The Campbell Chronicles
Chapter 4
Nicholas hovered high above the Gotham City Police Department. The city's street lamps below cast enough light to show him the building's curved outline.
White and black cars were moved from the building below, the cry of their sirens and the red lights mounted on the top of the cars, cutting through the darkness as the policeman below left to perform their civic duties.
He had spent the day securing a base of operations in the forest outside Gotham. He needed to go there and begin the renovations, but he needed more information, so a few hours after framing the Marconi family for his attack on the Falcones, he hovered over a Gotham police station.
Nicholas dropped into an alley and stepped onto the sidewalk, his form shifting to look like a bland officer.
As he moved into the precinct, his face shifted.
"Hey, Frank." An officer greeted.
"Hello Polly, how's the wife?"
"Tired."
"Oh."
"Yeah, Jimmy started teething."
"Ah, you should try the gel-filled teething rings you put in the refrigerator; it helped my Sarah."
"Really."
"Yeah."
"I'll pick some up on my way home tonight, Thanks Frank."
As he walked past Polly, Nicholas waved over his shoulder, thankful for his telepathic abilities to get him out of that situation.
Entering evidence, Nicholas flicked the fingers of his right hand, forcibly turning the camera away from the real Frank Hubbard. At the exact moment, his face shifted into that of Polly Rustin.
"Evening, Frank."
Frank Hubbard looked up.
He was a short, round man with a receding hairline, "Hey, Polly, what can I do for you?"
Polly's Hazel eyes glowed a pale blue, "You can sleep."
Frank's head drooped, and Nicholas caught him before his head hit the table. Gently maneuvering him out of the camera's sight, Nicholas shifted into Frank before releasing his hold on the camera.
Picking up the clipboard on Frank's desk, Nicholas made his way over to the gated section of the room that held evidence of past and ongoing cases. He hoped places like this would give him clues of people to feed on for power, but that wasn't what he was here for tonight.
Opening the cage, he made a show of doing an inventory while, opening his mind.
Red threads flowed from every item in the cage, gently brushing against Nicholas's body, whispering knowledge and possibility.
Walking along the shelves, Nicholas paused beside a box. Moving the box aside, he found a jar with a load of clay-like material inside it. Nicholas closed his eyes, allowing the jar's thread to wrap around his finger.
This was a piece of a man named Basil Karlo. He was once a famous actor, but after an accident scarred his face, he began using Renu, a material that allowed him to rearrange his features. Eventually, he ran low on Renu and sought to steal it but was stopped by the police.
During his arrest, the police fired upon him, causing a vat holding Renu to explode and spill its contents onto him. This transformed him into a monstrous figure who could rearrange his body down to his DNA.
Images rushed by Nicholas, Basil committed hundreds of crimes before eventually being rehabilitated and working for the police.
Opening his eyes, Nicholas released the thread.
He could work with this. He needed information on mutants, and how they changed in his absence, and from what he saw here, Basil Karlo was the most mutated individual he had seen so far. It was also interesting that his mutant gene activated after exposure to a chemical, and he wondered if the X gene being activated by an outside stimulant was now a staple of mutant life.
Continuing, he reached the back wall.
His eyes locked on a black case on the top shelf as he scanned the metal shelf. Stretching out his hand, the red thread wrapped around his fingers snaked around the case.
This case contained a flower created by a woman named Pamela Isley. She was a woman whose ability was activated after being experimented on by a mad botanist. She became connected to a mystical force called the green.
Her connection to this force allowed her to manipulate plant life. However, the force also drove her to protect plant life and the green. She was not necessarily a bad woman, but she destroyed many businesses that harmed the environment and inadvertently caused quite a few deaths.
Releasing the thread, Nicholas turned around and made his way out of the evidence lockup. Shutting the gate behind him, he turned around and locked it.
While facing the gated area, Nicholas flicked his hand, causing the camera to turn away from the desk. Moving over to the desk, he positioned Frank back in his chair.
Making his way out of the evidence lockup, his features shifted back to Polly's. Once on the other side of the door, he released his control over the camera and allowed Frank to wake up.
