Snippets, Omakes and Short Stories

The rest of the letter contained a few instructions… and a post-script.

P.S.: Marie, or Rogue, as you probably have already come to call yourself, there is something else. Every power you absorb will linger in you, fading over time. That means that you may receive some vision in the next days. In that case write it down, and , please, give it to me next we’ll meet in person.

P.P.S.: Check that it’s me in that case!​

​

‘As if.’ She thought. She had a few hours until the bus arrived to its destination, and the events of the day had taken a toll in her. She secured the backpack, so that they’d had to wake her to steal it, and set the alarm on her smartphone. She bundled herself and closed her eyes, soon she felt herself slipping into dreaming.

…Blood, blood everywhere. He was bleeding out, in her arms, as champions were being pushed by an unrelenting tide of dead flesh and living metal…

…She was in another place, a city bordering a river and saw an… explosion from downtown, that prompted the clouds to unleash a storm over the city. A lightning fell in a close building…

…She was elsewhere again… space? She was seeing Earth against a backdrop of stars, and a dark figure holding the world in its right hand, a hand covered by a golden gauntlet with six glowing gems…

… She was with a group, but she could only see the others dimly. A man in a dark armor stood before her. And behind him, giant robots decorated similarly to the armor…

…A blonde girl fighting creatures out of a nightmare as the floor cracked open and skeletal hands appeared on the cracks…

…A blonde girl with a cape was floating in the air before her. The vision wasn’t clear enough to allow her to distinguish her features or what she was wearing. She found herself nodding and lifting herself from the ground…​

She awoke. Checking the hour, it had been less than two hours since she had set the alarm. And frankly, she didn’t want to fell asleep again. Instead, she started to write what she had seen in the phone.

Elsewhere​

“You failed.” Said the head of the anti-mutant group.

“Yes, sir.” Answered the head of the commandos. “We didn’t anticipate that the magnokinetic could be close.”

The shapeshifter had escaped his grasp once again, and in his opinion it was the fault of the man in front of him. He forced himself to take a deep breath and sit back on the chair.

“Did you at least get the samples?” he said.

“Yes, sir.” Said the man “We brought them to Doctor Trask , as we were ordered.

“At least it wasn’t a complete waste.” The boss commented “Get out of here, Trent.”

 

The evacuation of the town was well underway when the soldiers arrived. By the moment they started to unpack the heavy weapons the last truck of refugees was leaving town.

“This is probably the most orderly evacuation I have seen.” Commented Coulson as they started to place the AntiAircaft guns, old M-55 towed AA guns made in Yugoslavia, borrowed from the Guatemalan Army.

“Rumors have been flying about the Camatzotz attacks for the last months.” Molina said. “The government is barely keeping a lid on it as it is. If they manage to attack Flores…” he shook his head. “People are afraid, señor Coulson, and have probably getting ready to flee for quite some time.” He then looked at his wristwatch “Sorry, I have to call the missus.”

Coulson and the other soldiers kept working in the AA guns as well as all the other equipment, except Gomez, who quietly left what he was doing to follow Molina. Nobody thought much of it, until a few shots were heard.

Riley and Kate looked to each other and signaled a few of their people, including Coulson and Garret to follow them, while Molina’s number two did the same. They neared quietly, weapons ready.

The scene they found was quite bloody, Molina was resting against a tree, his service pistol still in his hand and breathing heavily, probably because he had been wounded in his arm and legs. Gomez was close, rifle still in his hands, lying on the ground and pretty much dead, what with the bullet hole in his forehead.

“What happened.?” Asked Riley as he tried to get Molina’s blood loss under control, while Coulson called the medic.

“Ese jodido bastardo… I mean, I had just ended… talking with Berta…” started to say Molina.

“His wife.” Commented Kate.

“...I turned to go back to the town… when I saw him, aiming at me… I reacted without thinking…and killed him, but…”

“Yes, we see it.” Riley said as the medic came to tend his wounds.

 

Buffy heard Blackout recoil drunkenly after being kicked in the teeth. Without giving him a moment of respite, she went and punched him in the gut, followed by kneeing his groin. Then, while he was still stunned she proceeded to methodically demolish him, targeting his knees and shoulders with hits designed to dislocate them, and then, a final punch to the head that would have killed a normal man. Blackout finally fell, unconscious, to the ground.


Batman, as soon as he found himself surrounded by darkness, switched the vision mode of the goggles built into the cowl to infrared, and proceeded to deal with the Red Hood mooks that were in the way, as he tried to reach where Jack and the Red Hood had been, only to find that they were gone. When he was considering what to do the darkness vanished, suddenly. He switched again the goggles to normal vision and saw Buffy standing a bloodied and very unconscious Blackout.

“Hey Batsy, do you have some rope?” Buffy said, flippantly “I’m gonna tie this dork.”

Without talking to her he threw her a line from his utility belt, all the while surveying the situation. Besides Jack and the Red Hood, three of the gang members were missing, but all their cars were still there. The darkness hadn’t been on so much time that they would had time to disappear through one of the side streets, so they could only have disappeared one way, into the plant.

He ran toward the entrance of the plant, finding several people dead of knife wounds. Jack’s work, he guessed. He then heard some shouts and continued running in that direction.

“I’m telling you it’s not safe to go there!” he heard a voice saying, full of fear “All the crap that spilled the day of the fire is still down there, mixed with who knows what! For all that we know, just breathing the air it could kill everyone of us. And even if we could enter, there is no railings! A bad step and we’ll fall on that…” he suddenly stopped.

“Do I look as if I give a damn?” he heard Jack saying. The only thing he could hear in answer was a gurgle. ”I thought so. Come on, guys.”

 

He walked to the pick up and sat in the seat by the right door, while Martha, an attractive thirty-something redhead, rode in the center seat, beside Jonathan.

Earth’s orbit​

Jor-El’s prototype ship arrived on Earth’s orbit, using its stealth systems to hide itself from Earth’s detection equipment. It briefly reoriented itself to line up with the landing point chosen by Jor-El, the cornfields of Kansas, not too far from a little town called Smallville.

