrink before them now.
These four kids are only thirteen years old. They all just witnessed the death of their mentor and teacher. The solid ground they'd relied on has gone so abruptly and they are grasping for something, someone to keep them from falling. Henry is older and far more experienced in difficult things. So, here and now he decides he must shoulder the responsibility of helping them through this.
"We need to go, take him back to the Manca-nest." Henry says with as much confidence and authority as he can muster.
"I… I'll get something to lay him on." Charlotte says from her position in the Man's Nest and Henry is grateful she is still listening.
"AWOL," Henry looks imploringly to Miles, "I know it's a lot, but can you take us all right now?" he asks gently.
Miles looks so unsure in his trembling state, but he sniffs hard and nods. He pumps his fist, less enthusiastically than the usually buoyant boy does. They vanish is a yellow light, missing the media and police trying to get their attention, and appear in the middle of the floor of the Man's Nest.
Miles curls back down into himself as soon as they're there. Schwoz comes to stand beside them, looking down at Ray with his own expression of disbelief and grief. Jasper sits on the edge of the round couch, looking on but keeping his distance from the group. In the background, KLVY's broadcast of the power facility plays muted on the screen.
No one moves for several long minutes. No one breaks the silence. A tense feeling of denial builds; if they stop perhaps time will too and they won't have to move on. If they don't acknowledge reality perhaps it won't acknowledge them. Somehow, things will fix themselves because all of them know nothing they can do will.
A door opens, Charlotte rolls in a cot, the bout is broken. She brings the cot near them and stoops to their level with soft words and gentle hands. "Are you okay?" she asks.
Henry nods and is the first to move; his eyes never leave Ray for more than a moment. He pulls Chapa to her feet beside him and, albeit reluctantly, she allows him to move her to sit on the couch. Charlotte is coaxing the other three away from the floor as well; they all take seats of their own. Miles next to Mika, close but no longer clinging to each other. Miles looking lost and Mika wiping at her tears. On her other side Bose curls into a ball, watching the room with a confused and despairing face. Chapa isolates herself more than the others, turning away from them, body tensed and fingers sparking. Charlotte and Henry, with Schwoz's late-coming help, lift Ray to lay on the cot.
They take a step back, Schwoz going farther to pick up some gadget. Charlotte wipes a tear off her cheek as she takes her first long look at the body; then she turns and hugs Henry. He wraps his arms tightly around her in turn, repressing the flood he can feel behind his own eyes.
"How could this have happened?" Jasper asks, joining himself into his friends' embrace.
Schwoz is running some type of scanner over Ray. Reading the results on the connected tablet he says, "It couldn't have. He's still indestructible."
"If he were then he wouldn't be dead." Mika argues in a rough tear-sodden voice.
"His densitization levels are at 100 percent." Schwoz turns the tablet around to show them the readings. The trio release each other to take a look, though Charlotte is the only one who can understand what it shows. "He couldn't have gotten so much as a paper cut."
"But…" Mika tries to argue, sitting forward in her seat wanting to get her point across.
"I couldn't break his ribs." Henry points out to her, "Remember, when we were doing CPR, I couldn't push hard enough to crack his ribs. And I couldn't see any injuries on him."
"My lightning didn't leave any burns either." Chapa says, glaring at the floor.
"Then how?" Mika asks.
"I don't know." Schwoz says looking thoroughly uncomfortable saying the words.
"Could he have been poisoned or got a kill-you-quick disease?" Jasper grasps.
"His indestructibility makes him immune to poison and sickness." Charlotte reminds.
"No. Schwoz made that green finger disease that made him sick once." Jasper says loudly.
"Yes, but we eradicated that disease with your blood. And even if there was some other disease that could hurt him, we would be able to see its effects on his body." Schwoz explains, stressing that, "He's healthy and uninjured. There is nothing wrong with him. He is perfectly okay."
A short moment passes before Henry says, "Except for the fact that he's dead." Even as he utters the words, his insides curl up avoiding them.
Jasper turns away in defeat. Mika sobs once more. "Yes." Schwoz says dimly. "It's like this villain, whoever they are, just shut him off, like they did the city's power."
Henry places a hand over his eyes rubbing at them to encourage a maintenance of control. He needs his head to be clear to have this conversation; he needs to have this conversation to know what happened. He can't cry, he won't, not yet.
Chapa stands abruptly and shouts at Schwoz. "That doesn't make any sense! A person can't just be shut down! You're supposed to be smart so can't you come up with something better than that!?" before anyone can say anything or chastise her, she storms out the door and can be heard blasting boulders off the mountain.
Schwoz stares at the floor, looking ashamed and upset. "Schwoz?" Charlotte asks laying a hand on his shoulder.
"There is no explanation. Nothing in science can say how this happened." Schwoz says, voice hollow. "I don't like it any more than she does."