With his targets in mind, Nicholas made his way out of the precinct.
–XX –
Basil Karlo leaned against the interior of the drainage pipe he called home, its ridges pressing into his mud-like body. His yellow eyes flicked around the dark space, only lit by the moonlight coming from the end of the pipe.
Sometimes, he wondered why he turned away from his criminal ways. If he went back to stealing, he could at least afford a nicer place to stay.
With a sigh, he ran a trashcan lid-sized hand down his face. Who was he kidding? No one would let him in,
Even if he could afford a nicer place to stay with how he looked and his past no one would want him moving near them.
Sitting there, he thought back to the night when everything went wrong. As he reminisced, his body shifted, his subconscious returning him to the human form he'd shed so long ago.
Instead of a hulking mass of living Clay, he sat against the pipe as a 6-foot-tall, broad-shouldered man with chiseled features, brown eyes, and well-kept dark hair. Water soaked into his dark blue polo shirt and black slacks, but he ignored it on his journey into the past.
–XX –
Basil Karlo leaned into the black leather seats of his red Mustang, the fingers of his right hand curling around the gear shifter. His vision blurred around the edges, making the road signs unreadable, but he didn't need them; he knew these roads like the back of his hand.
Although, if he was being honest with himself, he probably had a little too much to drink at the after-party, but it was a celebration. A way to congratulate himself on his most prominent role yet and his biggest payday.
His left hand turned the wheel ever so slightly as he went around a curve just as thunder rumbled overhead and lightning flashed in the night sky.
The car's movement made his head swim, and he closed his eyes just for a moment, just long enough to get his senses back.
When he opened them, he was heading straight toward the guardrail. Panicked, he gripped the steering wheel with both hands and tried to turn, but it was too late. He smashed through the guardrail.
Metal screeched as the front end of his car crumpled and glass shattered. The airbags deployed as he hit an embankment and rolled down the hill. He felt his nose break and blood fill his mouth.
The car jolted as it hit a rock, flipping onto its side. It continued down the hill until it finally smashed into a tree.
Basil sat there, thankful he remembered to put on his seatbelt. Removing his left hand from the steering wheel, he felt his face grimacing at his crooked nose. With his right hand, he began to feel around for his phone, and his left dropped to unfasten his seatbelt.
He cursed when he realized his seatbelt would not come undone. Blinking, he tried to remove the haze from his vision, only to realize it was smoke. His heart pounded when he saw the beginnings of flames rising from the car.
His fingers wrapped around his phone, and he tried desperately to unfasten his seatbelt.
"911, what is your emergency?"
"Hello, my name is Basil Karlo, and I've been in an accident. Please help; I can't leave my car, and it's on fire."
He coughed as smoke began to fill the car.
"Okay, sir, just remain calm. Can you tell me where you are?"
"I was driving on Shepherds Road but went off the road around the curve."
Basil's head began to spin from the combination of alcohol and lack of oxygen, "Please," his words slurred, "I don't want to die."
The last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was the operator telling him to stay conscious, and that help was on its way.
–XX –
in a blink, Basil came out of his memories. He didn't remember how he got out of the car but remembered the aftermath. He remembered waking up in a ditch horribly burned and desperate to keep his career, so he used Renu, a chemical his father showed him that allowed one to mold anything it was applied to.
Yes, it was supposed to be harmful if applied to humans, but at that point in his life, he was desperate, and it worked. Using Renu, his career rose to new heights, but eventually, he ran out, and the chemical was banned from being sold to anyone without the proper credentials; however, thanks to his father, he knew where Renu was manufactured.
His hand curled into a fist as his body shifted back into his living Clay form.
He broke into the factory and stole the Renu but was interrupted by the police. He doesn't remember why, but they started shooting. They pierced a vat containing Renu, and his body was doused in the substance transforming him into this; he looked down at his body.
In his darkest moments, a part of him wondered if it would've been better for him to die in that car crash.
Suddenly, a voice echoed through the drainage tunnel.
"No, it wouldn't have been better for you to die, Mr. Karlo; you have so much potential."
Basil's head snapped around.