Unfortunately the gravitic engines from both Jor-El’s ship and its relentless pursuer had kept dragging behind them pieces of Krypton debris. And the only people on Earth who could have discovered them on time were blind and deaf due to an internal crisis. By the point other agencies detected them was too late, the Smallville Meteor Storm was already underway.

A dirt road near Smallville​

“Actually, I work for an agency that deals with international cooperation in law enforcement.” Fury said, using one of the usual cover stories, that had the advantage of being somewhat true. And then added with a smile seeing Martha’s expression. “Believe me, it sound a lot more interesting than what it really is.”

“How so? I imagine you travel a lot.” Martha asked, curious.

“Less than you may think, and even then, I spend most of the time in small offices talking about…” Fury started to say when he noticed something up, in the sky “What the…?”

Jonathan and Martha looked up and saw what had prompted Fury’s exclamation, several fireballs were crossing the sky toward Smallville. Then, suddenly, they sensed more than heard or saw an explosion to their right, as if one of the fireballs had impacted there, and the shockwave threw them into the field, rolling over a couple times before settling on a ditch, leaning on its left side.

Fury was the first to regain consciousness and looked around. Both Martha and Jonathan seemed to be unharmed, other than a few cuts and bruises, and by their moaning they seemed to be about to awaken. He looked around and saw the damage, fires on the fields where the fireballs had impacted, leaving small craters and the smoke that was rising from Smallville.

 

While the medic treated Molina’s wounds, Riley and Coulson examined Gómez clothes and weapons, trying to find any clue of the reason why he had suddenly decided to kill his commanding officer. They found none.

Coulson then looked to Sanchez, who had accompanied them and was helping the medic to place the sedated Molina in a gurney. As a Sergeant he probably knew more of the day to day of the unit than Molina.

“Sergeant Sanchez, there was somebody in the unit who was close to Gómez?” Coulson asked in Spanish.

“Not really.” Sanchez answered immediately “He was new, you see. He was transferred in two weeks ago, and in that time he kept mostly to himself. He was in a way better shape than most rookies, though.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” Coulson said and looked at Riley. They were thinking the same, Gómez had been a plant. But the questions were who had planted him, and if there any other plant in the group.

But before they could do something about that other that worry, they had to deal with the matter at hand.

“How long until the Sun finally set?” Coulson asked.

“I’d say half an hour, forty minutes, and then roughly another half an hour for the demons to come here. Enough time for the base to send a chopper to evacuate him to a real hospital.” Riley answered. “We’ll miss his expertise, but in his state…”

“Yeah, I know.” Coulson then thought something and looked around, until he located Garrett “John! Can you get Lieutenant…?” he paused, trying to remember.

“Nayal, he was Molina’s number two.” Riley supplied.

“…Lieutenant Nayal here?” Coulson finished.

“No need, señor Coulson.” A deep voice said behind him. They turned and saw Nayal there. “I’ll do my best…“

“Actually I wanted to ask you about Gómez here.” He said “Did you see his transfer orders?.”

“I did, but if you want to know who signed them, I’m sorry, but I don’t remember. El capitán would probably the one who could remember it, I just remember that he noted that he came well recommended.”

“Okay, thanks.” Coulson, said deflated, looking back at Molina who was very sedated.

The Base. Communication room.​

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ Gonzalez thought as the news of Gómez demise came. ‘At least Molina is wounded, and my people can deal with him here.’

He excused himself while he thought about what his people could do. If their suspicions about what Molina had done to himself were right, he would be a tough customer, but nothing that the special troops he had brought as bodyguards could manage.

 

Central City Post Office. The next day.​

Rogue was nervous. The night had been quite restless, having finally fallen asleep after boarding the second bus… and awakening like twenty minutes later. The sequence of events had repeated several times for the whole voyage, until the bus finally arrived to Central City mid-morning, after a couple other bus changes.

With the money that Irene had left her, there was enough for a taxi to carry her to the Post Office to see if Irene’s letter had arrived to the box she had mentioned. And there it was, a big, thick manila envelope, and an smaller white envelope with a note to open first.

Inside the smaller envelope there was another key, as well as a unused envelope, stamps and instructions to send the key she just had used to another P.O. Box in Keystone City.

‘Does she keep P.O. Boxes in every major city?’ she wondered as she was sending the key. The memories that she had gained from Irene, while almost completely faded by now, seemed to indicate that yes, she did.

Shaking her head, she went and opened the Manila envelope. Insider it was a list of addresses, fake IDs (according to them she was now Anne Raven, 18 years old, from Brandon, Mississippi), and another lost of instructions. Basically, she had to stay in the city until tomorrow night, and then pick a train to Topeka, Kansas, where the P. O. Box of the new key was.

‘Well, at least I have almost two days to decide if I want to go.’ Rogue thought while checking the list of addresses. There was a number of lodging places, a few shops, including an indie music shop she intended to check out later, and a mall.

She called a taxi and went to the first place in the list. It was an old motel that looked quite nice, if a bit worn, but the guy in charge gave her the creeps. The second one was more of a bed and breakfast place, and it looked cozier than the motel, and more the others than she went later, even if the owner, a stern-looking woman in her early 60s that insisted that everybody called her Ma Hunkel, looked at her a bit askance.

After leaving her things in Ma’s place, she went to the music place that Irene had told her. It was a small shop located between two ugly apartment buildings, packed to the gills. Behind the desk there was guy who looked straight out of a punk band.

She waved at him and started to browse the shelves. She picked a couple CDs and an imported DVD of a Japanese band she followed. When she came back to the desk she found that there was already a tall white guy with glasses and a look that screamed “professor” to her.

“…I’ll see what I can find, but at best it would be a low quality analog recording, Professor Wells.” The shop guy said.

“Even if that’s the case, I would buy it. I have spent centuries looking for that recording.” Professor Wells said, who then looked at her, and gestured her to come to the desk. “I can wait, Ms.”

“Thank you.” Rogue said, putting her prospective buying to be scanned.

After paying the price, she didn’t notice that Wells followed her with his eyes as she left the shop, frowning, as if trying to remember where he had seen her.

 

Not my best effort, but at least it will start to wrap the Red Hood section of the story.

---

By the time Batman arrived to the scene the man that Jack had been talking to was dead, his throat slit by a very sharp blade, like Jack’s knife. The corpse was at the entry of an access to the plant underground waste storage, where the residues of what had survived the fire had been stored.

