If Gilliland, Illinois had something to be famous for, then its inhabitants had long since forgotten it. Oh, it had McDonald's, but what part of America didn't? Spattered between the dime a dozen fast food places were worn looking no-name diners and truck stops, many with faded signs and dim lights. There were a handful of motels, but Thaddeus doubted anyone stayed there for more than one night. The brain drain had started almost a century earlier, even before the jobs started evaporating. Judging by the boarded up schools he had passed earlier, could this place even hold up for another twenty years?

The most packed place in the area was the bridge connecting the east side of the town towards a sevently-mile highway that led straight to Naperville. Judging from what he saw below, there was a 3:1 commercial truck to passenger car ratio. Even with the sun half set, the bridge was packed, everyone racing out of the place as if the whole town was burning.

No one would miss the place if it collapsed into the earth. Hell, if it weren't for television or social media, he doubted anyone outside of the nearest fifty mile radius would be aware of its absence.

Only someone pure of heart would care about this place. Everyone else would let a shit hole like this collapse in on itself.

Really, the people here should have been thankful for what came next. What better way to remind the world that it existed?

Thaddeus hovered lower, the tips of his shoes mere inches from the slow waves of the dirty grey river below. Pieces of driftwood floated lazily below him. Could fish even survive beneath those charcoal depths?

Above him, cars and trucks glimmered.

He moved upwards but then just as quickly pulled back. So fast, in fact, that the lower half of his legs collapsed beneath the water. The sudden chill was enough to send his arms pinwheeling, and he would have fallen back if he didn't push himself upwards. There was nothing to grab onto, nor anything for his feet to push off of. He simply stopped, his body held back at what he could only guess was a fifty degree angle. Then he straightened, his feet rising above the water once more.

This was different than before. He had found this place by chance, only by going where the wind took him. He doubted he had ever even heard of someone here, let alone met them. And he was quite sure that they could say the same of him.

There was no satisfaction in this, no adrenaline rush. Not even the thrill of knowing that he had rid the world of people that had never even deserved the breath of life in the first place.

What would William think?

Thaddeus bit his lip. It was hard to imagine just how different his life would be without him. No doubt he would still be working upwards to eighty hours a week. His apartment would be a shell of itself, the boy's bedroom nothing but an enlarged broom closet. There would be no one to greet him when he got home from work. Nobody to pull him into a tight hug before bed.

Nobody at all.

How could he possibly live like that again? Hell, how had he managed to do it before?

Oh, he had known getting a child would change his life. There would be no more late nights at the office. No locking himself in his study for six hours straight when he got home, either.

He'd had to arrange everything: the legal paperwork, the fees, changing the boy's last name. Then there had been the little things like upping his grocery budget and getting him to and from school each day. It had been foreign at first. Now it was just as much a part of Thaddeus' life as his daily shower.

Doing this would be throwing everything away.

His heart was racing now. Stupid stupid stupid stupid-

After more than four decades of searching, why hadn't he given more than a passing thought to what happened after the wizard and his family were dead?

He thought again of the champions, but the subsequent rage wasn't as strong as when he first heard news of them. Oh, it was there, but worry was quickly diluting it. That energy that had pushed him out his study's window was gone.

Why had he ever thought he could actually do this?

Stop.

That was Wrath.

"I..." His whisper was almost lost to the wind. "I can't do this."

You don't have to.

They were talking as one again. For a moment, he was back in his childhood bedroom, his toy chest stuck against the door. Sid was beating against the wood with such a force that Thaddeus wasn't sure how the door could still hold. His Magic Eight ball was clutched tightly against his chest, blue sparks dancing along its surface.

Coming home from school every day felt like returning to prison after failing parole. His teachers' compliments, which usually put a skip into his step, melted away the moment he stepped through the front door. Most days, he went to the kitchen to rummage up somthing to eat. As soon as he was able to, he hurried into his room.

That afternoon, he'd gone straight for his room.

He hadn't meant to get his brother's homework thrown away that morning. He'd just seen papers spilled haphazardly across the living room floor and picked them up and placed them on the nearest chair. Had he left them lying around, there was no telling what their father would have done. Every little thing sent him into a rage, and while he might only have screamed, Thaddeus hadn't wanted to risk possibly going to class without his glasses.