"We know." Charlotte says gently.
Schwoz drops his scanner on the ground, the machine breaking into pieces. He turns his back to everyone and walks to his cart, fiddling mindlessly with the gadget lying on top of it. Charlotte takes Chapa's seat on the round couch, head buried in her hands she sighs deep and shaking, probably crying.
A short silence echoes before Miles speaks. "I don't understand, this isn't the end of his path. He's not supposed to go out like this."
"Yeah? Well maybe your theories of destiny aren't as real as you like them to be." Mika snaps harshly.
They glare at each other; Miles opens his mouth to retort but Bose stops him. "Please, don't start fighting." he says in a quiet voice. Whatever Miles was going to say dies on his lips, but he and Mika still glare wetly at each other.
"He's right; now isn't a time for fighting. Let's all just take a few minutes to… to come to terms..." Henry drifts off uncertainly.
Mika turns away from Miles and stands. "I'm going to check on Chapa." She announces and flounces out. Miles leans heavy on the couch, sullen. Bose is silent, staring blankly over his knees, which he is leaning against with them held to his chest; his face is soaked. Jasper sits next to Charlotte, who is certainly crying now, and wraps an arm around her. Henry stands alone for a moment, contemplating what to do.
He can feel Charlotte and Jasper looking at him through their tears. He knows they want him to come mourn with them. But he doesn't want to open the flood gates, can't face it. So, he avoids their gazes and decides his best course of action is to go after the girls.
"I hate not knowing!" Mika is avowing when he finds them at the edge of the mountain's peak. "There has to be an explanation." She punches a boulder, then immediately regrets it and cradles her hurting hand with an "Ow."
"If you've got one, I'm all ears!" Chapa says, throwing lightning at her own boulder with an infuriated yell.
Henry stops a few feet away but neither girl takes notice. He listens to their conversation and becomes concerned with the aggression they're both displaying on their boulders.
Mika shrieks, cracking the stone in front of her, pausing for a breath she seems dissatisfied with her damage and screams again, louder, shattering the boulder into pieces that crash around the peak they're on and tumble down the side of the mountain. She pants furiously and says, "We need to figure out what happened."
Chapa's boulder has burned black from her attacks. "I want to find that shadow man and make him pay." she says.
Ceasing her firing Mika turns to her thoughtfully. "If we go back to the power facility, we could look for him and get some answers."
"He won't still be there." Chapa seethes. "Stupid coward probably ran as soon as he'd killed him."
"But there will be clues so we can track him down." Mika says.
Chapa thinks for a short moment them nods. "Then I could find him and kill him."
Mika raises no issue with Chapa's violent streak now but nods decisively back at her. "Let's do it."
They're both so vengeful Henry would normally be concerned, but he can't bring himself to care. Anger seems appropriate and easier than anything else he doesn't want to be feeling right now. He asks them, "You gonna need a ride for that?" startling them.
Both look skeptically at him and Chapa asks, "You're not going to stop us?"
"Did I say that?" he asks rhetorically. "We need answers and pay back sounds pretty good, so if you guys want to go, that's fine. But as far as I'm aware neither of you have been mistakenly sent a driver's license, right? So, I'll come with. We can take the Man-Van."
(Commercial Break)
They leave without a word to the others, hardly speaking to each other throughout the entire ride. Emergency vehicles and news vans surround Swellview power facility when the three of them arrive. Though the crowd parts for the Man-Van, it is slow going to get through. Cameras flash through the windows at them and people shout questions. Henry presses on ignoring them all. Chapa sparks in her seat.
The Man-Van is allowed to pass the police barrier. Henry parks them as close as he can to the main building, stopping behind a row of cop cars. The chief of police himself comes to meet them as they exit the van. "Danger Force, we're glad you came back, we need your statements on what happened here." He says, but the heroes don't pay him any mind.
"We should start at the top of the tower, that'll be our best bet for clues." Mika says, looking at Chapa and Henry. Together they move purposefully that way and the police chief follows confused.
"Wait, what are you looking for?" the police chief asks. "We've already got forensics combing the place."
Brian Bender from KLVY and his camera crew are stationed right at the entrance, interviewing several police officers. When Henry, Chapa, and Mika approach they turn their cameras and Microphones excitedly on them. "Volt! Shoutout! Can you shed some light on what happened here?" Brian asks. "Which Villain turned off the power? How did you defeat them? Who is this guy with you? Is Captain Man really dead?"
"Move!" Chapa says aggressively pushing the cameras out of her way.
"We need to run an investigation." Mika dismisses Brian. "Our own investigation." She adds as the police chief argues that he's already got people on it.
"But the citizens of Swellview want to know!" Brian calls after them as they push through the entrance. "Is Captain Man dead!?"