It should have been pumped out and disposed of by now, but the legal battle between Thorne and City Hall about who had to pay for the damage and to dispose of the chemical waste of the plant had paralyzed everything.

If he remembered correctly the plans of the plant, once you passed the vats, you’d end in the small adjacent building that housed the pumps. In short, they would escape. So, being who he was, he dashed behind them, jumping over the heavy coat that he identified as the one the Red Hood had been wearing.

As he was about to turn a corner, he heard a voice he had not heard before. It was a young man, and looked to be exhausted.

“Jack… wait.” Said the man between wheezes.

“You’re useless. The Bat is hot on our heels and you want to sit down?” he heard Jack saying. “You…” he said, accompanied by a snapping of his fingers “Go and try to keep the Bat busy.”

“But…” another voice started to say “Okay, okay, okay, I’ll do it.”

As soon as he heard him close to the corner, he went and hit him in the head, then in the gut before taking his head and crashing it in his knee. After leaving him there he advanced toward…

“Don’t.” Jack said, holding a knife to the neck of the other guy. By the red cloth on the ground, he assumed that the thin man was the Red Hood, and given the wounds in his face, Jack had already been “playing” with him. “Or this little bitch dies.”

“Isn’t he your boss?” Batman said.

“Ah, yes, the infamous Red Hood.” Jack said with a chuckle “Everybody thought that the gang boss was him, but it was me, Jack!”

“So, the Red Hood was always a figurehead and you were the real boss all the time.”

Jack only grinned and started to walk back, to the portion of the passage that was between the open vats of chemical waste. Batman tried to advance but Jack moved the knife closer to the other man throat.

“No, no, no. Look Bats, can I call you Bats? If you give another step I’ll start cutting.”

“Please, my wife is pregnant…” the man said, pleadingly.

“You are a fucking loser, you know that?” Jack said, as he kept walking backwards with his hostage. “Besides…well, Bats, why don’t you give him the bad news.”

“What bad news? What the hell are you talking about?” the man said, before a look of horror crossed his face “What has happened to my wife?”

Batman looked away.

“So you know.” Jack said. “Come one, Bats, you know what is going to happen. Why don’t you tell this worthless piece of shit the bad news?”

Batman said an address,

“That’s where I live!” the man said, struggling nm vain against Jack.

“There was a fire, faulty wiring apparently, in that building.” Batman slowly said “There were no survivors.”

“No…No…No. It’s all you fault…ALL YOUR FAULT!” he said struggling with jack so strongly that Jack lost his footing, and fell by the side, still clinging to the other man, who fell with him into the vat of chemical waste.

 

“Fuck.” He said to himself when he saw the consequences of... well, whatever was what had happened, although he had his suspicions..

To his side, Martha opened her eyes, looking stunned at first, but she recovered her wits soon enough.

“What the…?” Martha said, before turning to her right, and seeing that Jonathan was also coming out from unconsciousness. “Jonathan,?”

“I’m here, honey.” Jonathan answered, before groaning, and gingerly touching his side “God, I think that I have a broken rib. What the hell have just happened?”

“I think...” Nick started to say, stopping himself for a moment before pursing his lips and continuing to speak “I think that it was a meteor storm.” Nick said, as he tried to open the right door.

“A meteor storm? In Smallville?” asked Martha “How is that…?”

“I would like to… hnnng…” Nick said, finally managing to open the door with a strong push. “…know it myself.” He paused for a moment “If I haven’t seen it with my own eyes I wouldn’t believed it possible.”

Nick got out carefully, and then stepped down to the ground, taking care of not upsetting balance of the pick-up much. He helped Martha and Jonathan to get out from the vehicle, and then the three of them pushed to set it over its four wheels. As they were going to see if the pick-up started, Martha turned her head toward the left, where one of the meteorites had fallen, leaving a streak of burned grass and a small crater.

“Did you hear that?” Martha said.

“What?” Jonathan said, straining to hear whatever it was..

“It sounded like the wail of a child.” Martha said, looking in the direction of the crater.

“I’m not hea…” Jonathan started to say and then stopped himself, as the he could hear it now. “I’m now hearing it.”

“So do I.” Nick said, looking at the same crater Martha had been looking at.. “It seems to come from that crater.”

Without saying a word, Martha ran toward it, soon followed by Jonathan and Fury. In the center of the crater there was something half-buried, with a small hatch open, from which the wails came. Martha jumped inside the crater and looked inside the hatch.

“There is a child here!” she said and proceed to try to get the child out.

“Martha, I wouldn’t do that… Too late.” Nick said as Martha retrieved a bundle of clothes from… whatever it was that.‘Probably some kind of spaceship.’

Martha opened the bundle to reveal… a perfectly normal baby boy with a tuft of black hair and blue eyes.

 

Rogue didn’t noticed Well’s interest on her, continuing her way. Irene’s list had a few shops that she intended to visit, mostly to look clothes and restock her supplies of make-up that were running a bit low by… had it been yesterday? It seemed like a long time ago...

She stopped for a moment and thought of Cody. Irene’s had assured her that he would be fine, eventually. But, even with all that had happened yesterday, she hadn’t even stopped to think of him on any moment. This killed her desire to go shopping, so she called a taxi to go back to Ma Hunkel’s place.

S.T.A.R. Labs​

Harrison Wells had returned to the labs and after exchanging a few words with Cisco and Ronnie, he made himself scarce in order to check something in his secret room, where he had hidden the things he brought with himself from the future, as well as the A.I. Gideon.

“Welcome, professor Wells.”

“Gideon, I need to identify a girl I met in the music store…” Wells paused, trying to remember something.

Gideon didn’t answer instead showing a video of Wells entering the music store.

“Yes, that is the store. Fast forward a bit.”

The image advanced quickly until the girl entered the plane. She was quite distinctive with that white streak on her hair.

“Try to get a good image of her face, and run it through your database.” Wells said, frowning “I have the feeling I have seen her before.”

Gideon did as ordered, and after trying to match the face to many women, it stopped, showing an image of the face of a woman, clearly a grown-up version of the girl, dressed up in some kind of blue and yellow uniform, from which only the shoulders were visible.