Oh, why did the maid have to throw them out? Sure they were ink-stained and crumpled, but they couldn't have looked that bad.

The beating momentarily stopped.

"You think you're so smart, don't you, Thad?" Sid was frantically turning the door knob now. It rattled like a dying engine. "You think just because you're an egghead that you can make me look like an idiot, don't you? Well guess what? If you think that then you don't have any brains at all!"

His heart about ripped through his rib cage when Sid started pounding at the door again. He'd beat at his door all night if he had to.

Thaddeus pulled a blanket over his head.

"What do I do?" he whispered to the Magic Eight ball.

Blue sparks jumped across the surface. When he held it up, the blue triangle repeated what was always playing in the background of his head.

Find us.

There was little that they could do for him then. Hell, he doubted he'd be able to get dinner that night, let alone break back into the wizard's fortress. All the same, he clutched the ball tighter as the sins' voices grew louder.

"Sid, what the hell are you making that racket for?"

Decades later and he still had no idea what Sid said next. All that stuck out was his father's calm, careful voice as he cleared his throat and said "Get a screwdriver."

Then, as Sid scurried off, his shoes squeaking as he made his way down the hallway, Thaddeus heard a louder bang than before. Metal hit wood with the force of a hurricane behind it

"Thad," his father called, his voice just as low as it had been before, "you really should save us the trouble and open the door."

He'd never wished before for his father to start yelling. At least he knew what came when that started.

This? Whether he opened the door or watched it fall away, it was anyone's guess as to what came next.

Maybe it would all prove to be too much trouble. Perhaps they would get tired and go away. It wasn't likely, but at least it was still a possibility.

He looked back down to the Magic Eight ball. The two glowing words, the same ones that forever echoed in the back of his mind, were still there.

No, there wasn't much the sins could do for him just then. But anything was better than facing what came next alone.

Thaddeus blinked, taking in the bridge. He pushed his previous train of thought aside.

The present, he reminded himself, was a big enough hurdle to face already.

"Go."

Six of the sins took to the sky. Pride moved its wings so furiously that it was little more than a grey blur in his vision. The wingless ones seemed to move faster than they had any right to, crossing upwards across the air as if climbing an invisible set of stairs.

Thaddeus turned his gaze from the sins to the staff that he had left behind on the stone embankment. He had taken it, at the sins' urgings, with him when he left the Rock of Eternity. A lump had formed in his throat, so tight that he feared he would choke on it if he swallowed.

If the wizard's champions came, he had only two options. The first was to gain back the power that he had been denied for decades. The second was to shove the staff's tip straight through one of the champions' eyes and out of their skulls. No doubt the former would require a few thousand volts of electricity and a sharp right hook. The latter was certainly the more entertaining of the two options.

There was that rage again. The cold fury that, after nearly half a century, was finally coming to a boil. When he'd left that worthless woman in chunks, a sense of calmness and warmth had blanketed him as he flew back to the hotel. Listening to his father beg and shriek for his pathetic life had made him feel fifteen years younger. Thaddeus let the rage return. His anger would die alongside the champions. He could only begin to imagine what bliss would remain once the fury evaporated away, when he finally had the wizard's powers.

Above him, Greed ripped through part of a concrete tower. Stone tore through the sky, flying outward until it suddenly stopped and descended downward. Smaller stones and bits of metal soon followed. Cars honked and trucks screeched to a stop. There was a distinct crunch of metal against metal.

Pride was tearing apart hangars as if they were made of worn thread.

Thaddeus held his breath. There was a streak of blue coming out of the clouds.

Turning, he flew over and scooped up the staff. The tip, he noticed, could hardly be considered sharp. He supposed that meant he would just have to put a little more force behind it.


There was only one time in his life that Thaddeus ever remembered his father being truly proud of him. Oh, he had beamed at Thaddeus' graduation ceremonies and shown him off to investors on the rare occasions that he came home, but as soon as the festivities ended he usually could not even catch his father's gaze.

If not for the wizard, this might very well have been the most profound night of his life.

It had been a muggy night in early June, with less than a week until school ended. Sid had just returned home from college a few weeks before. As empty as their home had been with him gone - as miserable as it had been to have nothing but his father for company - having Sid back from Harvard made the furnaces of hell a thousand times hotter.

