Chapter 2: Elseworld

"I'm sorry Lucius. We haven't found a trace of them." Rick Dicker said.

For the most part, Lucius Best could handle frustration. He was, after all, a Super: nothing was more frustrating then having to dismantle Dr. Devastating's Urban De-Newal Ray for the eighth time after the villain hadn't gotten the hint the first seven times that building a giant gun that vaporized city blocks wasn't a good idea. And then there was his wife, who he loved, but was more then willing to admit could be a tad bit grating if not outright infuriating in her thinking process. But at least he could chalk that up to a reason (the typical 'so smart yet so stupid' mindset so many villains had, how else could you explain monologuing? And…well, that was just the way some women were). This time, there didn't appear to be a reason. As far as he could tell, the Parrs had just completely vanished into thin air, for no reason at all, and that lack of a reason and the implications that rested within it were slowly starting to bear down fully on Lucius.

"You think they might be in another city?" Lucius asked, if only to keep from admitting his dread.

"We sent agents to the surrounding cities as well as Metroville. They've checked hospitals, police stations, morgues, everywhere they might be. There's no trace Lucius. We're looking as hard as we can: Bob and his family were one of our…"

Dicker's words were cut off by a spate of rough coughing. The bad kind of coughing, Lucius recognized. The kind where you were sure the cougher was hacking up something a lot worse then phlegm. For a moment Lucius pondered asking Dicker if he was all right, and then realized that even if the agent was ill he would never admit it. Agents in Dicker's field had to be stone-faced, never betraying anything, and Dicker was the lifelong type when it came to his job. Hell, he'd been a veteran when Lucius had just begun his Supering over twenty years ago, for who knows how long. He supposed that the old man might be due to…no, he'd think of those possibilities later.

"As I was saying, we're looking. We'll find them Lucius. I just wish whatever Tremaine had done hadn't backfired the way it did. He's in a coma, and the doctors have no idea when or if he'll come out of it."

"Rick, I'm not sure if this was due to Schism. I've fought him. His warps look a certain way. The one that pulled the Incredibles in looked…well, nastier. Instead of a doorway, it looked like a mouth devouring them."

"Well Lucius, let's just hope that your colorful observation is…" Another brief bout of coughing. "Just that. I'll call you if we hear or find anything."

"All right." Lucius said, and hang up.

And turned to find Jack-Jack Parr standing in the doorway. Lucius went through a quick flurry of emotions, to shock to surprise to worry about what Jack-Jack might have heard. The child, with his curly hair (albeit red, not blonde, from his mother rather then his father) and big blue eyes, was the spitting image of his brother Dash at a younger age…and the look within them broke Lucius' heart. He could remember, barely, what it was like to be a child, to hardly understand the world, and for the world to do something that caused you distress, a distress you couldn't comprehend the meaning behind or the fact that there WAS no meaning behind it, just random factors that cursed you that time.

"Uncle Luce…" Jack-Jack said. "It night…where's Mommy and Daddy?"

You think you know hardship as a Super, battling the Naked Mole Man or the Menace Squadron, but Lucius would gladly take on both with Mediocre Man and Fire-Breathing Insurance Salesman-Man providing his backup then try and explain to this child that his parents might be gone forever, having disappeared into some unknown void, or worse, soon to be found sharing the same space as a building or a street, with results Lucius didn't want to contemplate.

So he did what many adults did and lied. Some children resented such acts later in life when they reached an age where they could properly understand such things, and it is true there are many things that parents and adults should not lie to children about, but at the same time, sometimes it is better to lie to a child and comfort their underdeveloped psyche then tell the truth and traumatize a mind that lacks the ability to understand and the capacity to endure. True, children could be amazingly resilient and adaptive, but usually it is better to leave both those adaptive factors disengaged.

So Lucius lied, as he walked over and knelt down next to the small, confused child.