“Her civilian identity is Marie B…” started to said Gideon.

“Yes, yes, Rogue. She is a mutant, one of the X-Men. I fought them, once. ” Wells said, deep in thought. “What is she doing here, on Central City?”

“Unknown, professor. Our records of the activities of the X-Men on this time period are very incomplete.” Gideon said.

“Find where she is lodged, and then…” Wells started to say before stopping himself. “Just find her. I have to check something in person.”

“Yes, professor.” Gideon said.

Ma Hunkel’s Bed and Breakfast place​

Rogue was lying down on the bed of her room, brooding. She hadn’t realized the implications of her powers until now. She had become some sort of living vampire, doomed to never know the touch of another human being.

 

González took a deep breath while he tried to assess the situation more calmly. If Gómez had tried to kill Molina now was because he judged that he was a danger right in that moment, and he had followed his orders to kill him when he judged that it was the moment more appropriate.

The communication they had received from Nayal said that Molina had gone to talk with his wife, which he found quite doubtful, given that it was her rather gruesome death what had put the Presidency Information Service, which he headed, on Molina’s trail. He had already contacted his people to see if a call had been realized from that location, but it would take time.

A town not too far from the lake Petén Itzá​

The helicopter that was transporting Molina back to the base was only a small shadow against the swiftly darkening sky. The soldiers had already set their defensive situations, hoping that the demons would take the bait, and they attacked the town.

“When they are in a feeding frenzy they attack in masse, without any thought to tactics or strategy.” Miller explained to the newbies.

“That’s good, right.” Said one of them.

“Half and half, because that means that they are in a berserk state, so they won’t retreat if they are having horrendous losses.” Miller said, shaking his head “On the other part, if there is a king controlling them… Last time we had to fight a king, we were lucky that the guy didn’t have any idea of tactics or strategy, and even then it was too close.”

Not too far from there, Garrett heard that and turned to Coulson who was nearby.

“So, did you manage to talk with Mindy?” Garrett asked.

“Yes, I managed to talk with Melinda. And you know she hates being called Mindy” Coulson answered, a bit annoyed. “They are in position, if things go south, Team Two, Melinda and a squad of SHIELD troopers will be here shortly.”

“I hope that we can resist that ‘shortly’.” Garrett said with air quotes included “In fact…”

“They’re coming!” said the man atop the church bell tower, interrupting whatever Garrett had to say.”

 

Before he could do anything or even see if any of them had survived the drop, he heard the cocking of a revolver behind him and instinctively dropped to the ground when the shot was fired.

He didn't need to look back to guess that it was the thug he had dropped before confronting Jack and the Red Hood. Judging by the noise of the shoot, he was carrying something heavy… too heavy for the light armor he was using right now. Adding to that that the air down here was so saturated by the flammable vapors of the chemical mixture in the vats...

He cursed silently and started to run toward the other end of the passage, where he could glimpse a safety door. He zigzagged, as much as he could in the narrow passage, to make more difficult for the thug to aim. He had just passed the vats and noticed, in passing, that one of them, either Jack or the Hood, was climbing out of the vats, while kicking the other down, trying to avoid for the other to follow him.

When he reached the emergency exit, he stopped, trying to open it, giving the thug behind him, who had already reached the other end of the vats, the time to aim. Unfortunately he didn't realize what he was going to unleash, as soon as the gasses from the ignited propellant left the case, the air itself around him seemed to catch fire.

Batman quickly ran through the door he had just opened and closed it behind him, just as the flames reached it. He looked around, there was heavy machinery around, pumps, and he realized, probably the ones that should be used to empty the vats.

There was a ladder that went up as well as a non-functioning lift. As he stepped up the ladder, he saw that he was on the opposite side of the plant where he had entered, and that the flare up had caused parts of the plant to catch fire. He pursed his lips and called Alfred.

"Alfred, make a call to emergency services, and warn them you have heard shootings and what sounded like a large explosion at the Monarch Chemical plant." He said.

"An anonymous call, I presume, Master Bruce?" Alfred asked.

"Yes, the usual protocols apply." Batman said.

"'Master Bruce', so the Batman was you all along, Brucey?" said a female voice with a Californian accent to his back.

 

“Isn’t he gorgeous, Jonathan?” Martha said looking at the child, who had stopped wailing and was looking at them with a look of intense curiosity.

Nick winced for a moment, thinking of the talk yesterday night. One of the things that he had learned was that the fact that they couldn’t have children had been an ongoing cause of grief for the couple. And now, they had a child literally falling from the sky before them. A child of unknown origin that had come in a spaceship. If the kid wasn’t some kind of alien, he was going to eat his hat. But... he had only to look at the faces of the Kents to realize that it would be easier to convince them to sell their land than to separate them from the child by now.

“Jonathan, why don’t you bring the pick-up here to put this on the bed.” Nick said.

“Good idea, and we have some tarps that will cover it.” Jonathan said and ran back to the pick-up.

Not too far from there​

Buried on the ground the drone ship assessed the damage. Just as it was maneuvering to shot the ship it had been tasked to destroy, one of the debris fragments had impacted on it, causing it to being unable to change its course and fall with the rest of Krypton’s planetary debris.

The evaluation was short and showed the ship couldn’t take off again, and all long range weaponry seemed to be disabled. So it decided to shed part of it mass, including where a fragment of the debris was still embedded, in order to initiate its reconfiguration into the drone’s ground mode. Afterwards it would unearth itself and continue the mission.

Back to the Kents​

“I wouldn’t start to picking names for the baby just yet. How do we know that his family it’s not looking for him?” ‘Or that it isn’t some kind of infiltrator for an invasion.’ Nick said after they had put the ship on the pick-up.

“Look at where he came, I don’t think that he is from... around here.” Martha said.

“And if your next words are something related to alien invasion, be serious.” Jonathan said “Why would they send a defenseless baby?.”

Nick didn’t answer, because he didn’t have a good answer, only the paranoia that he had acquired on many missions. A paranoia that had almost destroyed his relationship with Val, and put a heavy strain in his relationship with his brother.

He decided to let the matter lie by now.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud rumble to the east, where another of the meteorites had fallen. He looked there and saw the earth starting to move.