Thaddeus had spent most of dinner picking at his meatloaf. The smell of it made him nauseous while the taste itself was only slightly more appetizing than cat litter. Sid had already wolfed down two servings.

When he had first sat down to eat, he felt like a balloon suddenly plucked with a pin. This far in, he had long since lost his air. It was nights like these when the wizard's words echoed so loudly in his head that he was surprised no one else could hear them.

Thaddeus would never be worthy. Was the life he had been gifted with not proof of that fact?

The most that he had managed to get down was half of his mashed potatoes.

Maybe he would have had more of an appetite if the school year weren't on the verge of ending. Just that day, he had gotten a history exam back. The "100" written across the top in deep red ink had about made him fall out of his seat.

"You continue to impress me with your well thought out essays. If only all my students could be like you!" Ms. Duval had written across the top. Right after the bell rang, just before he'd left the room, she'd pulled him aside and patted him on the back.

"Your father should be so proud of you!"

Thaddeus doubted his father was ever going to find out about his score. He could not speak unless spoken to and, with Sid back, his father finally had someone else to converse with. There was no longer any need to acknowledge Thaddeus' prescense except for the occasional sparse glance. Not that it mattered. The perfect test, getting slid an extra cookie from one of the servants when he arrived home, even finishing his homework in record time, none of it really mattered. Because none of it had been able to stop him from ending up back here, surrounded by the people he hated most in the world, barely able to keep down even a few bites of food.

Worse, he wouldn't even have tests to look forward to soon. The summer of sorting papers in his father's office sitting before him would have been less suffocating if he could at least visit his friends' houses every once in a while. But his father always said no, no matter how much Thaddeus pled or promised. Even getting permission to go to the library on a weekend afternoon was an uphill climb. Oh, there was the two week reprieve of summer camp - which, he supposed, his father only allowed because it was the only respectable way to get rid of him, if only for a short while - but August was ages away.

The creak of Sid's chair against the wooden floor as he pushed it out and stepped away from the table was so loud that it tore Thaddeus' gaze from his plate. As he walked around the table, Sid shot Thaddeus a smirk.

"You gonna finish that?"

Then he'd grabbed the back of his head, his fingernails digging into the flesh of Thaddeus' scalp, and pushed him face first into his dinner. He held him down there for less than five seconds, but those moments seemed like an eternity. All Thaddeus could do was wonder what would happen if he ran out of air.

When Sid pulled his hand away, Thaddeus shot his head up, gasping for air. His glasses remained forgotten in the clumpy mess that once could have been called food. He frantically blinked while he ran his arm over his face, hurriedly wiping food onto his sleeve.

"Thad, I thought you saw that coming. You've gotten pretty slow since I left."

For someone who had spent the night feeling so empty, more the idea of a person than a living, breathing being, he came alive fastly and fiercely. He pushed himself up from the table, sending his own chair crashing to the floor. He remembered his mind suddenly going silent, his whole being trapped in the moment. There were no sins to turn to, no fantasies to hide away in. Had he been thinking then he damn well would have stopped himself from doing what came next.

Thaddeus turned, stepping towards Sid. His brother was mostly a colored blur. He'd meant to aim for his nose - that was the spot all the boys at school loved to go for. Instead, he hit Sid on the lower jaw.

Sid had yelped like a dog. Even if he were to grow senile in his old age, Thaddeus knew that he would sooner forget his own name than he would that sound Sid made.

It was like David and Goliath. The force, in retrospect, couldn't have been much. Thaddeus had not even begun puberty until a year later. Still, it had been enough of a shock to make Sid lose his footing and sent him toppling to the floor. The crash was what finally slowed his racing heart. Thaddeus blinked again, trying and failing to turn his world clear again. He turned, frantically running his hands over the table. Behind him, he could hear Sid pulling himself back up.

He was never going to find the wizard, never going to free the sins. Hell, he was never even going to finish the seventh grade. Thaddeus could practically feel Sid's hands around his neck already. Maybe he would make it quick and push down on Thaddeus' neck so hard that his windpipe snapped like a grape. It wasn't pleasant, but it beat the alternative of slowly running out of air.