"We do need some answers from you as to what happened here." The chief says solicitously.
"When we find some well tell you." Mika says irately, moving more quickly.
As they climb the winding staircase, Chapa mutters darkly under her breath. "I'm gonna find that freak and make him suffer."
"What? Who are you talking about?" the chief continues to ask questions that get ignored as the girls march and seethe.
"We'll find answers. I'll figure it all out. I'll find out who he is." Mika mumbles repeatedly.
"And then he'll pay." Chapa adds to her mantra.
Henry stays silent trying not to think. A hope he knows to be false festers inside him, telling him this is all a mistake, that he'll get to the tower room and find Captain Man there still fighting some dark villain, this Shadow Man. Or there will be something proving Ray's not really dead, that the dead body he'd seen is some kind of illusion or fake, nothing more.
They stop in the doorway of the room on the topmost floor of the tower, looking around for where to begin. Swellview's chief of police bumps into their backs, having followed them all the way up. As he'd said forensic teams are scattered about collecting evidence.
The polygonal room is grey and industrial. The window on the opposite side of the room is shattered where Captain Man had gone through it. The machinery and walls bear little sign of any fight or struggle having taken place here an hour ago; one console is smashed and there is a hole in one wall where Henry imagines Ray must have thrown a misplaced punch. Some faintly dark substance is spread across the room in a strange pattern; the forensic scientists are trying to gather some of it. A heavy feeling of evil darkens the room despite the fact that all the lights are back in working order.
Officer Walnut, Mika's aunt, is stationed on one side of the room so the young genius wisely starts her search on the other. She walks directly towards the forensic scientists to discover what they've found. Chapa forces her way through the investigating groups, hunting for and asking about the Shadow Man. Henry walks more slowly scanning every inch of space, somewhat reluctantly, for anything that maybe useful.
The first thing of note his eyes catch on is a small rectangle of faintly glowing lights lying hidden beneath a console. He stoops to grab it and finds it to be Captain Man's laser remote. The lights on the remote brighten as he draws it out from the exceedingly dark shadows of the machine. He slips it quietly into the pocket of his leather jacket.
He stops behind a couple of the forensic scientists who are trying to collect some of the darkish substance off the floor. They seem to be having extreme trouble in gathering it in any way; and the substance is evaporating slowly. "I don't understand." One says to the other. "It's completely intangible but holding its position like a solid substance."
"Its properties are like nothing I've ever seen. If I weren't seeing it, I'd say nothing like this could exist." Says the other in return.
Henry listens intently to what the scientists are saying, taking note so he can bring it up with Schwoz later. He crouches to inspect the fading substance himself. The scientists beside him go silent, watching him apprehensively. The substance is dark but translucent, looking most like a shadow, though there is nothing casting it and even the scientists bright light shining directly upon it doesn't penetrate through or reflect off the surface. When Henry tries to touch it lightly with his fingertips they sink straight through as if nothing is there. The substance is either so hot or so cold it burns him, and he yanks his hand away with a gasp.
The substance darkens dramatically until it is the blackest of blacks. The pattern emerges in a great black swirl, four arms radiating out from a large central sphere, each arm fading out at the ends. It seems to reverse glow, leaking darkness evenly from its branches, touching most faintly even the farthest parts of the room. It seems to have its own strange gravity as is leeches light, color, and sound from its surroundings.
Everyone backs away quickly from the seeming hole that has opened. Henry and the scientists crouched on the floor have fallen onto their butts and are scooting as far from the center as fast as they can. They all scramble to the edge of the room as the symbol pulses ominously. Then as quick as it'd appeared it swirls counterclockwise, pulls the dark arms in, and vanishes in a silent implosion.
No one moves, or says anything for a long moment, staring in shock and fear at the space where the black hole had vanished. "What the mustard was that?" Officer Lacy asks loudly, startling everyone else and shattering the tense silence.
"Give us a minute to investigate", an older man, seemingly the lead forensic scientist says. The forensic teams move cautiously into the room with scanning devices, though none are near as advanced as Schwoz's. They move about and hold small discussions over whatever blips they're picking up. "Dr. Shal, please enlighten us." The police chief requests after a few moments.
Dr. Shal, the lead scientist, speaks slowly after a lengthy discussion with his colleagues. "Sorry, sir. I have no explanation."
"But something like that couldn't have just happened." The chief exclaims.
"By all rights something like that can't have existed." Dr. Shal responds. "And now appears that it didn't. There is no detectable physical, chemical, or energetic residue in this room."
"But we all saw it." Officer Lacy says.
"Yes, we did. You can't tell us it didn't exist. We were here when it happened." Officer Walnut agrees.