“Get in the car! NOW!” he cried. He didn’t know what the hell was that, but he had seen enough crap to know that it wasn’t nothing good, and putting miles before them and whatever was unearthing itself was a pretty good measure.

He had already his cellphone out as he got into the pick-up and by the moment that Jonathan had managed to start it, he was already calling SHIELD. But he found that whatever problems were plaguing the SHIELD comms this morning, they were still there. He then looked at the rear-view mirror and saw what had been hidden there, a crystalline... thing on six short, squat legs that was already starting to pick speed behind them.

‘Fuck it.’ He thought and keyed another number.

“Who are you calling?”

“Somebody who I know.” Fury said. The phone rang, once, twice, thrice...

“Carter residence, who I am speaking to?” a old female voice said.

 

She looked at Irene’s first letter. Her reassurances that everything would work out at the end sounded hollow now, after she realized what her powers really entailed. Yes, she had always been a loner and a bit of an outcast, but it had been by choice. Now, her powers had robbed her of that choice…

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a knock in the door.

“Honey, are you all right?” she heard the voice of Ma Hunkel through the door, “I saw you when you came, you looked like death warmed over… and not in the usual Goth way.”

“I’m fine, really.” She said, trying to go for a perky voice to reassure her.

“That settles it. Honey, I’m coming in.” Ma answered, opening the door with her own keys. Obviously her attempt to dissemble hadn’t worked. Then Ma stood in the door and looked at her. “Come on, Rogue, you have been raised by Irene Adler, you should have learned to lie more convincingly.”

“What?” Rogue said, as this had come completely out of the left field.

“She didn’t told you?” Ma said, looking at her. “We met her thirty years ago, when she tried to con me.”

“That’s why you said I should have learned to lie better.” Rogue said.

“’xactly. I didn’t held it against her, though.” Ma said, lost in memories “We ended as friends, but that’s too long a story to tell now.”

She sat on the only chair on the room, in front of Rogue.

“What is important is that she called me this morning and told me that a Goth teen could be passing through here in short order.” She continued “And here you are.”

“And what else she said?” Rogue asked “I mean…”

“If you mean that if I know about her powers, yes, I do. They helped us when we got into a mess that time.” Ma said. “And, by what you are saying, you probably had powers of some type too, do you?”

Rogue didn’t answered immediately, trying to gauge what to say or not to say. It was moot, anyway, because Ma looked at her and said with a kind smile.

“Yes, you have them. It’s written all over your face that you don’t know what to tell me.” Ma said, with a kind smile “I guess that your powers are of a bad sort, right, honey?”

Rogue sighed and started to speak, her gaze firmly on the floor.

“Yeah… I can suck memories, skills and powers, if they have them, through skin contact. And I can’t control it.”

 

“My god.” Ma said.

“The worst thing about it?” Rogue said “I discovered that I had them when I was kissing the first boy that had asked me on a date.”

“…Fuck.” Ma said, which prompted a look from Rogue, who had heard her reprimand another guest for his liberal use of profanity earlier. “I’ll clean my own mouth with soap later, honey…”

The sheer incongruence of the phrase made Rogue snort. Ma Hunkel was old-fashioned, but not in a bad way. Not like that old lady, back home, who pursed her lips each time they meet on the streets, because she didn’t dare to try her fire and brimstone bullshit again after the verbal smack-down Irene gave her the only time she tried with them.

“What’s so funny?” Ma Hunkel said, the twinkle in her eyes the only thing betraying she had done it on purpose to dispel the heavy atmosphere. “Okay, now that you aren’t as depressed, can you come with me? I have something to show you.”

Rogue followed Ma Hunkel, curious despite herself, to the attic, where Ma took the key ring she always carried on her and opened an old cupboard. Inside there was an old scrapbook, leather bound, with some kind of faded shield on it. Ma opened it and leafed through it quickly, as if searching for something.

“Aha, here it is!” said Ma, taking a picture from the scrap book and showing it to Rogue. It was a black and white picture of a blonde woman in a tight black costume with a spider motif.

“Who is she?” asked Rogue.

“I met her in New York, she was a vigilante that fought specially the people who preyed on young women.” Ma explained “A gang attacked me one night. I was still struggling when she appeared and started to throw them away. One of them managed to recover a jumped her with a knife, she tried to catch him, and I’ll never forget what happened afterwards.”

“What?”

“As soon as she had touched him, skin against skin, he started to scream as he started to rot from inside out.” Ma said “She explained to me that one of her powers, besides super-strength and flight, was a ‘touch of death’ that wasn’t entirely under her control. That’s why she usually wore long gloves like the ones you are using, but in the fight they had been torn.”

“And what happened to her?” Rogue asked.

“We kept in contact, but one day she disappeared. I heard that she was seen in Europe, but it have been many years.” Ma said “But the important thing, was that her powers didn’t stop her from having a life, despite everything.”

 

“Really?” Rogue said, clearly skeptic “Because that power sounds even worse than mine. Not to mention she killed that guy.”

“She learned to control it, eventually. By the time she went to Europe, she was capable to do it at will.” Ma said “And well, it was another time. The cops only did a cursory investigation, and not even his fellows saw what happened to him. Soon it was only just another one of the ‘cold cases’ in the Big Apple.“

“When did that happen? And why nobody has talked about superpowered people before Iron Man?”

“That’s a long story, honey, and besides, I only know part of it.” Ma said with a sigh, and then she looked at the time “Tonight, I may tell you what I know, but it’s getting late for supper.”

STAR Labs​

“Greetings, Professor Wells.” Gideon said as the man got near its interface.

“Gideon, Hartley Rathaway. Is he still planning to sneak inside the lab tomorrow?” Wells said, without preamble.

“Yes, Professor Wells, he isn’t showing any sign of deviating from his plan.”

“Good, I’m probably going to need the Piper to motivate Barry, eventually.” Wells said “What about our erstwhile mutant?”

“She is lodged into Ma Hunkel’s Bed and Breakfast Inn.” Gideon answered.

“Not in person, then, it would attract the attention of the Society.” He mused aloud.

“Can you repeat the question?” Gideon said.

“It wasn’t a question, I was just thinking aloud.” Wells said “Do the Friends of Humanity exist already on this time period?”

“No, according to records.” Gideon said.