"Your family…was called away on an adventure." Lucius said. "They said they'd come back as soon as possible…and they asked you to be a good boy while they were gone. Until they come back, Aunt Honey and I will look after you, ok?" Lucius said, trying to project a calmness he didn't really feel. And children can pick up on those kind of things, as Jack-Jack didn't look very comforted.

"But why…did they leave without saying goodbye?"

"Uh…it was at the last minute Jack-Jack…but it was very important. Not as important as you, but they still had to do it. It's part of their…duty. Maybe someday you'll understand." Lucius said, hating the last line as soon as it came out of his mouth. The look that came onto Jack-Jack's face, as he tried to manifest what Lucius had told him were his parents' last words to him, made him feel even worse, as Jack-Jack tried to look brave, but clearly showed that the courage was just a shell covering the scared child he really was. Lucius tried to think of something, anything, to say to Jack-Jack…

In the end he was given an out to his hardship as Honey walked into the room. She did not appear to be happy.

"Lucius, there's someone outside for you."

Lucius would have felt a surge of hope, if it weren't for his wife's distressed look.

"Who?" he asked.

"He says he's a…acquaintance of a friend…or something…" Honey said, clearly disturbed by whoever she had met. Lucius' own unrest grew.

"Jack-Jack, Aunt Honey's going to put you to bed, ok?"

"Will I see Mommy and Daddy soon?" Jack-Jack asked.

"I'm sure you will." Lucius found himself saying, and once again regretted it, but he could think of no other words as he passed Jack-Jack onto his wife and went to meet whoever was at the door, ready with an ice blast in case it was some kind of subtle attack.

It was not needed: there was no one at the door. Instead, a figure was standing on the sidewalk in front of his house (the Bests having moved out of the city and into the suburbs about a year ago, ostensibly for the cleaner air but in reality because with the return of the Supers attacks on buildings had octupled and Honey didn't feel safe any more), leaning against a black car with tinted windows, the classic cliché that covered government cars. The figure was wearing the classic cliché as well, dressed in a dark suit with a long black trenchcoat. He was smoking, and for a moment Lucius had the crazy idea that William B. Davis had come to visit.

That notion quickly faded as he left his house and walked over to the man. He was far too young to be Mr. Davis: he was thirty at the oldest. He had long blonde hair tightly tied into a ponytail and a thin, slightly toned body. He was neither handsome or ugly, just average.

"Mr. Best." The man said.

"And you are…?" Lucius asked, his wariness not fading. He had gathered that the man was probably one of the agents Dicker had spoken of, but he also knew that agents acting like this were rarely if ever the bearer of good news.

"Haze. Special Agent Aaron Haze." Haze said, and blew a cloud of smoke into the air.

"Oh. Hi." Lucius said. "Look, I already spoke with Dicker, and I doubt…"

"Hold that thought." Haze said, taking another drag on his cigarette. "Agent Dicker's information was…only partially complete."

"What? You found them? Are they alive?" Lucius said.

"No, we have not found them…but this concerns them, and I must speak to you about it."

"About what?"

"Their child."

"Jack-Jack? What about Jack-Jack?"

Haze didn't reply: he just blew out his smoke. Lucius was beginning to get immensely irritated: he'd experienced a few cases of small men and petty bureaucrats, envious of the special powers Supers possessed, doing their best to try and establish a sense of superiority over them, and he'd heard of even more. And it looked like Haze was doing just that: never mind you could ice me over and shatter me within two seconds, I am the master here.

"We are operating under the assumption the Parrs will be found, and soon. Their…line of work has produced these strange situations before. However, their particular situation has caused some concern in our department, and we feel it is best that we give you advance warning about their sole remaining child."

"What?" Lucius said, suddenly getting a feeling there was a lot more to this then he was being told and all of it was nasty. "Are you talking about taking Jack-Jack from me? You can't do that. Honey and I are his legal guardians, it's in Bob's will, he knew this was a possibility…"

"No…we don't want to take the child Mr. Best." Haze said. "At least not permanently."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I am not yet authorized to give that information to you…but I am certain that your friend has the papers somewhere in his house. We did replace them after his dwelling's destruction three years ago."