"Yes, officers but there is no scientific evidence of anything at all. The most logical… the only possible explanation is that it was some mass hallucination we all experienced." Dr. Shal says, "and even that is ludicrously improbable and bears no physical evidence.
"It wasn't a hallucination and I have evidence." Henry hisses, not in anger but pain. "It burned me." He displays his right hand to the others; his fingers are blistering, pale red, and feel like fire.
All attention is on him. Dr. Shal steps forward to examine his burns. "How could it have burned you? It was intangible. None of my team got burns and we all touched it."
"But when he touched is when it went creepy." One of the scientists that had been beside Henry said. "It seemed to react to him."
"Perhaps because his gloves are fingerless, and it touched his bare skin?" someone else speculates.
"But I touched it too and I don't wear any gloves." Mika says.
"Wait, who even is this guy?" Officer Lacy asks loudly over Shoutout, bringing the attention to the fact that none here except Mika and Chapa know him.
All the eyes on him turn suddenly confused or suspicious. "A question he has yet to answer." The police chief says.
"Uhh…" Henry says under the weighty gazes. "I'm…"
"You were asking about a shadow man," Officer Walnut says to Volt, cutting him off. "Is he the guy?"
Chapa looks incredulous at her. "No!"
"But, he's in mostly black clothes; and he made the creepy shadow stuff do that crazy thing. Seems like what your shadow guy would do." Officer Walnut says.
"He's with us! He came to help us find Shadow Man." Chapa says, stepping away from her and to Henry's side.
"He's a new member of Danger Force?" the police chief asks skeptically.
"No." Henry, Mika and Chapa intone together, all now standing as a group.
"He's a friend." Chapa says.
"He's been doing the hero thing longer than we have." Mika says at the same time.
"I'm not a sidekick anymore." Henry says in the same moment.
"Okay, that is not much to go off." The polices chief says after a short pause. "Can we start with a name?"
"Right." Mika says.
"He's Ki-uuhhh…" Chapa starts. Henry and Mika stare wide-eyed at her, warning her not to complete the name because no one is supposed to know Kid Danger survived. Chapa catches her mistake quickly but not able to swiftly rectify it as she doesn't know what to call him now. She looks back flustered at him.
"I'm…" He cuts off her prolonged 'uhm'. He, Charlotte and Jasper had been working on name ideas for themselves to use once out of Dystopia. They'd known that they wanted to readopt having secret identities once they'd returned home and had thusly made masks for themselves and had come up with short lists of name ideas. It is from that list that Henry pulls a name now, "…Barricade."
"I don't think that's what Volt was gonna say." Officer Lacy says suspiciously.
"Yes, I was!" Chapa says, trying to regain her normal aggressive attitude, but the shot of nervous energy through her body still affects her tone. "I was gonna say Barricade."
"Then why didn't you?" Officer Lacy asks. "I kinda think you didn't know his name."
"Of course, we did!" Mika says, her voice also pitched higher with nervousness. "We've known him for a long time, of course we knew his name. It's not like that's the first time we'd heard it, that'd be crazy!"
Officer Lacy and the other cops and scientists don't look particularly convinced. If anything, they're all glancing more suspiciously at Henry than before. Some of those farthest away whisper to each other things the young heroes can't hear. "Right!" Henry says awkwardly to the group. "I'm Barricade, I'm an old friend of Captain Man and Danger Force and I'm just here to help."
"Right, right." Says Mika politely, "We're going to need to see the data you've collected on whatever that thing was, because from what we know, what happened here today was so wholly unnatural that it makes absolutely zero sense."
"We will gladly share what little information we have." Dr. Shal says. "If you can get anything out of it, I'd be delighted to learn what the heck kind of science that was."
"I need to know if any of you saw or found anything of the Shadow Man. If you have any idea where he went." Chapa throws in.
They all shake their heads, raising hands to display their honest lack of knowledge. "This Shadow Man was the one behind the attack today?" the police chief asks.
"That's how it seemed when we got here, like he was the one in charge." Mika says. "But he ran off and Captain Man chased him. We know they ended up up here because Captain Man was thrown through that window." She indicates the broken pane of glass.
"But we never saw Shadow Man again and we need to find him." Chapa says anger rising. "He needs to answer for killing…" She cuts herself off. Angered and pained she looks to the floor as all the hushed side chats of the scientists and police extinguish like a doused flame.
"Captain Man is truly dead, then?" Dr. Shal asks reverently.
Chapa looks ashamed and doesn't meet anyone's eyes. Holding back everything that wants to come with admitting it again Henry says, "Yes." As succinctly and unemotionally as possible. Mika wipes a fresh tear and nods along with his word.
A chorus of gasps and shocked cries sound from the mouths of every investigator. The whispered conversations resume with a frantic disappointment behind every word.
