Hawkins National Laboratory,
October 13th, 1985
3:29 AM
"Please, sit, Mr. Harrington," Adrian's voice drew closer as a shadow was cast in the door into Archie, "I have a few private matters to discuss with Dan. Watch Bubastis for me, will you?" The kid said something, probably a complaint, but Adrian seemed to ignore him and shut the door, leaving him and Dan inside the sound-proof walls of the Owl-Ship. Dan turned around in his chair, seeing Adrian pressing his palm to his face, "The boy is an idiot, Dan," He mumbled miserably, "If he is the eldest of the children that know the girl, then it is beyond me how they have managed to have survived all this time." Dan chuckled at that, turning back around to further tinker with the Archie's systems.
"That coming from 'the world's smartest man'," He mused, rearranging the wires and watching as sparks flew from the machinery, "He's just a kid, Adrian. And you've met worse." That was true, and they both knew it. Adrian's footsteps came up from behind him, as the other man took a seat in the chair next to him.
"You know I resent that title," Adrian said, staring out the window at the plain sheet-metal garage door. He was probably thinking about some groundbreaking invention he was going to make, "But yes, you are correct. How's Archie?"
"Not good," Dan replied, frowning as another master alarm went off, lighting up the cockpit in a crimson red, "The jump from our world to this one put a lot of strain on him, and I'm pretty sure the reactor's unstable, but I thought that was impossible."
"It was. But only if it's left on it's own," Adrian replied, digging around in his pocket for a moment, before pulling out what looked like the reactor's monitor, "I suspect Jon knows that we're on his tail. Every time he changes something or travels then the tachyons in the reactor start acting up, but it should be temporary." Terrifying. It really was. The mere idea that Jon was aware of their antics sent chills down Dan's spine, not unlike a young boy being called downstairs by his parents after showing them his report card.
Dan turned around in his chair, standing and started towards a metal case resting on one of the seats in the back. When he reached it he flipped open the lock and pushed the lid open, "You sure this thing'll work?" Inside the case was a strange metal contraption, it had two metal rods the length of a dictionary that were mounted onto something that looked like a gun, and just above the trigger was a glowing blue orb.
"Positive. But it should only be a last resort, we don't want to kill Jon. Just neutralize him." Adrian said from behind.
"And what about the generator? Have you found it?"
"No, but I suspect it's in exactly the same place. I researched it in the library in the town, it should still be in Arizona like it was on our world." He replied, but there was a slight twinge of doubt in his voice, "We will leave whenever you're ready." Dan was ready to go now, since Laurie was still at their home with her mom, and the nukes were probably about to launch any day now. If they hadn't already.
"Tell that kid to get ready, I've almost got the ship ready to go. What's the name of the place again?" He asked.
Adrian's face twisted into some kind of smug smile, "Gila Flats. We're going to Gila Flats."
Lothal,
02:21
"Don't kill?" The man named Rorschach grumbled, his hands shoved into his coat pockets and his form unwavering, "Stupid." Bruce was beginning to get really sick of the guy, but there wasn't much he could do about it, since he had them strung up. The mask fascinated him, the plain white with the ink-blots shifting around seemingly randomly, but there had to be some pattern to it.
"You really believe that, don't you?" Bruce asked, watching as the man nodded, his mask shifting once again, "Why?" The ink-blot's froze for a moment... shock. It must be. Whatever the answer was clearly was disturbing to him.
The man looked down to the floor for a moment, "Young girl. Kidnapped. Mutilated." Bruce's heart sank for a moment, this was one who thought he was doing the right thing, "Saw killer again. Had no shame whatsoever. Not crazy, not mentally ill. Just another cockroach crawling out from the floorboards." Rorschach's head came back up, the patterns moving once again, "Found cleaver in cabinet. Was furious. Handed the cleaver to him, told him he could escape if he figured out how to get out of his handcuffs. Then burned down house." There were so many things wrong with that... things that were familiar.
"You're angry. You want vengeance."
"No, not vengeance. Revenge." Rorschach growled, "When you see the darkness, the black underbelly of society, you can never pretend like it isn't there. Tell me truthfully you wouldn't do same." If Bruce was being honest, the answer was no, he couldn't tell him that. But he had the will and experience to resist the temptation.
"Who are you? Why are you here?" The detective asked, with equal intensity, "And why should I care?" He felt his gauntlet vibrate for the third time in three minutes, meaning that Sabine had assembled a breaching party. They'd established a code that if one of them went offline for more than two hours, they would send two transmissions to one of their comms, and if they didn't respond, then the third transmission would mean that they were sending someone to help.
Any normal interrogator would probably do something about it, but Rorschach either didn't notice or didn't give two shits, "Teleported here. By Doctor Manhattan." Bruce raised an eyebrow in confusion, purposefully illustrating it as vividly as possible, "Don't know his name?"
Bruce shook his head, "Who is he?"
Rorschach's mask changed into an intense and strange pattern, almost like he was frowning, "Tall, blue. Can grow up to one hundred feet tall, duplicate himself, change one element into another, time travel," Didn't sound like much Bruce hadn't faced before, the Anti-Monitor, Brainiac, Darkseid, "Essentially god. Brought me here."
That last part caught the Dark Knight's detective, "God? What did he tell you?" The Joker had said something similar to that, and now he couldn't help but think that there might be more to this than just Ezra going insane.