“But we have screwed the timeline enough that it may have some unexpected repercussions. Check what some of its historical leaders are doing just now and compare with the historical database.”

“Processing… Anomalies found.” Gideon said “Bolivar Trask and Graydon Creed have left SHIELD nearly a year before they did in the records. ”

“So a version of the Friends of Humanity could be already in existence.” Wells said “Try to locate either of them, or their more notable lieutenants.”

 

It seemed that he had underestimated Buffy's stealth, as well as her hearing. He quickly reviewed his option and discarded them one on one. So, at the moment only one option remained: dithering.

"Not here." Batman hissed "Too many ears."

"That's why I never was a good Secret Identity Girl. I never cared about who was listening." Buffy said with a mock surprised tone. When Batman glared at her, she only smiled.

"We need to make ourselves scarce." Batman said, "This district precinct is notorious for being more than a bit trigger happy."

"And being shot is not of the good." Buffy said. "Do you remember where you parked the Batmobile?"

Batman didn't answer, instead using his grapple pistol to go to the roof of the plant, and start to go toward the front, not before leaving down another line for Buffy to climb.


When Buffy reached the front part of the roof, Batman was standing, almost on the edge.

"What are you...?" Buffy started to ask when he heard a high-output engine closing by. "...waiting for?" she concluded lamely, as the Batmobile parked itself before the plant.

It was so fleeting that, afterwards she wasn't sure if she had really seen it, but she could swear that Batman had smirked. Then, he using the grapple gun in a nearby building, described a great arc in the air, and fall standing up over the canopy of the car, that opened to let him enter. Buffy directly jumped down on the companion seat. The canopy closed and they sped out of the plant just as the first emergency vehicles started to arrive.

"Do you have some way to call from here? My phone broke during the fight with Blackout."

"I was wondering what happened to the headset you were wearing earlier." Batman said, pushing button in the driving wheel, which transformed a screen into a numeric keyboard. "Call her."

"Okay. So what's the real story, Bruce?" Buffy said, as she was keying the numbers. "Why did you became Batman."

"You know why." Batman said.

Wayne Tower Penthouse​

Dawn was beside herself with worry. She had been experimenting a bit with her newfound portal opening ability, having finally getting the hang of it, when Buffy's signal shut out during the fight with Blackout. Despite the dorky name, if he was really from Lilith's brood, he would be dangerous.

She paced around for several minutes, increasingly worried, until her smartphone started to ring. It was a hidden number, but she had the feeling that she knew who was calling.

"Dawn Summers here."

"Hiya, Dawnie."

"Buffy! What the Hell did happen?" she said, relieved.

"The phone broke. Sorry for having worried you." Buffy said "I'm calling from the Batmobile, and well, something has happened."

"Are you hurt?"

"Nah, it's something I can't discuss by phone." Buffy said, "Look, Bruce's butler, Alfred Pennywise..."

"Pennyworth." Dawn corrected her. "Alfred Pennyworth. Pennywise was the clown demon from 'It'"

"Okay. Alfred is going to come to take you to Wayne Manor."

Dawn looked at herself. She only had to put the sneakers on to be able to get out. As she reached for them, she had another idea, and checked two locations in Google Maps, distance and direction between the. She then opened a portal, that showed the front porch of a stately manor. She quickly looked pictures of Wayne Manor in Google and saw that it matched.

"Dawn? Something to the matter?" Buffy asked as Dawn ended to put on the sneakers.

"No need for Alfred to come for me." Dawn said, crossing the portal.

 

“Director Carter. I’m Nick Fury, from SHIELD.” Fury said.

“Ah, yes, I remember you.” Carter said. “Why are you calling, it must be quite early in the States right now?.”

“There have been a meteor storm on Smallville, Kansas, and something came out from one of the impact craters. It looks like a six-legged cross between an elephant and a beetle, made of some kind of crystal. I have tried to contact SHIELD, but the communications have been off since this morning, and you were the only person with some kind of pull that I wouldn’t have to go through three secretaries before I could talk to them directly.”

“Smallville, Kansas, you said?” Carter asked, and in the background he could hear her rummaging in her handbag. “Now, repeat what it happened slowly while I take notes, my memory is not what it was.”

Fury explained what had happened, omitting the pod and the kid now safely nestled on Martha’s arm, but giving a more thorough description of the hexapodal crystalline thing that was chasing them, as well as talking about the communication problems that had plagued SHIELD for the last weeks.

“That’s odd, and very uncharacteristic of Faraday.” Carter said “He was a bit of a scratched record on the importance of communications in the modern world.” Carter sighed and then added. “I’ll make some calls, to see what the hell is happening with SHIELD and what can be scrapped to help you.”

“Thank you. Any help will be well received.” Fury said “I’m going to try to drive it far from town.”

“That’s very dangerous!”

“Less than let it go into the center of a town of 10000 people.” Fury said. “We’ll talk later.”

“Are you crazy?” Jonathan said.

“No, I’m not. Think about it, what are the odds that the kid and that thing are not related in some way.” Fury said, and then signaled toward the thing “And it’s coming for us, anyway. So, pedal to the metal, we’re going to need all the speed this old thing can achieve.”

 

Everybody looked in the direction that watchman was pointing. Black winged shapes could be barely seen against the last gleams of twilight. Riley made the signal, and all lights got turned off, while two spotlights, not unlike the ones used in air defense in World War II, were rolled to the front, close, but a bit ahead of the two AA guns they had brought.

The spotlight would fuck with the demons vision a lot more than it would with the defenders as well as letting them aim more easily to the creatures. Just in the case of the demons managing to get the lights out of commission, there were a number of people kept out of sight of the spotlights, so they wouldn't be losing more night vision than necessary. Everything was set.

Suddenly the radioman started to curse.

"Sirs, the helicopter transporting Commander Molina is under attack by what they are reporting as giant bats." The radioman informed "They... damn... the communication cut suddenly, sir. I'll try to regain contact."

The base​

'If Molina have prepared this somehow, he is more dangerous that we feared.' Gonzalez thought. 'Well, the President gave me the order to deal with this with any mean necessary, and I'll do just that.'

He excused himself again from the communication room, he had to make some calls. The President wasn't going to like this, but tough shit, he was a professional, and it was time to get the big guns out, as he had wanted to do from the beginning.