"That cannot be so. Please, it must be a mistake." The police chief bemoans. "Captain Man is Swellview's hero, he cannot die. A tragedy like that could destroy the city. The villains will run amuck, the citizens will be deeply distraught; it will be utter chaos."
Henry says no more, knowing that if he continues to discuss this, he will lose control. Mika is trying to regain her own control, doing her best to stem the tears have broken free. Chapa glares resentfully at the police chief.
"How did he die?" Dr. Shal asks.
"That's what we came back to find out." Mika says. "But we just ended up with more questions." Henry puts an arm of comfort over Mika's shoulders as more tears come. She presses her hands over her face and turns half towards him.
"This truly is a devastation to the city." The police chief says sympathetically.
"Is it?" Chapa asks most aggrievedly. "Is it a devastation for the city? To all of you? Because your 'hero' died? Someone most of you never even met; and none of you really knew?" her voice is loud and angry, but her glare is floating in a pool of misery.
"Volt." Henry admonishes gently. "The city and the police chief have a right to be upset too."
Chapa glares back at the floor. Mika leaves Henry's side to wrap her arms around her friend. Chapa allows it with a halfhearted hug back. Mika continues to cry and Chapa wills back tears of her own as she glares around the room, daring anyone to say anything else.
The police and scientists stand in awkward silence. Sedately Henry suggests to Chapa and Mika, "Maybe we should leave now. I don't think we're going to find anything else here and if the investigators do, they can send the information to the Manca-Nest." He looks to Dr. Shal who nods in turn. "The others will be waiting for us. They'll want to know what's happened."
"Okay." Mika and Chapa nods vaguely in agreement.
The police chief escorts them back down and out of the building. Once outside the Media again hounds them for answers but the police chief helps them move past the cameras and outstretched microphones. As Henry, Mika and Chapa climb into the Man-Van the police chief can be heard somberly telling Brian Bender that Captain Man is dead and that for the time being all emergency calls should be to the police and not the Captain Man hotline.
(Commercial break)
"There you are!" Jasper cries as Henry, Chapa and Mika reenter the Man's Nest. "We were worried." He hugs Henry.
"We had no idea where you'd gone until we saw you on the TV coming back out of the power facility." Miles says, drawing near to his sister.
"Sorry." Mika says. "And I'm sorry I yelled at you."
They embrace each other, forgiving. Chapa joins them as they take seats on the round-couch once more. Bose is no longer sitting there. He is beside Charlotte at the computer. They're having a conversation with someone over the phone. Schwoz is across the room shaking violently with quiet sobs. A blanket now covers Ray on the cot.
Tearing his gaze from lingering over that, Henry extracts himself from Jasper's grasp and moves to where Charlotte and Bose are finishing the phone call. Jasper follows subduedly. "…Thank you. We trust your office to do him justice. We'll see you in a few days." Charlotte says into the phone, pausing to listen a moment before ending with, "Goodbye." She hangs up.
"Who was that?" Henry asks.
Charlotte sniffs and wipes a tear. "The Vice Mayor. Offering to plan and pay for the funeral."
Henry tenses, his heart clenching against reality. "Oh, right."
"He says they'll have everything set up, we just have to bring the body." She says. "We're planning for Monday afternoon." Henry nods passively. "Are you okay?" Charlotte asks him.
"Yeah." He says in a somewhat higher pitch than normal.
She looks at him concerned, but kindly moves on, allowing him to lie to himself for a little while longer. "Did you find anything?" she asks, clarifying with "when you guys went back?"
"Not much." He says, "And probably nothing of any use. The police should be sending their data for us to look at."
"Did they catch Shadow Man?" Bose asks.
"No." Henry says.
Chapa snorts derisively at the same time. "You know the police in this city are useless. And callous jerks."
"What?" Charlotte questions. Henry breathes slowly, trying to come up with the words to explain what happened in a way that is fair to everyone.
"What does that mean?" Bose asks.
"Callous is insensitive or unsympathetic." Mika defines for him. "It's like when someone mocks or belittles the feelings of someone else. Which I don't think is what the Police Chief was trying to do." She says to Chapa. "He's upset too, just trying to be professional or consoling with so many people around."
"He cared about how Captain Man's death would affect the city." Chapa argues hotly. "About how there would be more crime and the city would be a less happy place."
"Well, all of that is true." Henry says, walking to sit with her on the couch. Which becomes crowded as Bose, Charlotte and Jasper follow, though Charlotte wisely stays standing as seven would be far too many people on one couch. Chapa glares at him. "Don't zap me please." He says, noting her sparking fingers. "But Captain Man means a lot to Swellview and all the people in it. They are going to be upset about this; and they have a right to."
"What right!?" Chapa demands. "He was a guy who stopped criminals to them, a flashy cool symbol they looked to, not a person."