"What?…Whatever you're talking about, you must be joking! Dicker would have…"

"Agent Dicker is, how shall we say, starting to be phased out." Haze said. "He's overdue actually. Once he has retired, you will report to me."

"The hell I will! I don't have to do a damn thing just because of some so called file…"

"That file exists, Mr. Best. And it is signed by your friend and his wife. Granted, perhaps they were not wholly sure what they were signing…but it is not my fault the chaos caused by the destruction of their house and the need to redo all their paperwork with us caused them to neglect things…"

Haze's cigarette was suddenly sporting an ice tip. He removed it from his mouth and looked irritated.

"I don't have time for need to know basis's I don't need to know. Tell me what you're talking about, or I'll let you experience what it's like to be a Popsicle."

Haze flicked the cigarette away, his irritation quickly moving back into his aura of calm control.

"You must understand, Mr. Best, we have already allowed your friend certain liberties. Supers were originally not allowed to marry, as you recall. And you know why."

"Because it tended to produce children who manifested powers almost immediately instead of in their teens and early adulthood, like other, earlier natural Supers." Lucius rattled off. It had been one of the rules the Supers had fought most bitterly against and finally managed to get absolved under the order that it violated their rights.

"Exactly. But Mr. Best, the concern of this Supers at birth, and the problems it could present, did not fade, not in the slightest. You married a normal woman and hence were excluded from such things, but your friends the Parrs had to make…another agreement."

"What kind of agreement?"

"Are you aware of what that child has been classified as, Mr. Best?"

"It's been a long time since I even looked at classification ratings. They always struck me as Nazi-esque, and the National Socialists never had much of a liking towards brothers, so you can see why such a parallel would bother me." Lucius replied. Though he remembered them: the ratings were applied to several individual characteristics of Supers and then combined to give an overall rating. Lucius had been a Beta, barely, just above a Gamma level, Helen had been a higher Beta, and Bob with his strength and endurance had been an Alpha. He didn't know if or what the ratings their kids had.

"He has been classified as an Omega. A very high level Omega. He will, one day, command an immense amount of power. He already does. And he is only four years old."

"So? Bob and Helen kept him under control…"

"Exactly Mr. Best. Bob and Helen. His natural parents…"

"ARE YOU INSINUATING SOMETHING?" Lucius barely managed to keep from outright yelling. He didn't want any nosy neighbors looking out at this conversation.

"No Mr. Best. I am not judging your possible parenting skills. You may be as good, better, or worse, I do not know. That does not concern me. What concerns me is that this child, this very powerful child, may have very well lost his entire family. Even with an adequate substitute, that can have all kinds of effects on a child's mind. And considering his level of power…well Mr. Best, we were hesitant to allow it even WITH the environment the Parrs provided. With that gone…you can see why we originally did not want Supers to have children. We feared these possibilities."

"Nothing will happen. Jack-Jack loves me. I might not be his dad, but if Bob never comes back I'll put every fiber of my being into being that."

"I am afraid that is not enough Mr. Best. Not with his level of power. We do not want to have to take action…but if his parents do not return soon, we are not going to sit on our hands. We cannot take that risk."

"A risk of WHAT?"

"Do you remember Gigavolt, Mr.Best?"

"I…" Lucius said, and suddenly the implications became clear. Gigavolt had been a British superhero, an Omega level as well who commanded electricity. He had served his country well…until his wife, who he loved very much, left him due to the fact that his powers, having grown as he grew older, had finally kept them from having relations, as Gigavolt's power had gotten to the point where his touch emitted a great deal of electricity, hence to do so would result in her death. Gigavolt had gotten drunk out of his mind as a result of the leaving and had lost control of his powers, shorting out nearly the entire country's electrical grid and causing untold billions in damages and losses, not to mention deaths due to the lack of electricity. And as punishment…

"No! You will not do anything like that! Gigavolt was a man, he made his choice! Jack-Jack's just a child!"

