Snippets, Omakes and Short Stories

"And I suppose he has access to people that can follow the money trail. We are having problems locating a lot of the money of the old council." Buffy said.

"That would help, I suppose" Leslie said, "There is another thing, maybe with your help we can get him to be less....hmmmm, how would I say it?"

"Intense? Driven? Obsessed?" supplied Buffy.

"That too, although I was going for paranoid and self destructive." Leslie said, and sat down with a heavy sigh, "I fear that one day he'll sacrifice everything for his 'mission', that in order to avenge his parents, he'll become something they would have despised, and what is worse is that he'll drag everybody with him."

Wayne Manor. Next morning. Kitchen table.​

"...totally unexpected storm seems to have barely affected Gotham, as the explosion in the abandoned Monarch Chemicals factory seems to have been caused by gang activity...."

Dawn hopped channels, before taking the last spoonful of her cereal.

"...Oscorp has issued a press release informing that the damage to their experimental facility had been minor, and that the members of the school visit were evacuated without problems..."

Dawn looked worried. While it hadn't been from her high school, it was in Queens, if she remembered correctly, she knew a couple people from there. She'd call Liz as soon as she could. Meanwhile, the newscaster continued droning about the damage caused by yesterday nights storm.

"...Von Doom Industries is denying that the damage on their aerospatial facility was as severe as the first reports suggested. The CEO, Victor Von Doom, wasn't available fo..."

Dawn hopped channels again. If she didn't see Doom's smarmy visage again, she would be much happier. The damned ass had come personally to recruit Willow for some secret project and had not taken her no gracefully.

"...particle accelerator in Central City STAR Labs..."

Dawn turned off the TV. Maybe it was all the crap she had seen in Sunnydale, but the biggest and most destructive storm in decades, appearing suddenly, wrecking a lot of infrastructure from Boston to Miami, all the way to New Mexico, and barely touching Gotham? Suspicious on the extreme.

"'mo'ning." Buffy said, carrying a tray full of pancakes, strawberry jam and honey, with one in her mouth.

"When did you get back?" Dawn asked.

Buffy removed it from her mouth, though not without taking a good sized bite of it.

"'round four in the morning. Bruce stayed some time afterwards, but I went straight to bed." Buffy said, "And now, I suppose he'll sleep all morning."

 

"Probably. What are we doing to today?" Dawn asked.

"Well, we have to go back to the penthouse. That is where we have our things, and where the people that will take the samples for the DNA analysis will come." Buffy said, "Oh, and there is cell coverage."

"I told you we should have taken one of Willow's enchanted cellphones." Dawn said.

"And hear Ken's crowing again about how she had an idea that not one of us thought about? No, thanks." Buffy answered.

"To be fair, she has mellowed somewhat since Sunnydale." Dawn said, "At least, now she listens to others."

"That's something, I suppose." Buffy conceded, finishing her pancakes and putting the dishes in the dishwasher.

After Dawn had finished breakfast, they went to say goodbye to Alfred, as Bruce was still sleeping, and Dawn opened a portal to the penthouse. They hadn't even started to tidy things up when Dawn's phone started to ring.

"It's Scott." Dawn said, looking at the caller ID, and she answered immediately, "Scott? Dawn here."

"Finally! I have been trying to talk to you since yesterday evening." Scott said through the phone.

"Ehm... sorry? We were invited by Bruce Wayne to his home and it turns out that Wayne Manor is a big cellphone blindspot." Dawn said.

"Oh... okay, listen." he said, "We have to talk to you about something."

"About what? And who is we?"

"Several of the students and most of the Faculty." he said, "The Professor is very interested in talking to you."

"...Okay, what has changed?" Dawn said, trying to hide the suspicion from her voice.

"That's one of the things we need to talk face to face."

She looked at Buffy, who seemed to find it as suspicious as herself. With the life they both had, you learned very early not only to look the gift horse in the mouth, but to check if it had fangs or tentacles. But she nodded.

"Very well, we are in the penthouse of Wayne Tower." Dawn said.

Xavier School private jet.​

"...He hasn't spared any expenses, has he?" Scott said, and then noticed Storm signaling him to close the line, "Sorry, I'm going to shut this, we are about to take off."

"Take off? You are coming in a plane?" Dawn said.

"The school has a private jet. The Professor was using it, but now that he has returned..." he interrupted himself when she saw Storm making a gesture of impatience, "See you, Dawn."

"See you, Scotty." he heard before he pressed the red button to cut the call, and then he turned to address the professor, "She seems to have taken it well."

 

"She seems to have taken it well." Scott said, before correcting himself, "As well as could be expected, rather. She seemed to be a bit suspicious."