"Yeah, most of them didn't know him well at all. But they are still entitled to their feelings about him d-dying." He struggles over the last word.
"The real problem I think you're having Chapa, is that you're mourning Ray. But the people of Swellview aren't and never will. To anyone who didn't know his secret Ray Manchester was basically nobody, not even a blip on their radars. But to us, he was our friend, your teacher. By that very nature, our grief is a thousand times worse than any of theirs. It's deeper and will take far longer to get through." Charlotte says with such understanding that Chapa's fingers stop sparking. "But that doesn't mean they don't get to grieve too, even if it so superficial that it drives you crazy. You- we need to be patient with them and with each other as we all deal with Ray's death; and hopefully, they will do their best to be patient with us. They don't understand the full extent of our feelings, and some will try to compare their pain to ours. Don't let their ignorance hurt you. Most will see that we have it worse and will try to be understanding."
Henry picks up as she leaves off. "You have to set that example. The four of you are heroes to the Swellviewians, and they will look to you to show them how to deal with this."
Chapa has begun crying for the first time over the events of the day. She buries her head on the table in front of her, hands still clenched and fury still in her voice as she says, "That's not fair." Nonetheless she is finally coming down from the fury she'd been riding for hours.
"No, it's not." Henry admits, "But you're strong and you're not alone."
"Yeah." Miles speaks up from beside her. He wraps an arm around her, Mika too leaning into the hug/pile. "We're a team. We will get through this, together." he says.
She chuckles rather humorlessly and says, "That was so cheesy." But sits up to properly hug her friends. Bose climbs over Henry to join the group. The four clutch each other and cry, indescribably grateful for each other.
Henry slips out of Bose's way and leaves the table to the kids of Danger Force. Jasper gets up as well and Charlotte leads the two boys over to the work desks by the bay windows, where they can seek comfort in their own best friends. They each take a seat, pulling the chairs to face each other. Silence reigns for several long seconds as Henry watches the kids. Charlotte and Jasper share a glance as they watch him. "Are you okay, Hen?" Jasper asks.
He nods. "Fine."
"Really?" Charlotte presses, "You're doing good, helping the kids and all but you don't seem to be helping yourself."
"Yeah, you've been running around since we got here. You told everyone to take some time when Miles and Mika were going to fight. But you haven't taken any for yourself." Jasper says.
"I'm fine." He insists.
"Henry." Charlotte chastises. "You knew Ray longer than any of us except Schwoz, who, you'll notice, is really not doing well right now." She says, gesturing to where Schwoz is sitting on the floor by Ray's cot, positively blubbering in a pitiable ball.
"I only knew him longer than you by like a month." He points out.
"You also knew him better. You should be inconsolable, but you hardly seem to be feeling anything." He avoids eye-contact with her, looking at the floor. Charlotte leans towards him and continues speaking. "You were right about the people of Swellview and about the kids being allowed to feel grieved. But, you Henry, you are more entitled than anyone outside or inside this building to have strong feelings about Ray dying."
He clasps his hands over the back of his downturned head and sighs deeply. He says nothing and the trio sit in a prolonged silence.
"Hen," Jasper is the next to speak. "Why are you being like this?"
"Because I'm fine." He says defensively.
"No, you're not." Charlotte says, "You can't be fine right now."
Henry blinks rapidly in an effort not to cry. "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine." He says defiantly.
"Dude, stop." Jasper says, "We've known each other forever, we can tell when you're not okay. We don't care if you cry."
"I can't." Henry says, pressing bruising hands against his eyes and breathing as slowly as he can. "I have to be fine."
"Why?" Jasper asks.
Charlotte gets off her chair to kneel next to Henry, touching his arm softly. "Henry?"
He gulps deeply but faltering. "I'm a hero, people are supposed to look to me to be strong, I can't lose it right now." he says quietly.
"That's not what you told those kids." Charlotte points out. "You told them they will be examples, yes, but you also told them that they need to deal with it too, not to lock their feelings away for the sakes of others. You are the example to them. You have to show them that you are dealing with Ray's death."
"I can't." he protests.
Jasper crouches next to Charlotte, blocking Henry's path before he can get up. "Yes, you can." Jasper says.
"And you need to." Charlotte adds.
Henry shakes his head, not saying anything. Pressing his hands against his head tighter and tugging at his hair with his fingers, distracting himself slightly, trying to keep himself out of the conversation.
"I know it's not easy. It's not supposed to be, you loved him. We are all going to need a lot of time to figure out how to move on without him; and it's going to hurt to do so. More than anything ever has." Charlotte says. "We're going to miss him and want him back, but that's never going to be possible. So, we must…"
"Please." He begs, stopping her mid-sentence, so much on the edge of control that he can't let the conversation continue. "I don't want to. I need to do something else. I can't deal with Ray being…"
"Dead?" Charlotte finishes when he doesn't. "But he is."