A figure stood in the mouth of his tunnel, his form hidden in shadows thanks to the light at his back.
Basil rose to his feet, his form swelling to fill the tunnel, "Who are you?"
The figure began moving forward. "I need information, and for that information, I will give you your heart's desire."
"And what would that be?" Basil sneered.
A flame burst to life in the tunnel, illuminating the man.
He was 6'2" tall and lean. He wore white button-down shirt, black vest, and black slacks. If it weren't for his green hair and yellow eyes with an orange ring around the pupil, he wouldn't have looked out of place in a company boardroom, but with those features, the man would've looked out of place anywhere.
A smile curled the man's lips, "A chance to regain the life you lost."
Basil bared his blocky teeth, and his left arm elongated, stretching into tentacles that threatened to wrap around the man, "I'm trying to be reformed, but you want to dangle false hope like that before me, and I may just backslide."
Ignoring him, the man focused on the tentacles.
Raising a finger, the man poked the tentacle, and Basil gasped as he felt his arm shift into a human appendage; for some reason, this felt different; there was no need to concentrate on maintaining this form.
The man removed his finger, and Basil almost cried out as his arm transformed back into its monstrous form.
As Basil stared at his arm, the man moved to lean against the wall, uncaring of the dirt he was getting on his suit.
Finally, Basil raised his eyes to look at the man, "Who are you, and what do you want?"
"My name is Nicholas Campbell, and I want to know how mutation has changed since I've been away."
Basil shook his head. "I don't know why you came to me. I'm not a mutant, a meta-human, or whatever they call it these days."
"Oh, but you are Mr. Karlos; how else do you think you survived your car accident and your overexposure to Renu."
"Even if what you say is true," Basil gestured around him, "we aren't exactly in the best place for you to look at my," he looked down at himself, "genes."
Nicholas gestured, and red threads burst from Basil's body. "Leave that to me."
"What are these?" Basil asked as Nicholas began running his fingers along the threads.
"These are the threads that make up reality," he glanced at Basil, "specifically the threads that make you up and tie you to reality."
Basil tensed, but Nicholas waved his hand, "Relax, if I wanted to hurt you, I would've done so without you even knowing. Now, give me a minute."
Nicholas ran his fingers along the red threads before finally pausing on one originating from the center of Basil's chest. Willing it to wrap around his fingers, he stared into the thread as the secrets of basil's DNA were laid out before him.
'From what I'm seeing here, there has been a slight change to the X gene. In Basil's case, it lay dormant until a trigger activated it.'
Interestingly enough, even in its dormant state, it still gave Basil enough durability to survive that car fire. Once it was exposed to Renu, his X gene absorbed the properties of the chemical while expelling everything harmful. Unfortunately for Basil, activating his X gene left him in this monstrous state.
Possibilities shimmered into existence before Nicholas's eyes, each a different outcome of Basil's exposure to Renu.
Basil felt his body change as Nicholas clenched the red thread in his hands. His form bubbled and shrank as he once again took on the form he had before his accident.
As he turned his arms over, staring at his human appendages in amazement, he felt at his face, tears running from his eyes as he touched unblemished skin and fully healed bone.
Somehow, he knew he still had his abilities.
Easier than ever before, his hand took on a feminine appearance.
His attention was brought to Nicholas as the red threads around him disappeared.
"Why would you do this?"
Nicholas turned and began walking away, "Like I said before, I needed information on the X gene, and you were trying to do better, so I decided to give you an incentive to keep trying." He looked over his shoulder, and his yellow eyes with the orange ring around his pupil glowed, "but if you decide to abuse this gift, I will be back, and next time, I won't be as nice."
–XX –
Nicholas stepped out of the drainage tunnel and stared at the rising sun as it painted the water before him a shimmering orange. It was time to visit his new home. He would see Pamela Isley or her more famous alter ego, Poison Ivy, tomorrow night.
–XX –
Basil watched as Nicholas rose and flew away, wondering what to do with this fresh start. He still had a criminal record, but maybe some old friends could help. After all, his shapeshifting was stronger than ever; he didn't need to keep the same face.