This was it, wasn't it? A pathetic end and a pitiful, forgettable existence. Was that really all he was ever going to get?

The sound of clapping, which echoed along the walls, set his heart racing again. While he couldn't see it, he did hear his father's manual wheelchair as it slid across the floor. The next thing he knew, his father's right hand was wrapped around his arm. The other was pushing Thaddeus' glasses into his hands.

"You finally did it. I knew you had it in you, Thad."

Thaddeus blinked. This time, his father handed him a napkin. He wiped off his glasses before putting them back on.

While the lenses were a bit blurry, he was still able to make out the grin that took up half his father's face.

"How did it feel?"

Thaddeus blinked. "Dad, I..." He looked back towards Sid, who was now standing against the wall holding his chin. When he pulled his hand away, Thaddeus saw blood. Not much, but enough that it couldn't be mistaken for a popped zit or scratch.

"Thad," Sid said. His voice was low. He swerved his head, meeting their father's gaze. "Dad, did you see what the hell he just did?"

His father chuckled. "I certainly wouldn't have wanted to miss it." He patted Thaddeus on the back. "You don't know how long that I've been waiting for this moment."

His father had pulled him in for a hug. The force knocked the remaining air out of his lungs. His father had only hugged him before when other people were watching, and his touch had always been light and thin. This? It was firm without being hard. One of his hands was running through Thaddeus' hair, his touch impossibly soft. His father had always been hard to him, like a man carved of iron and brought to life. That he could be gentle...

It was as if he'd tripped that day and fallen into another world.

Perhaps he should have pulled away. Had he been any older then maybe he would have. Instead, he leaned into his father's embrace. For the first time in his life, he felt warm and cherished. He was less a boy in that moment than a child's well loved doll. He would have gladly taken that role on and let this moment continue into forever. His chin buried in his father's shoulder, his heartbeat steady...

He had to force back tears when their embrace ended. All he wanted to do was thrust himself back into his father's arms again and be precious. Dear. Beloved. Wanted.

Worthy.

But he held himself back. Any wrong move could make his father's smile melt away like a spilled ice cream cone in the sun.

"Dad!" Sid broke the silence, throwing his arms out. "Thad just hit me!"

His father cleared his throat. "I know. Haven't I made that fact clear?"

"But, but! But he can't do that!"

"I do believe he did." He was the one smirking then.

"Well you can't just let him do that!" He was pleading now. "You can't!"

His father scoffed. "You think I could have told him no?" He patted Thaddeus on the back again, but this time the sensation sent goosebumps rising up his spine.

"But," Sid repeated.

"What do you want me to do about it, Sidney?" His father scoffed. "I can't just run in and rescue you when things get tough."

Sid said nothing. He was bleeding more profusely now but he hardly seemed to notice. He glared at Thaddeus.

His hug, Thaddeus supposed, was nothing more than a shot of morphine before death kicked in. Already, he could distinctively feel his father's absence on his skin.

"Go get cleaned up, Sid. You look awful."

"Dad..." He didn't sound angry then.

"You heard me."

Sid stormed away.

All Thaddeus could do was blink. What was going on?

His father rested the palm of his hand on Thaddeus' lower back.

"How does it feel?"

"What do you mean?" His voice cracked on the last word.

His father leaned forward, cupping Thaddeus' chin. "To finally be a man."

Thaddeus bit his lip. This man looked, sounded, and even smelled like his father. But, Thaddeus knew, this could not be his father.

"I've always wanted you to toughen up, you know. Oh, you had me worried for a while. I was scared you would only ever be able to take hits, if that. But tonight you proved me wrong." There was that smile again. "Thaddeus, you don't know how happy I am."

"Thanks, Dad." It was hardly eloquent but it was all he could think to say.

His father gestured towards the opening in the living room wall. "Come with me to the kitchen."

Most of the servants left as soon as dinner was served. The kitchen was empty when they arrived, nothing but the faint smell of melted butter in the air to remind them that anyone had been in it recently.

"Open the freezer, Thad."

He did as he was told, trying to keep his hands from shaking.

"You see the ice cream? Pull it out."

Thaddeus pulled out the tub and set it on the counter.

"Now grab two bowls."