"Henry, bro, we know it freaking sucks. I don't know how to process it; I don't want to accept it. But you can't ignore that it happened." Jasper says.
Henry's breath shakes with effort now. He blinks rapidly to stem the near overflow of water from his eyes. "If I start crying, I don't think I'll ever be able to stop." He admits meekly.
"You can cry as long as you want." Charlotte says.
"We're here for you. We're a team, bro." Jasper says.
"No." Henry says, grasping at the string of irritation he's feeling amidst the rest of emotions he refuses to acknowledge. "I'm not going to; I won't. We have other things to do. There's data to go through." He stands, a stubborn scowl aimed at his two best friends.
They stand too, an equally irate frown on Charlotte's face, and Jasper looking sad and worried. "Dude…" Jasper tries to say but Charlotte's statement overshadows his, "Not tonight." She says firmly. "It can wait till morning." Henry tries to protest but she persists. "It's late and we should all go home. Our families are likely wondering where we are, and the Danger Force kids' parents are surely worried why their children haven't come home."
She and Henry glare stubbornly at each other, neither wanting to back down, but Charlotte wins by walking away to offer to escort the kids home. They all unenthusiastically get up and find their gum-tins to transform out of their uniforms. "What are we supposed to tell our parents?" Miles asks. "They don't know about us being heroes, so they won't get why we're all so upset."
"Just try to play it off as a bad day." Charlotte suggests.
"It was a bad day." Chapa says.
"Exactly, it's been a bad day for the whole city, so hopefully they won't question you too much." Charlotte says.
"We should go too, man." Jasper says to Henry as Charlotte leaves with the kids, descending the tube and walking each of them home from the nearest tube-exits to their homes.
Henry sighs displeased and turns away, spotting Schwoz still on the floor. "Fine." He says grumpily. "But I'm going to make sure Schwoz is alright."
"Okay." Jasper says.
Schwoz is still curled up in a tight ball, though no longer shaking with sobs. When Henry reaches out to him, touching his shoulder, he finds the man has fallen asleep. He shakes Schwoz lightly, "Schwoz?" but instead of waking up the man flops to the floor unceremoniously. His face is a mess of snot and dried tears, his eyes red and puffy as he snores. Henry frowns dolefully.
Jasper walks over. "Is he okay?"
"He's asleep." Henry sighs, "Must've exhausted himself."
"He doesn't look very comfortable." Jasper says, noting Schwoz's splayed form on the hard ground.
"Yeah." Henry says, moving to lift Schwoz from the floor. "I'll get him to bed."
"Want some help?" Jasper asks.
"Nah, you go on home. I'll be right behind you." Henry says, lifting the surprisingly heavy little man from by the armpits.
"Okay." Jasper says after a moment's hesitation.
He leaves down the tube as Henry begins dragging Schwoz across the room, Schwoz's feet dragging limply. It takes a long time to get Schwoz down to his bedroom on the lower level of the Man's Nest. Henry has to stop a couple times on the journey and set down the older man to breathe. All the while Schwoz remains resolutely unconscious. Eventually Henry lifts the man into bed beside his sleeping pig and sighs gratefully. He spreads a blanket over Schwoz and turns to leave the room.
The journey back to the Man's Nest's main room is much quicker but is still plenty of time for Henry's mind to move to the thoughts he doesn't want to think. Then he reaches the room and is hit with the fact that the only person left there is Ray. Ray's body. Henry turns away from him and fights once more to not break down.
He can't go home now. He can't face his family or their questions or attempts to comfort him. He can't have anyone around him trying to talk to him about what happened. Simultaneously, he knows he can't be left alone to his thoughts. He needs a distraction.
Pushing everything else aside he does what Charlotte had forbidden and opens the email with the police's data on the discoveries in the tower at Swellview power facility. Henry sits on the round couch, a man-tablet on the table in front of him and pours over the information. There seems to be little in the way of answers. All the notes of the investigators are filled with the same kinds of questions he has.
Among the notes are pictures of the crime scene for Henry to study. He searches each one for any kind of clue, but none are more useful than the notes.
Most frustrating is the video clip someone had caught of the shadowy stuff reacting to Henry's touch. It's from a wide angle so Henry can see several forensic teams around the room trying to interact with it. He can see the lack of response the stuff had to everyone and that it certainly did seem to react to him specifically. Even when looking frame by frame he can see that it was only he that had touched it, and that the darkening effect had spread from his location. His fingers flare painfully each time he watches it.
He watches the video over and over, unaware of the passage of time and ignorant of his growing fatigue.
It is some hours later when he is finally pulled from his manic focus on the screen. The tube alert sounds around the room, startling him right out of his seat. He looks over in surprise at the two girls entering the Man's Nest.