"A child who does not understand, who can be prone to emotion, who does not grasp some things like death and consequences…and a child that is fully within our right to protect, as it were. The papers were signed by his parents."

"You tricked them! They would never sign anything like that if they knew what they were!"

"But they didn't, and they did. And that is the end of the matter Mr. Best, provided they do not return. If they do, this situation is rendered moot. If not…well, you have been warned. Perhaps you may want to steel the child as well."

"I won't stand for this." Lucius growled.

"Your concerns are noted but irrelevant. My organization does not serve you, it serves this country. Countries are not individuals Mr. Best, they are abstracts, and hence a country cannot have morals like an individual. A country can only have interests. And considering this child's age, potential, and the great deal of problems that could result, I am afraid it must be done. For the greater good."

Haze withdrew another cigarette as Lucius stood there, not exactly sputtering but unable to think of anything to say in his outrage. He lit it, and then blew out a puff of smoke, right into Lucius' face.

"If you still have concerns, you can contact the bureau, but it will do you little good Mr. Best. It is set in stone. If you attempt to resist…well, we do not like making life difficult for our citizens. But, if it becomes necessary, we are very, VERY adapt at it."

And with that Agent Haze turned and tapped on the door. It opened, and Haze began getting into the car.

"Considering your great aggravation Mr. Best, it would please me if a second meeting does not become necessary. But do not expect any change if it does. Good night." Haze said, and closed the door.

It took a considerable amount of control for Lucius to not ice the car over as it drove away, bearing its smug, contemptible cargo that tried to cloak itself in the guise for an agent of decency and righteousness. Lucius had always thought, and hoped, that agents like Aaron Haze only belonged in books and movies. It looked like he was wrong though.

Honey didn't look much better when Lucius got back in the house, though a tint of her own particular brand of unhappiness was starting to creep in now that seeming 'normalcy' had returned to her house.

"Who was that?"

"Nothing you need to know Honey…"

"What? He blew smoke in my face! I think…"

"He's part of the life." Lucius said, the life meaning being a Super. The shade of disquiet on Honey's face deepened.

"How long is he going to be staying?" Honey said, changing the subject to something she'd prefer to talk about. Honey had never much liked the whole concept of Supering, but she put up with it fairly well. Until the Incredibles and Syndrome had led to the resurgence, a resurgence Lucius had been a part of, at which point her tolerance had begun to fray, to the point where it was probably only a few steps away from contempt. Sometimes, Lucius wondered if it could damage their marriage, but at the same time, he couldn't overcome the sense of obligation. He had powers, and his upbringing had taught him that he should use them for others. The bad way villains defied such a choice only increased his resolve. And Honey just had to live with that, and since she felt she couldn't really put her unhappiness on Lucius, she projected it onto the Parrs. And Lucius noticed: he didn't much care that Honey was referring to Jack-Jack as 'he'.

"Until his parents come back."

"And if they don't?"

"Then we'll raise him. That's what Bob wrote in his will, you know that."

"That was back when the worst problem was not finding a child or not being able to catch him, not…what that child can do!"

"Honey, you're speaking like he's a monster."

"He can turn into a monster! I've seen it!"

"And Helen and Bob have taught him that it isn't appropriate outside of certain situations. I'll continue those teachings if I have to, train him to properly use his powers."

"What if he won't listen? You're not his father…!" Honey said, with a nasty undertone on one of the Best's sore spots: they had yet to have any children of their own. There were no problems with Lucius or Honey, it was just fate.

"Honey, STOP IT. We won't…"

And then Lucius was aware his leg was buzzing. Not his leg, the cell phone in his pocket. The thing was, Lucius had it set to ring, not vibrate, and he knew that he hadn't changed that setting and forgotten, at least not today. That left one option, and Lucius suddenly needed an excuse to stop the argument and be alone.