He did as he was told while his father pulled open a drawer and got out a scoop and two spoons.

His father whistled as he pulled out two large vanilla scoops and placed them into each bowl. Thaddeus put the carton away. When he turned around, his dad was already digging into his own bowl.

He walked over and grabbed his own. When he brought the spoon to his lips, he couldn't even taste what he was eating.

"Thad, I feel bad for doubting you. You proved me wrong tonight. You are tough."

He nodded. This couldn't really be happening. Could it?

But if it was, he realized, shouldn't he let himself enjoy it?

Despite barely forcing down his dinner, he finished his dessert in record time. While he ate, his father told anecdotes from his day at the office. In retrospect, they were not particularly humorous. All the same, their laughter echoed through the house. No doubt Sid could hear them.

He wasn't sure when the conversation had turned to him, but when it did he mentioned his exam score. His father clapped again.

"I wouldn't expect anything less of you, Thad. That's wonderful."

No, this couldn't truly be his father. But he'd take that damn imposter and never let go of him.

Once they had finished and Thaddeus had washed out their bowls, his father pulled him into another embrace.

"That was incredible, Thad."

He'd practically floated up the stairs that night. It was only when he was in the upstairs hallway that he again remembered that Sid very well could still end his life. For a moment, he stood on the top stair, clutching the railing with all the strength left in his body.

It was only when he saw light under Sid's doorway that he walked forward. Passing by, he heard music. He tiptoed to his own room and locked the door behind him. He let out a long sigh when he turned on a light and saw that Sid hadn't left the place in shambles.

For the first time in his life, he went to bed that night while his father's words echoed in his ears without tossing and turning.


How the hell was he supposed to explain this to his dad? Billy bit his lip, surveying the smoking pile on his bedroom floor. Like all bad experiences, it had started with the kernel of a good idea.

His phone had been hovering close to zero for a while but he'd been unable to charge it. Well, he could have. His charger was right there on the floor by the dresser. But charging it meant plugging it in and finding something else to do.

Phones needed electricity to charge. He could shoot electricity from his fingertips. Why not at least give it a try?

So he'd hopped into the bathroom, locked the door, and said "Shazam!" Not yelled, mind you. The last thing he needed was for a neighbor to hear him.

Everything had been smaller when he'd returned to his bedroom. If he were to lie down on his bed, Billy feared his feet going over the edge. He was so tall that, were he to step inside of his closet, his head would break a hole through the ceiling. Not that anything inside of it was going to fit him.

There was no moment of hesitation, not even a last minute "But what if?" Billy had just grabbed his phone from his dresser and sent a stream of lightning onto its surface.

For just one moment, the screen turned on, bright and clear as the day he'd first gotten it. The cracks across its front were still there, but they seemed muted. The battery button had glowed a bright, healthy green.

But the electricity had just kept flowing, blue sparks dancing across its surface. The spark that hit his fingers was no more pronounced than the sting of static electricity that he felt when he pulled clothes from the dryer. Still, it and the continued stream of electricity had been enough to cause it to slip from his grip. It hit the floor with a loud thunk.

By the time he'd reached down to pick it up, the screen was dark again and smoke was coming out from the top. Hitting the power button didn't do anything. Hell, the spider web that encased the front of his screen was even more intricate than before. Bits of glass gleamed on the floor.

Billy picked his phone back up and held his finger firmly against the power button. Five seconds in and the screen was still black. The smoke, however, was even thicker.

The smoke!

Billy turned, checking to make sure that his bedroom door was indeed closed. As soon as that was done, he turned his head back and began blowing at the screen. Setting off the fire alarm in their hallway and forcing a mass exodus from his apartment would just be the cherry on top of his shit sundae.

He and Freddy had long since learned that neither of the two had freeze breath. Oh, they could blow long and strong enough to make birthday candles go out in one quick breath. But their enviously high new lung capacities aside, it wasn't as if they could make hurricane level winds.

Still, the force was enough to put the smoke out. For a moment, Billy could only stare down in relief at the screen.

Naturally, that moment had to end.

"Shit!" Billy groaned. What was a reasonable explanation for this?