"Henry Prudence Hart have you been here all night?" Charlotte demands angrily.
"It's four in the morning, Mom and Dad have been waiting up for you!" Piper assists, the fact she's still in her day clothes suggesting she too had been waiting for him to come home.
Henry looks ashamedly at them as answer. "Please tell me you fell asleep here and that you weren't looking into data I told you to leave until morning!" Charlotte says. She glares at him, not needing an answer as she picks up the tablet.
He grimaces guiltily. "I… um… sorry."
"Sorry!?" She challenges. "Henry, I told you to leave this until tomorrow."
"Yeah, whatever." he says carelessly.
Piper stops the next angry comment from Charlotte, looking pale and frightened. "Uh is that…?" she inquires pointing apprehensively at the covered cot where Ray lays.
Charlotte calms to comfort the younger girl. "Yes." She says, "Which is why Henry shouldn't be here. Sitting alone, all night, in the dark with his friend's dead body."
He flinches at the words 'dead body' and removes his gaze from Charlotte. His exhausted state makes the despair in him so much harder to hold back.
Charlotte deflates and kneels beside him, placing a gentle hand on his knee. "Henry, go home." She says exasperatedly. "For the love, please go home." Her voice nearly cracks halfway through the sentence.
His whole body is trembling so much that the slight shake of his head may well go unnoticed. Piper is trembling slightly too as she kneels on his other side. "C'mon dork, we're leaving." She says, hoisting him up by one arm as Charlotte mirrors her on his other side. "Where's your gum?"
She pulls the tin from his jacket pocket. He apathetically chews and blows a bubble, then doesn't fight as they lead him to the tube-pad, only weakly argues, "We shouldn't leave Schwoz here alone."
"Then I'll stay." Charlotte says. "I'll wait around for him to wake up and we'll look over the police's data. You can come back after you've slept and eaten something and cried a little." He rolls his eyes, then again when she orders, "Piper, take care of him."
Her car is right outside the front door of Swellview's Academy for the Gifted. He sits in the passenger seat beside her and doesn't talk the whole ride home. He is losing the war in his mind against the intruding thoughts and memories of Ray dying.
She is more gentle than he can ever remember her being as she leads him into the house where his parents are waiting with open arms to greet him, as they had been not so many hours ago when he'd flown in from Dystopia. "Are you okay, Baby?" His mom asks, holding him tight to her. "We saw you on the news, then the police chief, saying Captain Man was dead."
"He is." Piper says when Henry fails to get the words out of his mouth. "I saw." Then she is crying and being pulled into the hug by their parents.
Henry starts to crack. Here in his family's embrace, he feels safe enough that his emotions want to be free. One tear escapes, then another. His chest constricts to fight the sobs. He tries to pull away, to put the wall back up but his mother won't let him go. He's shaking and muttering something so low he's not even sure what it is. Possibly Ray's name. "It's okay, baby." His mom is saying, "It's okay."
But it's not. He fights harder until he's escaped their arms. Then he runs up the stairs to his room and slams the door as three concerned voices call out his name behind him. He collapses with his back to the door and sits there tensed and breathing harshly for several long minutes. His family knock and try to open the door to get to him but he presses back against it and turns the lock.
Henry ignores everything. Eventually they go away and he's alone in his room, where everything is normal, exactly as it had been all his life. His desk, his couch, the window he so often sneaks out of to fight crime, it's all the same. Nothing's changed from the last time he was here. Nothing at all.
His breath evens and he lays on his bed, the same one he'd slept in and been woken from by his wiz-watch a thousand times, and wills himself into oblivion. Where his dreams are all that's real and nothing he thinks or wants to believe is a lie. All will be right there and after a good night's sleep back home, away from the evils of Dystopia, he'll find the world as it should be. He'll wake to a new day in Swellview where the villains are comical and nothing too bad ever happens. Everything is fine.
Swellview does wake to a new day. But the brilliant golden sun that dawns cannot dispel the dark cloud that has fallen over the city. For every citizen knows as they wake that they have come into a new world, one where Captain Man cannot protect them any longer. The criminals in their lairs are inventing plots anew to gain power, relishing in the freedom from their greatest opponent. Vice Mayor Willard and his office employees begin preparations for the grandest funeral the city has ever seen. Charlotte sits in the Man's Nest, studying the data Henry had been going over all night, occasional tears blurring her vision as she waits for Schwoz to wake. The Hart family sit outside Henry's door, holding each other close in a pleasureless sleep. In three houses around town, Mika, Miles, Chapa, and Bose all wake from fitful sleep wondering how they are supposed to go on, how their lives are going to change. Everyone in the city wonders.
Next episode: S1E3: A Funeral Unlike Any Other