"Yes, as anybody would be in this circumstances." the professor said, "The Waynes left some money to the Summers sisters." after a moment, he elaborated, "I knew Thomas Wayne. He financed some of my early research, and he named me one of the trustees of a fund set aside for the children of Joyce Kane."

"That was Aunt Joyce maiden name." Scott explained.

"She was one of those Kanes?" Jean said, incredulous.

"Not from the main branch, I think." Charles explained, "But that doesn't pertain to the issue at hand. Scott, you know them. What can we expect?"

"I don't know them all that well; our parents didn't really get along. And before today I hadn't met them for eight years." Scott said, looking down, "But between what I remember from back then and what I have seen today, I can tell you this, don't let Buffy's Valley Girl persona fool you. She is not book smart, but she is more intelligent and perceptive than she looks."

"And Dawn?" Xavier asked.

"She is a brat. A smart brat, though." He said, after a pause, "She'll be best disposed to the idea, I think. She asked if she could transfer to the School, after all."

Monarch Chemical Plan​

Jim Gordon shook his head and let the sheet down. They had fished the corpse from the mess under the plant, but the chemicals had left it pretty unrecognizable. But the surviving members of the wannabe drug kingpins had given a recount of the events (the Red Hood gangbangers had said nothing) that corroborated Batman's account.

Unfortunately he had arrived too late to avoid the escape of the meta "Blackout", despite his warnings, and what was more important, his killing of two police officers. He had some words to that effect with the head of the precinct, and some of them could be even said before children.

"Do you think he was Jack?" Bullock asked.

"No idea. The chemicals did a number on him." Gordon answered, "But if he wasn't, his body is down there. Good riddance. He and Jerome were birds of a feather."

"Ah, yes, the little grinning punk." Bullock said with a grimace, "Is he still in Arkham?"

"Yes, thank God." Gordon replied, "Any luck with the meta?"

"Not at all. He is probably half-way to New York or Metropolis by now." Bullock answered.

Focused as they were in their talk, they didn't notice a man in tattered purple clothing disappearing in an alley just outside the police cordon. To be fair, the cordon was more concerned in keeping the press out than in keeping anybody in.

 

"Spooky, isn't it." Ma said after Rogue finished reading the note.

"How do you know what Irene wrote there?"

"I don't know it, but it's not the first time she does the note thing, sending one what you were thinking about in that moment" Ma said, ".So what does she says?"

"In short, that the walled area is not my concern and that she may be out of contact for a while." Rogue said, "So, what we do now?"

"I'm going to buy a set of less distinctive clothes for you. Those people may still be watching the stations."

"...Fine." Rogue said, sitting in an armchair. Meanwhile, Ma Hunkle said goodbye as she got out the door.

She took her a notebook, remembering Irene's caution about the visions and started to list all what she remembered about last night dreams. While she was doing this, she started to sketch in the margins, some of the things she remembered. Progressively, the sketches became bigger and bigger, until she found herself with a full page picture of the boy that had given her a jacket in that icy place.

When she had finished, she looked at the picture with amazement, and a bit amount of fear. She had never been able to draw beyond stick figures, but Cody had won several contests with his skills. And it wasn't only his skills. She looked at the writing, that started recognizable as her own, but over what she had written it wavered between Irene's clear and precise handwriting, Cody's sloppy, though readable, one, and her own tighter, rounder letters.

It had been completely unconscious on her part, as if pieces of Cody and Irene lingered somewhere in her. If this happened every time... she shuddered, the thought of losing herself to the fragments of different people she absorbed terrorized her, and the only thing that prevented her from bolting out was Irene reassurance that everything would work out at the end.

Central City Station​

"HQ called, they examined the videos and the little bitch didn't appear anywhere here or in the bus station." Trent said as he came back to the van from where they were coordinating the search for Rogue, "So, we got new orders."

"And those are..." Lang said, rolling his eyes. Since the visit to the old bat, he had been convinced that this was a whole waste of time, better employed in more interesting things, like improving Trask Sentinel project.

"Jackson, Ashford and me will continue looking for the little bitch, and you and Sanderson go back to HQ." He said, "Trask wants you for something."

 

"So, gentlemen, what do you intend to do?" Lynch said, somewhat flippantly.

"We are going to bring down the wall, to evacuate all the civilians we can and get our people in position." answered the Ranger.

"I hope that you aren't going to use explosives." Lynch said, "That would attract the attention of everybody in the underground levels."

"We brought a ram. It's overkill for plaster, but a lot more silent than explosives." the sergeant said, "And now, if you can get away a bit..."

Lynch did as instructed and in a few minutes there was a hole big enough to let people out. Lynch remained behind to brief the teams on the conditions inside the building.