"Honey, I need to check some stuff on the Parrs tomorrow. I can tell you more details then. Please, can we not argue about this? He's just a little boy, he needs support, not fear and accusation." Lucius said, and not able to think of any other way, he turned and left the room. He really hoped Honey didn't follow him.

She didn't: instead she stood there, in the room. She had enough intelligence and compassion to understand the essential truth in Lucius' words, but she was only human, and nothing could change the fact that Jack-Jack was not only not her son, but the son of the family that had dragged Lucius back into the dangerous world Supers inhabited. Nor could anything change the fact that part of her resented Jack-Jack, despite it being beyond his control.

Such darkness within humans is an inevitable and tragic thing…

Lucius made his way into his office slash personal room, closed the door, and locked it. He went over to his desk and pulled out his cell phone, but instead of answering it he opened a desk drawer and withdrew a strange device with a small clear screen above it and a lone wire coming from its base. Lucius took the wire and slid the small port at the end of it into his cell phone, and then waited for the special connection to be finalized. If his cell phone was buzzing when it should be ringing, that meant someone was beaming a special signal towards it, and Lucius knew only one person who did that.

She appeared on the screen a few seconds later.

"Lucius. Good. I was worried you weren't going to answer." Mirage said.

"I hope you have some answers for me, Mirage." Lucius said, his voice even, with a touch of terseness. After Syndrome's defeat, Mirage had gone on the run to escape the charges that had been laid against her for being his accomplice. Eventually, she had decided to atone for her part in Syndrome's mass murder of Supers and had set herself up in an unknown location as a collector and giver of information, personally and privately contacting the Supers she knew and met and providing them with anything that they might find useful or important. Bob and Lucius had refused to have anything to do with her at first, but after the information she was giving other Supers started to actually pan out, not to mention Mirage warning Bob that another old enemy was going to try for one last shot at glory by taking him out, they had gradually conceded a bit and began accepting her information when she contacted them via her network of satellites (none of which she had launched herself, but one didn't need that when you were a computer expert par excellance). True, it didn't exactly wipe her slate clean, hence the curtness, but Lucius wasn't a black and white thinker. He had actually had a long argument with Mirage one time on how she should face up for her crimes if she really wanted to atone, and Mirage had pointed out that prison would do her little good and might even poison her considering how terrible most of then were (she'd seen Oz), and that overall morals aside she probably did the world better doing what she did, information brokering (Mirage gave info to Supers for free, but sold other kinds of info, though it was legal, to fund her operation. After all, you couldn't run a worldwide information matrix on pennies), then languishing in a cell. Lucius hadn't exactly conceded, but he and Bob still accepted her special calls and took what she said into account.

"Believe me Lucius, if I knew where Bob was I'd have told the searchers by now. Even if he was…" Mirage said, and let the sentence drop off.

"I figured. I have other questions though." Lucius said. He figured he'd check to see if he could find the so called documents the esteemed Agent Haze had spoken of before he asked Mirage for help on that issue. "Mirage…this whole thing is bizarre. Schism's warp powers should not have produced this effect. I have to wonder if there are outside forces at work here. And I have to ask…"

"Do you think its Syndrome?" Mirage finished.

"I know. He's dead." Lucius said, taking Mirage's words out of her mouth in turn. "That hasn't stopped villains before."

"Lucius, Syndrome was…"

"Chopped up and then blown to bits, could bury him in a matchbox, yes, I know…but could that have been faked?"

Mirage was silent for a bit.

