Second time I posted a chapter a day after the last one. It took a lot of thinking to come up with this idea while I was doing my day job of cleaning floors and bins, but I like how it turned out. Thank you and hope you have some pleasant music in the background.
They didn't like his vile tone and loud voice, but they obliged him shapeshifting from animals into people. Jayme had tanned skin, a medium build and black, almost graying hair. Akie sported a slender physique, a pale complexion and dark hair in a ponytail. Jayme took two steps towards him.
He looked at them, furrowed his eyebrows and twitched his lip before answering.
"After years of being told the world is the gods' food and we are just the pickings they don't like, they found the fourth and last one, and he's with those Justice League shit's."
"And they obviously wanted us gone, I suppose." Akie added.
"What can I say, we were always just the catalyst for their genocide never the glue that brought it together. But so long as that other member disobeys their prophecy...we're safe."
XXX
Kelsey was kind of happy to see Bathound Jr. again. The dog didn't say much to him; all he knew was it watched him in his temporary room all night while Black Canary and Martian Manhunter flew him back the way they came.
"It's a long story about how I got here." he simply told him.
The thing about Batman people could be sure was his attention was always on his machines rather than people. Right now he was working on the pitch black armor that could make him a match for Superman. Kelsey tried having a conversation with him, but he was never looking at him, wielding, and weaved through the room with vials in his hands.
"Black Canary and Martian Manhunter weren't the right guardians for you, so I am asking Icon and Gold Booster to escort you instead."
"Why's that? They didn't seem to tolerate me, right?" he asked.
"They are good at their job: protecting innocent people. Please wait in your room while I call them."
Kelsey almost left the room, but stopped when a stark memory flared in his head of Batman. He almost spouted what was on his mind, his anguished fears and how he couldn't trust him, but even a psychologist knew it was best not to say things so insane to someone strange.
He stood before the door that opened by itself like doors in a grocery store, then stepped through the door only to bump into something solid. He wasn't hurt that badly by the object that he couldn't back up; see that it was Superman he bumped into.
"So, you're Kelsey, I believe?" he asked.
"How'd you know my name?" Kelsey questioned.
"You have an I.D. in your wallet." Kelsey didn't like the sound of that. But Superman couldn't keep a straight face. "Just kidding. I just heard about you from Black Canary...unintentionally listening in with my super hearing."
"Is that so?" Kelsey asked, sporting a rather peeved look.
"Yes. I'm proud of you for your hard work. I need you to go now, I need to speak with Batman."
Kelsey walked around everyone's idol hero.
His footsteps receded from Superman's hearing.
"What are you doing, Bruce? You can easily teleport him home but your leading him on wild goose chases."
He turned and looked at his friend with his cold, scary eyes.
"I'm not taking him back until I know something about his powers. He's not someone who can change his appearance, fly or break a barn with his hands...his powers feel tainted."
"So you assume he might be unstable?"
"I didn't just meet him saving Diana in Russia; I let him stay in my house and he turned into a feral beast. He went after Alfred and if I didn't step in he could have killed him."
This was the part Clark would say he was only human and he didn't know how to control his powers.
"He's only-"
"He's someone who is a psychiatrist who just guiled superpowers. He can't control them. Is that what you want to say, Clark?"
Superman's eyebrows flared before he smiled.
"You know me too well." Then Superman looked stern and tried convincing Batman. "Let me go with him."
"Can't. Justice League protocol is we can only make two members go at a time unless it's an emergency."
Superman let out an agitated groan before slamming his fist against the steel door, make a giant dent in it.
XXX
Kelsey returned to the hangar that reminded him of Star Wars. In that hangar he got to meet Icon and Gold Booster.
"It's about time you came back. So what's the news?" he heard Booster ask.
"Hi, I'm Kelsey Gilpin." Kelsey replied. "Apparently I'm suppose to go with you and Icon out into space, close to a place where we were attacked."
"Well you couldn't ask to be in better hands," Icon said. "We'll try our best to help you get there unscathed."