Smallville, Kansas​

The Kryptonian drone calculations told it that it was not going to reach the target on time. The natives’ flying machines had already launched missiles, and were getting ready to attack it with chemically propelled bullets, that, it noted, were of a much heavier caliber than the previous attack.

Following its previously devised plan, it established a connection with the already detached Infiltrator unit in order to transfer the core program to it. Just in time as the missiles impacted less than a second afterwards, destroying a foreleg and a hind leg.

Balance was seriously compromised, and the explosion had caused a cascade failure on several subsystems and it was spreading. A quick calculation showed that the possibilities of surviving the following attack were negligible. Hence the transference protocols were initiated, as well as the self-destruct.

Kent's pick-up. Not too far from there.​

"Finally!" Nick said, when two of the thing legs were blown, "The Chair Force took their sweet time to arrive, and deal with that thing.”

"It's still stan..." Jonathan started to say, when it blew up, just as the A-10 were making their first passes. He leant back on the seat and slid down the seat, "It's over."

"Thanks God." Martha said, while looking at the baby who seemed to have fallen asleep, "And now what we are going to do?" she added, looking pointedly at Nick.

 

Wayne Tower Penthouse​

"...Simply open your mouth, I only have to take a swab on your mouth with this, and we're done." the lab technician said.

"Okay." Buffy said, opening her mouth wide.

The technician did so, and then repeated the procedure on Dawn, and once he had sealed the swabs, under the watchful gaze of Buffy, he said goodbye and got out of the penthouse.

"Thank God that they didn't need to draw blood for the DNA tests." Buffy said, "I always get nervous when somebody draws my blood. I swear that there must be some book entitled 'The 1001 uses of Slayer blood in badness', given how much crap that requires Slayer blood we have found."

"Are you sure? I only remember strengthening vampires." Dawn said.

"And it could cure the effects of the Killer of the Dead, can be used in a lot of rituals, and it's an aph..." she stopped herself from continuing, but unfortunately for her, Dawn had heard it.

"Oh? And how do you know that?" Dawn asked, interested despite herself.

"Spike." Buffy said, "And don't ask the details, please."

"Why?" Dawn asked again, clearly thinking of how could she have come to know that tidbit.

"Believe me, you don't want to know. And it's not what you are thinking." she said with a grimace, and then looked at the time, "Do you want to get Scott at the airport? If Gotham's traffic is anything like New York's, we should be able to get there on time, if we get going now."

"Nice deflection." Dawn said under her teeth before asking aloud, "And if it isn't?" She had looked at the general layout of the city, and it reminded her more of London than of New York.

"Bruce showed me a couple of shortcuts yesterday." Buffy said confidently.

Dawn thought about the kind of shortcuts Bruce would take in the Batmobile and the type of driving that Buffy was prone if she was in a hurry, and grimaced.

Mercey Island Airport, Aparo Airfield​

The jet, a black one with the Xavier School logo in the tail landed without any problem in the little airport, a privately owned one that catered to charter flights. By the time every I had been dotted and every t crossed, and they could disembark, Buffy and Dawn were waiting for them in the tarmac with the old school van.

"What are you doing here?" Scott asked, surprised of finding them there.

 

"What are you doing here?" Scott said, surprised at finding them waiting in the tarmac, while he walked from the bottom of the stairs until he was a couple meters from the van. The other students followed behind him.

"What do you think? Waiting for you, silly." Buffy answered with a smirk, "Besides, this..." she said, with her hand on the vehicle, "...is yours, after all."

"So, these are your cousins?" Kitty said looking from behind Scott.

"Yeah, the blonde is Buffy and the brunette Dawn." Scott said, and then moved aside, so they could see who had talked "Buffy, Dawn, this is Kitty Pryde..."

"Hi," the brunette girl with the bangs and the ponytail said.

"..Jean Grey, my best friend..." Scott continued, as a tall, leggy redhead walked past him toward the two girls.

"Hello, how are you?" she said with an easy smile.

"...Kurt Wagner..." Scott kept going, as a short kid with black hair walked toward Kitty.

Kurt waved, but didn't say anything. There was something on Buffy that was unnerving him for some reason, as if some primal part of his own self was telling him to run away.

"...you already know Ororo, and this is the Headmaster, Professor Charles Xavier." he finished as Ororo pushed Charles' wheelchair.

"Charmed to meet you, Miss Summers." the Professor said with a benign smile, "It was not necessary for you to come; we did make arrangements in advance with the airport."

As if summoned by his words a white SUV approached the hangar in front of which the plane had ended.

"Oh," Buffy said, and then added with a fake British accent, eliciting a chuckle from Scott and Kurt, "Drats, foiled again."

"Actually... Professor, may we go with Buffy?" Scott said.