He'd dropped it in the sink? It had the unfortunate side effect of making him seem like an idiot, but at least it was plausible. How about he just dropped it one too many times and one last fall suddenly turned it into a smoking mess? Surely something like that had actually happened to someone before.

No, that would probably just cause his dad to freak out. What if there had been a fire or he'd gotten burnt? His dad would never let him live that down. With his luck, Billy would end up with something "safe" - either a brick or a flip phone.

But phone shopping wasn't exactly his top priority. That was why he hadn't shown the cracked screen to his dad in the first place, wasn't it?

His father had been working from home or calling in sick a lot lately. The few times Billy had seen him, he seemed to be only half there. Every other sentence was a complaint about headaches. When was the last time that Billy had seen him eat?

Had he not had school that day then he would have gone with his father to his latest doctor's appointment. Hell, he almost had insisted on skipping. But despite how off he'd been lately, his dad had made one thing clear.

"You need to go to school."

Billy could have pressed the issue, insisted that he would only be missing one day. He could make up that. Colleges weren't exactly going to throw him out of interviews for one missed day. Or he could at least have asked his dad just what the doctors were looking for. If it wasn't his eye then it had to be the headaches.

Okay, he really shouldn't have Googled it. But when he'd gotten home from school that day to an empty apartment, homework hadn't exactly been his top priority. He'd started typing even before he reached his bedroom and had hit enter on Google right before he passed through the door. That was what he'd spent the last hour poring over, his battery's charge evaporating all the while.

Was it a stupid idea? Yes. Did he really have many other options? No, not with how much his father avoided Billy's questions.

Oh, it could have just been stress. Who wouldn't be flipping out after what had happened over Christmas? But part of him couldn't be sure of that, especially not when he scrolled through a list of other possibilities.

As bad as his dad was now - cantankerous and irritable, a few pounds thinner and seemingly thousands of light years from planet Earth - he could just as easily be a lot worse. What if he was sick? Like never getting better sick? Six months to live sick?

Billy's heart was racing now. Suddenly, his big body - still so foreign - seemed like a prison. He let his phone fall to the floor again. He hardly noticed the crack.

His eyes were red and puffy when he next saw his true face in the bathroom mirror.

"He can't really be sick," Billy whispered. "He can't be!"

His reflection looked doubtful.

And if he was, how the hell was Billy supposed to go on living without him?


Most of Freddy's share of the family data plan was now spent scrolling through the Oracle Alerts app. It was connected to about every local news station and police force in the country. It was how he found out about all of the crimes he went after. He'd even adjusted the in-app settings on his phone to prioritize alerts in Philly.

All it ever led to was mundane stuff - the usual muggings and grand theft (which, Freddy now knew, weren't really as different as they were cracked up to be). Sometimes he got a kidnapping, but that was rare. Though it had certainly been fun ripping the suspect's black Toyota straight off the side road and hearing that little boy start whooping from the back seat.

This? He hardly knew what to think of his latest message.

DISPATCH TO ALL AVAILABLE PERSONNEL: UNKNOWN CREATURES ON WILKINS BRIDGE. SPECIES CANNOT BE IDENTIFIED. LARGE AND DANGEROUS. COME ARMED.

Were they aliens? They certainly sounded that way. There was no physical description on the police alert, so they just as easily could have been little green men as they were seventy-foot-tall eldritch worms. What about escapees from a covert government lab? What if, beneath their grotesque exteriors, they were human beings?

Those questions hammered against Freddy's brain as he flew.

A simple thought was all it took to take Freddy from the skies above Philly to the cold winds of Illinois. The town below him was small with nothing particularly memorable about its features - at least from a bird's eye view. A roaring sound flew along the wind. Freddy followed it until he reached what had to be Wilkins Bridge.

His eyes about popped out of his skull. It was only partially because of the damage, but considering how much was missing from the bridge and how many cars decorated its surface (he squinted, but it was impossible to tell if there were any people in them), it was a miracle that it hadn't collapsed into the river below yet. It reminded him of an ever thinning Jenga tower. Yet the real reason he stopped dead in his tracks was because of them.

No wonder the police hadn't known how to describe them! They were like extras conjured straight out of an old Star Trek episode. He couldn't think of any living creature on earth that could be compared to them. They were implausibly proportioned and ugly as...

No way. This couldn't really be them, could they?