Kelsey let out a sigh of relief as he reclined onto a chair.
It felt the same as the last time he sat on it, but it smelled different inside with two men and not a Martian, a petty honey blonde lady and a dog.
Icon was at the front of the ship starting up the controls. Gold Booster was on a laptop in his seat typing faster than even an office worker.
As much as he wanted to take a nap, Kelsey just didn't want to.
It wasn't that he wasn't tired; as a psychiatrist he knew the healthiest way to get through a bad day was to sleep taking tomorrow one step at a time, but all his dreams were, quoting a certain cartoon character, "weiirddd".
As he looked up with somewhat listless eyes, he heard Gold Booster speak. "It sure is better than cleaning corridors all the time."
"You think just having a job, getting paid thirty thousand a year, cleaning a corridor is bad?" Icon asked, a little vehement. "Try living in a neighborhood where there's no such thing as a polite cop."
"You'd love the future then," he retorted. "Police finally learn that having the power to do things doesn't mean you should do them and everyone takes the time to sit down and learn about what's bothering someone, and then a villain shows up to destroy a one million dollar building which is about what even a janitor can make in a year. A jan-it-or."
"A janitor? Were you really one?"
"Well, yes. I mean I could've been a pro football player, but you know...father's."
Icon knew it; being a man such as himself he would never admit he was responsible for his own failures.
"At least, I'm one years later."
Gold Booster's words prompted Icon to raise an eyebrow, and ask, "Excuse me?"
Icon was an alien race whose very appearance was a doppelganger of a slave in a cotton field. Before he gave the future hero a taste of his "positrons", Kelsey got in the way.
"Hey, what's happening?" he asked.
"Nothing...I hear your a psychiatrist. Between you and me, I am a lawyer where I live. Maybe we can talk about-"
"Gilpin, get in here!" A loud dog barked in the back of the ship.
This instantly prompted everyone to hear, and went to see what was going on.
Kelsey walked into a room where Bathound Jr. was lying in a silky bed looking at him the same way his grandmother's grumpy cat looked when he tried petting her behind the couch.
"What is it?" he asked him.
"Danger," he said, "Unbridled danger looming right towards us."
Briefly squinting his eyes, he turned to the others and said, "We need to stop them!"
That was an understatement if they ever heard one.
Gold Booster wasn't allowed to listen to Bathound Jr., just Kelsey and Icon.
"Tell us more about this danger," Kelsey said. "Try not to make it a tirade, calmness is beguiling right now."
"Okay, Batman told me you would try to talk to me like a patient," the dog yelped. "How about we flew the wrong way and are heading to enemy territory."
"What do you mean by that?" Kelsey asked.
"That's more tantalizing to answer than it is to listen to: the course was made by Hawkgirl and her directions have led us to the wrong place. In a moment we will be struck by members of the Red Lantern core. Space is trillions of lightyears away and we find their core."
XXX
Bruce Wayne was at his computer in his five floored mansion looking up everything he could about Kelsey Gilpin. He learned from his social media posts he has a love of dogs, likes to do indoor skydiving, hates chocolate milk and he spends at least an hour a day on Youtube watching Cinema Therapy where his last watch was Implicit Bias in Zootopia.
An hour ago he was wielding his most power armor to date and yet this unfettered, superpowered therapist seemed like an ordinary person.
He was so deep in his thoughts he was pushed out of it from Alfred sliding a plate with a tuna and peanut butter sandwich with milk.
"A little food for that pondering brain, sir."
"Thank you." Bruce graciously said, taking the food and drink with a smile.
Bruce ate pretty quickly and raced to his computer just like a teenager going to watch music videos. He was trying to communicate with Bathound Jr.
As soon as he finally got to him, Bruce was relieved.
"Master Bruce...please send help. These foolish humans are going to get themselves killed, hopefully I won't be the first one to go."
Bruce was surprised it was happening now, but he always predicted something like this would arise when he left those members alone with him.