"There was a lot I didn't know about Buddy." She said, an ever so slight tone of mourning creeping into her voice. Lucius allowed her it: even if Buddy was a murdering lunatic, something about him had charmed Mirage, and even if it had been false and part of his grand scheme, the memories weren't any less real. Mirage fully acknowledged that Buddy had been, overall, a monster, but she still could recall a time or two when he had been a man, and shown her things that she had respected and admired. "You know how smart he was Lucius, but what you don't know is how driven he was. It all tied into his desire for revenge, but it could manifest in different ways. He was always thinking of SOMETHING, all the time, trying it, making prototypes, fusions, all kinds of gear. He never felt the need to tell me or anyone about it: they were his creations, and if he didn't need slave labor or more organizing capacity no one else needed to know about them. When the government took apart Normison, they found all kinds of half-finished machines, blueprints, scribbled notes, a myriad of things he had never mentioned…including things that seemed like the rantings of madmen rather then scientific and technological hypotheses. But Buddy was so brilliant…I have to wonder if he made them anyway. He sometimes liked to carry prototypes on him to test them in the field. He might have been doing that even in his final hours." Mirage said.

"So you're saying he might have survived?"

"No."

"Then why did you just make that long speech about prototype tech and…"

"Lucius, if Buddy had survived, you would have heard from him by now. One of the main reasons that there were so many unfinished machines was because Buddy was so impatient. True, some of the machines he couldn't properly build with what he had, but a lot were just abandoned because he got other ideas. When it came right down to it, Buddy only waited so long to attack Bob because he believed at the time from his childhood that Supers were all virtually invincible. After all the Omnibot tests though…he knew that wasn't the case. He only showed patience for his original scheme. If he survived, he could have never waited this long to strike again. He would have surely done it already, in some way. So no, Lucius, I don't think Syndrome is behind this. Buddy's dead."

"And that leaves us back where we started. If this wasn't Syndrome, who was it?"

"What about new enemies?"

"We looked through that already. None of them have the experience or the mindset to do what happened." Lucius said. He felt just like how Mirage looked: distressed.

"Then…even I don't know where he could have gone." Mirage said. "And considering my ability to track, with all the resources I can tap…Lucius, where could Bob and his family possibly be?"

Somewhere else, far away. Very very far away. An entire creation away, you might say.

The sun was rising over the city, a city of tall skyscrapers. It was much like Metroville, except it seemed to lack a certain color. The tones here were more muted, almost faded a tad, far more grays then rainbows. Despite the subdued tints, the city still looked marvelous, with trash-free streets, clean buildings, nice cars…

And an explicably large open area in the middle of the city. It was like someone had reached down and yanked all the buildings out by hand and then perfectly pressed the empty space flat. It was enormous, arena sized, starting randomly at one street and going for half a mile before it stopped at City Hall.

And it was filled to capacity with robots.

They stood there, a massive army of them, thousands, filling ¾ of the inexplicable large space. They were humanoid, dressed entirely in black, with metallic armor on their legs, arms, and shoulders. Their faces appear to be masked, showing only their eyes, an orange dot in the middle of the masks the only different color on their costumes. They stood slightly hunched over, like they had trouble bearing the weight of their arms, and their eyes all stared forward, in perfect lockstep as it could be said. No human group could be so precisely coordinated, and that was accurate: these were not humans, but robots.

And their master stood behind his legions. His outfit was similar to the robots, all black with metal armor placed on certain points, but he was larger then them, and he stood bolt upright, his hands behind his back. His mask also differed from the multitudes: it was part black and part orange, split perfectly down the middle. From the orange part peered a lone eye, a dark pupil that seemed to make up for its lack of a brother by looking upon everything as if it understood any and all great truths behind them. It's gaze, as well as the gaze of the many robots, all stared across the open ground in the large space to the figure at the other end of it.

A lone figure.

He stood there, staring at the ground, as if the street was more interesting then the army in front of him. His clothes were all white: white boots, white jeans, a white shirt, and white gloves: the only variety was the light blue jacket that the figure wore. The jacket was rippled in the style heavy motorcycle jackets are, with T's emblazed on the shoulders and a fancy, jagged S engraved on the back. The figure's face was partly hidden by his downward gaze and also by the mass of spiky white hair on top of his head, hair that stood in an impossible away, at least by normal terms. In the world of anime however, such a style, so towering and spiked, is all too plausible.

The young man looked up, his extremely bright pupils a stark contrast to the other man's dark eye. And while the masked man's face betrayed no emotion, the emotion was all too clear on this teen's face.