The town​

They hadn't been able to regain contact with the 'copter or any possible survivors since it was lost. This was adding to the tension of the situation as the demons seemed to have kept themselves in a flight pattern just outside the reach of the lights.

And then, suddenly, they started to charge in masse.

 

As soon as the demons started to move in their direction, they started to shoot. The AA guns, as fast as they could, while the Initiative troopers and the Guatemalan Special Forces used 3-shots grouped fire, which was, usually, enough to dispatch any of the demons. While at first it seemed to be working, it was not that long before Graham noticed something.

"They are not in a feeding frenzy." Graham said.

"Really? Because they seem very frenzied to me!" said Rumlow.

"He is right, fuck it!" Kate said, and she shot down another of the beasts with a precise shot. "They are ignoring their dead."

"Yeah, when frenzied they eat their own." Riley finally spoke, looking at Coulson. "Plan B is, then."

Coulson nodded and shot a flare into the air, the signal for retreating into the backup position. They left the AA guns in place, as they were too cumbersome to move they were probably safe from anything.

Belize. SHIELD base.​

“I could get used to this.” Sam said looking at the facilities around her.

“Well, the older facilities were not so nice. Director Fury have made a mission of modernizing all our installations.” Agent Mai commented. “Where is your XO, by the way?”

“He found some people to play poker with.” Sam answered. “Knowing him, he have already won three rounds.”

“So, he is good.” Melinda said, interested.

“Pretty good. Why?”

“I haven’t had a good enough rival since Venable retired.” Melinda said. “In fact… Hang on.” She said as her mobile phone started to ring.

“Yes, sir. Agent May here.” She said to the phone “I have Major Finn with me right now, sir… How did he…? Understood, sir… Half an hour, maybe less… Yes, sir, she always liked white roses… Goodbye, sir.”

“White roses?”

“I’ll explain later.” Melinda said “We need to get our people in motion and pronto.”

---

And with this, Change of guard enter in a temporary hiatus. I’ll keep with the other stories until I’m ready to return to this, or until I have enough from another story to replace it. That, if I don’t start again, and rewrite the story from the beginning.

 

The parking of a road inn somewhere in Mississipi​

Steven Lang looked at Alex Trent, who was screaming to his ex-wife on the phone, with distaste. Lang was a scientist who had worked closely with Trask, and Trask mysterious benefactor, in developing countermeasures to the mutant problem. He respected Graydon Creed’s zeal, even if he thought that Creed was a bit too blinded by his own rage at times. But Alex Trent? He was exactly what the Friends of Humanity shouldn’t be, a holdover of the old bad days.

Trent suddenly stopped mid-tirade.

“The bitch hung on me.” He said, with an slightly stunned look.

“What did you expect? You have been screaming at her for five minutes straight.” Lang said. “Maybe if you weren’t so much of an asshole, the court wouldn’t have retired your visiting rights.”

“Fuck you.” Trent said.

Lang didn’t dignify that remark with an answer, focusing in getting back inside to pay their bill, when his phone rang. He looked at the screen and saw that it was a hidden number. Nobody, other than the FoH had the number, so who the hell…? He stopped and went back to the parking to answer the phone, while signaling Trent to stay there.

“Who is this and how did you get this number?" he asked without preamble.

"That is not important, Mister Lang." Somebody, speaking with an electronically distorted voice, said, "What is important is that I know of the location of one of the mutants that managed to flee Mister Trent ambush yesterday night."

"Even if I knew what you are talking about..." he started to say.

"Oh, please. Don't try to dissemble; I know a lot of things about you." The voice said, “You came to SHIELD full of ideals to protect humanity, only to find that, as always, politics reigned supreme and a good man you idolized was being thrown to the wolves. So, when he left you left with him, and now you and him are full of plans for a final solution to the mutant problem.”

“I’m not a fucking Nazi! Mutants are a real danger, not a scapegoat, you fucking…!” he started to say, hotly, having caught what the other man was implying immediately.

“Ah, did I touch a nerve?” the voice said with a chuckle.

"What do you fucking want, Mister Know-it-all?" he said.

"As I said, I know of the location of one of the mutants, the teenage power drainer." The voice said, unperturbed.

“And you are doing this out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Hardly. I have my own motives.” The voice said, and then he said an address “It’s in Central City.” And he hung up.

Lang swore for a few minutes, to the amused look of Trent. He glared at him, and went inside to pay, before coming back and calling headquarters.

 

Dawn stepped out of the portal, finding herself in front of Wayne Manor. And she quickly found herself having to take refuge in the manor porch as the drizzle that have been falling intermittently for quite a while was starting to become a serious storm.

Nonetheless, she looked around and thought that the pictures that she had seen on Internet didn’t do the old building justice. It looked a lot more homely, than the creepy manor that the pictures showed.

She then remembered that she still had the phone in her hand.

“Buffy, remember what I said earlier of things keyed to me?” Dawn said to the phone.

There was no answer, so she then looked at the phone, and found that the call had been cut. She face palmed hard, realizing that obviously the same cell towers wouldn’t service the city center and a Manor located in the outskirts of the city, near the coast.

She put the phone in her pocket, went to the main door and rang the doorbell. If she knew her sister Buffy would call her as soon as she could, so better to get it with the program to see why Buffy wanted for her to come to Wayne Manor.

The door opened, revealing Alfred in his spotless butler uniform.

“Hello, Alfred.” She said.

“Miss Summers?” he said, arching an eyebrow. “What an amazing coincidence, your sister called earlier, asking me to bring you here.”

“Ah, well, it’s a long story, and I would like to tell it to everybody at once.” Dawn said, fidgeting a bit.

“Of course.” Alfred said, before stepping out of the way for her to enter. “If you may come with me, I’ll prepare you some refreshments while your sister arrives.”

“Thank you very much, Alfred.” Dawn said, entering the manor and following Alfred to a room that looked like a mix between a living room and a library and dominated by a big portrait of a couple, Thomas and Martha, she assumed, over the fireplace.

“Now, If you excuse me, Miss.” He said, before disappearing on a side corridor.