And then-the doorbell rang.
"A visitor is here to see you." Alfred said as he entered the room.
Bruce nodded, before getting up and leaving. When he finally reached the front door, he would answer it.
Standing before him was an Asian woman in a police uniform, who said, "Greetings, Mr. Wayne."
Bruce realized who it was: Ellen Yin. He knew her more when he was Batman than as himself, and judging by how her eyebrows furrowed seeing him it seemed his billionaire playboy charm wasn't going to work on him. She handed him an envelope.
"Your butler called the station, said you needed everything you could find on a Kelsey Gilpin."
It wasn't long before he opened the envelope.
XXX
Meanwhile, there was an alien space pirate named Kanjar Ro who scoured space in search of treasure so he could someday build a syndicate of pirates like him.
He so far found nothing of value, not since the Lantern Corp recruited three humans have vessels not being shot out in the sky allowing their treasures to drift out into space for him to take. Instead, he found one lifeless body of a human.
He was just going to pass by it when he noticed it quiver in pain.
Hopefully this one wasn't like that Green Lantern Kyle Rayner he meet not too long ago.
Almost out of caution, he approached it.
"Mhdahaeee."
The sprawled thing floating in space opened its face showing its bloodshot eyes...and small red tentacles protruding from his cheeks writhing around.
Kanjar quickly took out his blade, preparing to attack it.
The rush of hurting it quickly dissipated when the thing closed its eyes again. Kanjar conceded his blade back in its sheath before grabbing the person by the waist to hull him in his ship.
"You're coming with me!" he commanded as the man tried getting out of his grasp.
Kelsey had every opportunity to escape but in the middle of space being traffic might be for the best.
As he obediently complied, he followed Kanjar.
XXX
He didn't know why—not even after years of studying psychology-but staring out a window felt relaxing, therapeutic, and worked wonders for his bones he could almost feel were mending at a rapid pace. That would come in handy when he learned where Kanjar was taking him: a prison.
"Why am I being brought here anyway?" he asked him.
"Why you or why am I, an alien bounty hunter with a reputation to keep, taking you to prison? Your just not good for anything other than be traded to for credits and a little recognition."
Kelsey just scoffed at him, giving him a bit of glare as well.
Since he was trapped in here he decided to close his eyes and get some sleep.
In his dream he was standing in a three-way intersection in the middle of the road at night. There was plenty of lights on, no cars though, and he could sense around the corner a crime was about to take place.
He took a deep breath...could actually feel the air tickling his uvula and trickling down his throat.
"Wait...what dream came I actually feel my own breath?" Kelsey asked himself, too panicked to care how weird it was.
"Your not asleep buddy."
He almost jolted when he heard someone speak from almost a distance.
He saw two young men and a slender women move in his direction with a heavy load of jewelry in their hands. One of the males wore a wolf mask, the other male had a shark mask on and the female had a vulture on her. They were cackling, nattering to themselves about how easy their robbery was but none of them had the same voice.
"Don't let them see you. Don't be a hero." The voice spoke to him again.
It didn't need to tell him twice to back away instead of engaging these thieves. He tried stepping back, thought since he was on the road he wouldn't bump into any trash cans...then he stepped on a dog's tail who barked alerting the trio he was there.
'Shit,'' he thought. 'Is that the Bat Dog?'
But no, it was just a stray boxer who was dirt splotching all over its ridge. It barked, darted away, and passed by the trio of thieves whose attention riveted towards him.
"What a shame—I detest violence," the one in the fox mask said. "Oh well, let's grab him and knock the memory of us out of his head."
The others agreed, before going after the dog.
Kelsey didn't know why they were chasing the dog and not him; he was the witness to their stealing. A little nervous with all the excitement going on he tried tiptoeing around the corner...
He was confronted with a man whose veins were luminescent green twice the size of that wrestler who promoted Slim Jim's.
"Well, what do we got here?" he asked as he glared down at him.