Contemptuous disregard.

"Heh." The teen snorted, one corner of his mouth briefly twisting into a smirk.

And then he charged.

Slade said nothing, instead pointing with one arm, and his robot soldiers responded immediately, as they too broke into a charge. The fact that he was outnumbered several thousand to one didn't seem to be of much concern to the white-haired teen, as he did not slow his pace any, even as he thrust one of his arms out before him at a forty five degree angle, aiming it at the ground.

And something exploded from his palm, even as he and the far greater numbers drew close, the front lines of the robots pulling out laser weapons that look rather like nail guns. What came from the teen's hand looked like a rope, a rope composed of white energy…a rope that seemed alive, twisting and coiling, as it emerged from his palm, even as the distance between the mass and the individual shrank to several feet.

The front lines began attacking. Some fired blasts of energy, others slashing out their devices and sent lines of cutting power running across the ground…as the figure paused briefly in his step, bending his leg a bit more then the average stride a runner has…and then springing off the ground like a grasshopper as the white energy rope appeared from his foot as well, curling beneath him and throwing him into the air via a spring, the shots and slashes flying beneath him as the boy leapt over the mass.

The robots start aiming up.

And then the boy spun, having turned himself horizontally, as the two strands of white energy suddenly became many, lancing from his arms as the teen rapidly rotated, turning his body into a whirling dervish. The lines extended far enough so that they reached the street, and since said street was now covered with robots, the lines struck them, ripping through the machines like they were made of wet paper, the spinning teen carving a wide gash before he ceased his spin, just before he hit the ground. He flipped over so his feet were once again level with the street, and the lines, within an eyeblink, were pulled back into his body and then unleashed again as the boy thrust out his arms. Twin strands of the power flew from his palms, moving at insane speed, as they shot down towards the robot army, and then, a moment before they hit the ground, changed direction so they also ran parallel to the street, the lines forming the shape of two massive hockey sticks.

Then the lines shoved outward, and the robots found themselves being pushed and tossed away, if not outright cut in half, as the teen cleared a space for himself a second before he landed there.

He did not have breathing room long.

For he was right in the middle of the robots, and they proceeded to swarm him…but the teen was not standing still, as he charged forward along the ground, the lines shooting from his hands, his arms, his shoulders, and even his back and waist on occasion, as they smashed robots, knocked their heads off, pierced through them, grabbed them and tossed them into their companions, and otherwise destroyed them, the white energy acting more like a living thing then an engaged weapon. The robots tried to attack the figure with their own weapons and their hands and feet, but every shot and blow was either dodged or blocked, and the end result was more destruction for the robots.

The crowd thinned a bit, as a group clustered together and tried a massed shot. But the running figure rolled in mid-sprint and the blasts flew over him, hitting more robots as the teen completed his roll and sprang out via his hands and his power, flying forward through the air, feet first, feet that clamped onto the neck of one robot and then used the continued momentum to spin the robot around, even as the teen fired more lines out of his palms and destroyed all the robots around him before he completed the toss he had initiated with his legs and threw the robot away as he let go. He fell, and he would have landed on his back…had a white line not shot from his body, going through the jacket like it wasn't there, and stopped the fall, changing the angle and weight distribution so the teen's feet hit the ground first. Then the line shoved slightly up, correcting the teen's balance as he continued the charge towards the master of the robots.

Slade's eye narrowed as the boy continued to rip his way through the masses. Then the expression changed, as he seemed to be contemplating something.