As with the apartment, the place was furnished with taste. The sofas and armchairs were comfortable, and in a corner there was a grandfather clock… that was not working. Intrigued despite herself, she went to check if there was some problem with it, starting with manipulating the clock hands. They were a bit stiff, so she had to lean on the clock to exert more strength. So, when the wall behind the clock moved she fell ahead, into a set of stairs.

 

Peggy Carter residence. British countryside​

It was as Fury had said. SHIELD communications were in the fritz... or were they?. Something about all of this did not feel right to her, but first things first. Who to call? Then he remembered that an old friend who had managed to land a job as one of liaisons between SHIELD and the Pentagon after retirement, and called a number from memory.

“Are you aware what time it is?” said the sleepy voice of Lieutanant General (retired) Gabriel Jones.

“Hi, Gabe. It’s Peggy.” She said

“Oh, god. What has happened?” Gabe asked, suddenly fully awake.

“I received a call from a SHIELD agent, Nick Fury, there has been a meteor storm in…” she said, checking again the notepad “…Smallville, Kansas, and some kind of alien war machine has apparently got out from one of the craters, and he is unable to communicate with the Triskelion.”

“Oh, God, don’t tell me that it’s the Martians again?” Jones said with a resigned voice.

“From what Fury said, I don’t think so. He described the machine as, and I quote, ‘a crystalline rhino beetle with six elephant legs’.” Peggy explained.

“Not the Martians, then.” Gabe said with a relieved sigh “I don’t look forward to call John again. I’ll check what assets we have on the area, and well, about the Triskelion, the problem is finding somebody who has the clearance to know about it…” he suddenly snapped his fingers “Lane.”

“Who?”

“Sam Lane, he is a Colonel in Fort Myer, had some dealings with SHIELD a couple years ago.” Gabe said “He has enough clearance, as well as a good head over his shoulders. A bit more vindictive than I would like, but, well…”

“Yeah, it’s not like there are many choices.” Peggy said. “Do I call the Council? Or do you want the honors?”

“I wouldn’t call it an honor, precisely.” Gabe said with a chuckle “But, I’ll do it myself, if not for other reason, than because officially you are nothing more than a civilian and some of the members are a bit too punctilious about protocol.”

 

Central City. Ma Hunkel's Inn. That night​

It was a bit late that night. All the other guests had already gone to bed when Rogue went down the stairs to the living room were Ma Hunkel was knitting, sitting in a rocking chair.

"Mrs. Hunkel, I'm here."

"Call me Ma, honey." She said without lifting her eyes from the knitting needles. "Everybody call me that, anyway."

"It's about what we talked earlier. About people with..."

"Powers? Special abilities?" she said "Yes, I remember. 'Mystery men', was how they were called back then. The term 'superhero' hadn't been coined back then, you see."

"And when was then?" Rogue said, curious.

"Another age, some people called it a Golden Age." Ma said, "I always thought of that name as nostalgic hogwash, though. "

"How so?"

"It was simply a time like any other, with bad and good things. You see..." she started to say when the telephone rang. "One moment."

"Ma Hunkel's Bed and Breakfast Inn, what can I do for you?" She said, "Hello, Fritz, so how things are going on Keystone?... Really?... Yes, that's worrying... No, I don't have any guest that looks like that." This final sentence was said looking at Rogue, who noticed the gesture. "I'll keep that in mind... Bye."

"What was that?"

"One moment, I have to make a call." Ma said.

She keyed a number from memory and waited for the answer.

"Fred, it's Abby Hunkel... Yes, Ma Hunkel. Listen, I received a call from Fritz, in the Keystone office, about a fugitive that may be lodging here... No, she is not here, but that's the kind of thing that you usually manage, not Fritz... Really? That's odd. Fritz seemed convinced that it was real... See you."

"What was that?" Rogue repeated.

"Things are not safe for you here anymore, honey." Ma said, as she was writing in a notepad, "Collect your things, and go to this address." She ripped a leaf from the notepad and gave it to her, "It's the house of a friend that it's out of town right now."

Ma accompanied her to her room, to help her packing, as well as giving her a bit of an explanation.

"Fritz and Fred are the head of the FBI offices in Keystone City and Central City, respectively. Given that the cities are just across the river from each other, it's not unusual that notices to one office go also to the other."

"But from what I heard, that haven't been the case."

"Yes, and Irene warned me that the people after you may have contacts in Law Enforcement." Ma said, "Now call a taxi, and get to that address. Do you have some way to get in contact with Irene?"

"Not quickly." She shook her head, “She left a Post Office Box address and that is.”

“Goddammit.” Ma said. “Look, down the street there is a phone box. Call a taxi from there. I’ll keep the FBI people busy.”

 

Fortunately, Dawn managed to stop in a turn of the twisting stairs before she could fall down more. She got up with difficulty and checked herself. Some bruises, but nothing more serious.

She was about to call Alfred, but she topped herself, remembering Buffy's word about Bruce hiding something. And whatever it was it was probably related to these secret stairs.

She checked that her smartphone had not broken and activated the flashlight app. The stairs were carved on the rock, supplemented here and there by some concrete, and descended into a stygian darkness. The door that she had fallen through had a handle to open it from the inside, so she closed it carefully, trying not to make a noise.

She walked down the stairs, until she found a door at the end of it. A heavy door, the style you would find in a fallout shelter. She opened it and stepped into... the Gray Ghost Lair?

Okay, it was a pretty faithful recreation of the lair. She had seen more than a few episodes over the years, as it were one of Xander (and Andrew) favorite series. She was going to look around, but a noise attracted her attention. The noise of a car coming from… a tunnel to her right, and it was getting louder.

She hid behind a rock, in one of the areas of the cave that haven’t been worked over to give space for… this, whatever it was. She didn’t have to wait much, as the car soon appeared. An sleek black car with a bat-shaped frontal that could double as a battering ram.

‘Wait a minute! Bat?’ she thought, the pieces falling into place.

The car parked in a circular platform, and soon enough, as she already suspected, Buffy and Batman got out of the car.

“Now, we’ll see how Dawn receive the news.” Buffy said.

Batman didn’t answer immediately, instead looking around until he was looking straight toward her.

“No need for that, she already knows.” He said, removing his cowl to show the face of Bruce Wayne, “Dawn, come here.”