He squeezed his fists together tightly. Why hadn't Billy answered any of his texts? Even if these weren't the sins, he'd be able to think of something to do. Right then, all Freddy himself could think of was to fly down and start throwing fists. Using his leg was out of the question. It'd surely send the whole bridge down, and he wasn't about to let people escape being eaten by monsters only to drown.

Freddy bit his lip. He could fly down, turn back into himself, and try texting Billy again. Maybe even start calling him. If his phone wouldn't stop ringing then he'd have to pick it up, right?

It was certainly the safer option. And no matter what happened, Freddy could always turn back. But there was no telling what could happen in the mean time.

Could he really just go down and start fighting? Superpowers aside, there were six of them and only one of him.

Wait, wait, six!

His parents had been Jewish but never really practiced. Every foster home he'd been in had either been uber Christian, complete with daily warnings of eternal hellfire, or the kind that put up tons of Easter bunny and Santa Claus inflatables every year. The Vasquez's were firmly in the latter camp. They all but owned shares in local Christmas tree farms.

None of his foster parents had ever been Catholic, or at least not any had advertised it. But he didn't need to know the pope from Peeps marshmallows to know that there were seven deadly sins. That was what Full Metal Alchemist was for!

Whatever these things were, they were dangerous. There was no denying that. But they couldn't be whatever Billy had warned him of. It wasn't much, but he took that sliver of hope and grasped it with all his strength.

Billy would get to him. He had to. Until then, there were people down there who needed his aid. People who didn't have time for him to bury his face back in his cell phone.

He looked down, taking in the scene below one last time. He forced down the lump in his throat.

Was this terrifying? Oh most certainly. But would Superman take them on without a second thought? Yes! Hell, even Batman would, and he didn't even have any superpowers.

A blow to the back of his skull stopped him mid-flight. He froze in the air, blinking hard and barely able to think over the explosion that had just rocked the back of his skull.

"Champion, what an honor that you could finally arrive!"

That voice - where had he heard it before?

Freddy turned, his fists raised. He kept blinking until his vision stopped blurring.

Oh. Oh no no no no-

This isn't happening, he told himself. It just couldn't.

His friend getting kidnapped by a wizard and given superpowers? Freddy couldn't exactly dispute it, especially not with the way he was now. Weird monster things attacking the bridge below? As weird as they were, the Justice League had faced worse. Hell, if he made it through tonight then he'd no doubt only go further down a rabbit hole of peculiarity.

Yet as impossible as it seemed, there was Billy's dad. He was bald as Lex Luthor and as straight backed as Zod. He was wearing that same fur-lined leather jacket that Freddy had first seen in him. The only real differences between the man in front of him now and the guy he'd seen in those weird visions and in Billy's apartment were his ability to fly, the wizard's staff in his hands (shit, how the hell had he gotten that?), and his eye.

His eye! Where Billy had feared its absence, Freddy saw only an excess of... Something. It was round and silver, glowing blue around the edges. Whatever it was, Freddy could barely imagine holding it in his hands, let alone lodging it within his skull.

"Tell me," Dr. Sivana continued, "what made the wizard find you worthy? Are you truly pure of heart?"

Maybe this was just a hallucination, some alien creature taking on a person he knew's form so that it could fuck with Freddy's mind. But why Billy's dad? He was far from the person that Freddy respected most. Hell, he was far from being called the person that Freddy hated most. He was just, well, Billy's dad!

He blinked again.

"Not very talkative when the cameras aren't around, are you?" He twirled the staff around absently. "No point in wasting time then. I have a deal for you. Either you give me your powers..." He thrust the staff forward. Freddy had to pull himself away before it could hit the center of his chest. Whatever came next, who or whatever the person in front of him was, he didn't want to see its backstory. Today was weird enough already.

"...Or," he continued, "I kill you. It's a much fairer bargain than you think."

"Doctor Sivana?" Suddenly, Freddy didn't sound like the adult he was parading himself around as. Hell, he probably didn't even sound fourteen.

The man smirked. "At your service." He held the staff over his shoulders. "So you know who I am, then. Good, the wizard warned you of me. That means we can skip the introductions and get back to my offer. Tell me, champion, do you wish to die?"