As the young man pulled out his craziest trick yet, as he leapt over another group of robots. First he thrust a hand down, shooting an energy rope that impaled itself firmly into the ground, and then he slammed his feet together. The white energy emerged from the boots, once again seemingly phasing through the material, and the lines of power quickly formed into a smooth, semi-pyramid esque shape below his feet as the teen fell to the ground. The boy landed, balancing perfectly on the construct, still connected to the line he had just speared into the earth, and then, like a reverse yo-yo, he spun across the ground, as the line began wrapping around him like it was doing it's best impression of an anaconda. As the robots regrouped and began to fire again, the boy reached the end of the line…and then the line yanked shoved itself even further into the ground, rapidly unwinding itself. Combined the shape beneath his feet, this made the teenager spin like a top, as the line that had provided the windup ripped from the ground as a dozen additional lines sprang from his body, and he shot across the street, knocking and tearing through the robots like they were ants.

Slade's eye narrowed again, and then seemingly came to a decision, as it reached for his belt.

And somehow, the teen saw the motion, despite the fact that he was twirling around so fast he should have been violently ill, and he reacted, as he withdrew his dozen smaller lines and then fired our four long ones, shooting them into the masses, lines that then curled around and onto themselves, each one snaring a mass of robots it crushed together in its coil. The spin abruptly slowed, as the figure was now holding, in essence, four large clubs, the crushed together robots acting like bludgeons as the figure smashed them into their brothers.

And Slade withdrew something from his belt, a small switch, whose end he flipped up to reveal a button that he pressed.

All the robots surrounding the teen began to beep…

And then two more lines shot from his waist, pressed down against the ground, and then forced themselves back up, once again throwing the young white haired teen into the air, carrying his four clusters of crushed robots…clusters he hurled away, each one going into a section of the still large army.

And then all the robots exploded, as the man triggered their self-destruct mechanism in an attempt to get the teen, but with the teen up in the air, all he succeeded in doing was blowing up his own army, as the four crushed masses the teen had tossed away all detonated and caught the robots on the outskirts, one that hadn't been commanded to blow up, in the devastation of the mass self-destruct command. The explosion threw the teen even higher, fire belching up around him along with an upward rain of flying shrapnel, shrapnel the teen deflected away as he spun in mid-air.

Slade was looking around, trying to locate the white teen, when the line slammed into the ground next to him. He looked up with some alarm.

Gravity was starting to re-assert itself, but the white haired boy didn't care, as he snapped the hand not holding the energy line out, more of the power flowing out and solidifying into a blade-like shape, and then the line that he'd shot into the ground retracted into his hand, yanking the teenager towards Slade at high speed, as the teen swung the blade out.

And found it slamming into a metallic bo Slade had pulled out.

For the first time, the teen spoke, as his intense expression dissolved into a look of great confusion.

"Huh?"

Slade whirled, shoving the energy blade away even as he thrust up his leg, catching the teen square in the jaw and sending him flying backwards. He bounced down the stairs in several painful looking impacts, coming to a rest on the bottom.

"Oww…" The teen said, as best he could without moving his aching jaw, as Slade leapt up and flew down towards the teen, swinging his bo…

"STOP!" The teen managed to get out, thrusting an arm towards Slade.

And Slade stopped. In mid-air. Like he was in a movie that had just been paused. Letting out a groan, the white haired teen got up, holding his mouth.

"End program." He muttered.

"Request not understood. Please repeat." A disembodied voice said.

"END PROGRAM!" The teen yelled, and then winced and grabbed his jaw again as a fresh wave of pain flowed through it. "Goddamn it, this VR training is TOO realistic…"

The world blurred before the teen, and he had an intense sense of vertigo, as his body suddenly had no idea where it was, and then he felt it reorienting itself, as the pain faded to nothing and the sensation of sitting back in a chair came to its awareness. That and a heavy helmet covering his head.

Growling, Noel Collins sat up and yanked the VR helmet off.

"Ok, who screwed with the…" Noel snapped, before seeing who was at the computer. "Oh, why am I not surprised?"

"Because you have pattern recognition skills?" Robert Candide replied.

While the city seen beforehand was perfectly clean, that is easy to do in virtual reality. Real life, however, means a dirty city, despite any efforts to clean it.

That included alleyways.

In which a stunned figure stood.

"I am getting an inkling…" The Jackal said. "Things did not quite go according to plan."

To Be Continued