Rorschach looked hesitant to continue, shuffling his feet in a not so much nervous way... more like caution, "Said something about Veidt, then something else about a clown..." A clown. That was it. That was the missing link that Bruce had been trying to find for the past few months. Rorschach seemed to notice the change on his face, "You know him?"
"Yes," Bruce growled, just as his gauntlet vibrated a second time, "And I know her too." Rorschach looked confused for a moment, just before the door into the penthouse exploded in the other room. He whirled around, startled, and quickly went for the gun he had before. He took it off the table just as three rebel soldiers and Hera Syndulla rushed through the door, armed with blaster rifles and what looked like grenades.
"Hands up!" Syndulla yelled as she aimed her pistol at Rorschach, but contrary to Bruce's assumptions, he only dove behind a couch and aimed the gun around the couch, firing it at her leg. The captain didn't so much as blink when the sharp spear-like tip flew past her, and dug into the wall. Rorschach waited patiently as a rebel soldier peeked the corner before seizing his arm and taking the blaster from him.
Rorschach began to stand just as a blue ray was fired at him from the door, and he collapsed onto the ground. Bruce looked up to see Sabine enter, still bound to her wheelchair, but nevertheless with one of her WESTAR pistols in hand, set to stun. Bruce had gotten to know her a lot better since they rescued her mother from the Joker, as they'd been hunting down Ezra alongside Zeb for the past few weeks.
Hera was staying with her son, Jacen, off where the old rebel base had been during the battle of Lothal, but she was always on stand by in-case she was needed. Sabine's hair had grown back out to where it had been just after Ezra had disappeared, still black with purple tips, and she liked to keep her armor on even though it didn't do much good given her current state, probably just so she could hold on to some part of the past while she recovered.
"Hera!" Zeb shouted, startling Bruce a bit. The lasat had been so quiet that he'd forgotten he was even there, but he figured that Zeb knew he should leave the talking to him. The Twi'lek looked over in their direction and beckoned for the troops to follow her as she ran into the room.
"Thank the force," She gasped as she entered, "I was beginning to think you... you'd..." Her voice trailed off as she saw Ezra's face, his eyes still closed and his breathing still slow, but she stood there in shock at the first sight of him. Zeb didn't tell her to cut him down, and nor did Bruce. Neither of them were going to ruin the moment. She slowly walked over to the padawan's face, now pale and ghostly white, but it was him all the same. She reached out and brushed her hand over his cheek, a small sniffle coming from her direction, but she didn't say a word.
Bruce looked over to the door as Sabine slowly rolled in, her eyes wide in anticipation, but the moment she turned the corner and saw him she let out a sharp and small gasp. He watched her eyes closely, noticing tears forming in the first few milliseconds, and her lip beginning to quiver as she went closer, "...Ezra..." She said softly, reaching out and touching his hair, and her smile sad and happy all at the same time, but it was more genuine and whole than Bruce had ever seen it.
He was home. Ezra was home.
New York,
October 13th, 1985
The Washington Post
Jonathan was sick and tired of being the last one in the office every time they still needed pictures processed. There were hundreds of other photographers working at The Washington Post, which wasn't based in DC for some reason, but none of them ever seemed to stay. That meant he was the only person left to be able to put the photos through the process.
He hated the city. It stunk of hundreds of rats and gallons up gallons of sewage water spilling out onto the streets, and that wasn't even mentioning all the times he, Will, and El had to tense up whenever they passed through a diner in Queens, where they saw the infamous mobster, John Gotti, and his cronies sitting eating lunch. The city was so much more complicated than Hawkins, especially since going somewhere you weren't supposed to be or talking to someone you weren't meant to could get you killed and dumped into the river by the mob.
It was awful. As Jonathan closed his bag and started to leave, he heard a crash from the room next to him, making him jump in sudden fear. He wasn't a stranger to weird things popping out of corners trying to kill him, but he always jumped whenever he heard something he wasn't expecting. He was just about to check around the corner when a man stumbled out, his hair a mess and his mouth bloody. He wore a black tank top with red and blue shoulder pads, a bandolier slung across his body that was packed with grenades and ammunition, and in his left hand was a lit cigar.
The man steadied himself on one of the pillars, and rose up slowly, taking his time to regain his balance. He turned and looked at Jonathan, groaning in what sounded like annoyance, before placing the cigar in his mouth and breathing in. He removed the stick of tobacco from his mouth and puckered his lips, blowing out a thin ring of smoke, and then meeting Jonathan's eyes, "Alright, kid," He growled, "I'm gonna ask you this once- where the hell is Veidt tower?"
Time goes slowly, but carries on
And now the best years have come and gone
You took me by surprise
I didn't realize that you were laughing
-The Guess Who
And there's another character who some of you will know. He's also just as badass and subsequently cruel as he was before, so he's not going to be very nice to really anyone. And for him, nice means he won't drive a screwdriver through your hand if you piss him off. So a bit of a trigger warning there, but only so that no one gets too upset when he goes ape-shit. I know I haven't covered Spidey and Iron Man much lately, so the next chapter will primarily be about them, and will introduce a few more faces into an already crowded story.
I think I can handle this. I think. Anyways, as always, review if you liked the chapter (please), and I will see you all next time!
-MB