'What are you planning, Scott?' Xavier sent telepathically, while appearing to consider Scott's petition.

'To gauge their mood, and prepare for the big reveal.' Scott thought.

"Who wants to go with Scott and Buffy?" the Professor asked, and Jean and Kitty raised their hands. Kurt looked as if he was going to go with the others, but in the end he decided to go with Ororo and the Professor.

 

A bar just outside Bayville​

Logan walked in and looked around. Unsurprisingly, given the early hour, it was almost empty, the barman and a middle-aged woman with sunglasses sitting on a table were the only people inside.

"Hey, Logan. The usual?" Rob, the barman, said.

"Yeah." he said, sitting on a stool.

"It isn't a bit early for you to come here?" the barman asked as he opened the bottle.

"Somebody sent a note asking me to come here." he answered as he took the bottle.

"Well, nobody has come asking for you. In fact, other than the blind lady, you are my first client." Rob answered.

"Actually, Logan, I was waiting for you." he heard her say, "I was the one who sent the note."

He looked back and saw her looking at him, the white baton that had been hidden by the table prominently in display. Taking a sip from his beer, he shrugged and went to sit with the woman.

"Do I know you? Because your note was addressed to a name that I haven't used in many years." Logan said in a low voice.

"No, but we have common acquaintances, like Mystique or Creed." she said, as Logan started to take another sip from the bottle.

Upon hearing those names, Logan did a spit-take.

"Do you work for...?" he started to say, narrowing his eyes.

"Occasionally." she said, "Don't get it wrong, I do it because I owe Mystique my life, I don't agree with either Magneto or Xavier's vision." she said, "And no, I'm not working with them right now."

"Are you..?"

"A mutant? Yes, precognitive, I see how events may develop." she said, "And that comes back to the reason I asked you to come here."

"Let me guess, you came to warn me of something bad that is going to happen." Logan said, his voice full of skepticism.

"Hardly." the woman said with a snort, "I was the legal guardian of the girl that you and Xavier's people tried to recruit two nights ago."

"Oh, that's how she disappeared." Logan said, "By the time we got rid of Creed, she was gone."

"Yes, I was the one who sent her away." the woman said, "My power told me that if she was not there when any of you arrived, she could have a much better future."

"How do I know you are telling me the truth?" Logan said, still skeptical, "You haven't even told me your name."

"You don’t, and my name is Irene, by the way. Irene Adler." she said.

"Seriously?" Logan answered.

"Yeah, I have heard all the Sherlock Holmes jokes already."

Logan sat back and looked at her thoughtfully.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" he said, finally.

"Mystique wanted to recruit her, that's why you found Sabertooth and the others there." she explained.

"And you agreed with her working for Magneto?"

"Even if I had said no, Mystique would have tried to recruit her anyway." Irene said "But that night, I had a vision that showed me a much better outcome if I sent her... elsewhere. A much better outcome for her, and for everybody, human and mutant alike."

Logan waited, his face impassive, sensing an incoming 'but'. And the woman didn't disappoint him in that regard.

"...But even that is dependent on you, and you alone, without the rest of the X-Men, going for her." Irene said, "And there is something else for you, in this. Exactly what it is, I don't know, only that relates to Nick Fury."

Logan didn't answer immediately thinking about what he had just been told. His augmented senses hadn't picked any sign she was lying, but she was friendly with an expert dissembler, so he didn't really have any motive to believe her. On the other hand, Nick Fury. If he was somehow involved on this, he needed to see it and pronto, and have the X-Men on speed dial.

"Where do I have to go?" he asked, and Irene promptly answered, "Kansas, eh?"

 

"On my part, I have to report to my superiors. But I think that I'll let out one thing." Nick said, looking at the kid meaningfully, "And I think I can use my contacts to expedite the adoption."

"Why? What do you get from this?" Jonathan asked looking at Nick with suspicion.

"Doing a genuinely good thing for once." Nick answered with a smile, "My line of work is all about the lesser evil, and that ends eating on you."

"Thanks." Jonathan said, looking back at Nick, "Someday, if you feel that the work is getting to you, you can come to the farm."

"A bit of honest work to keep the demons away?" Nick said, his expression growing wistful, "The man who recruited me used to say that, to explain why he started to build models."

Triskelion Basement​

The civilians had been evacuated through the tunnel and Lynch, now clad in a spare HRT getup, looked every inch the Special Forces soldier he had been. Unfortunately he couldn't add much more to what they already knew. But what he said had added a new wrinkle to the problem, besides confirming Jones' fears.

"Are you completely sure?" he said, once he arrived to the basement and could talk with Lynch face to face.

"Unfortunately, yes, I am, general." Lynch said, "The patrols are being conducted, partially, by elements of SHIELD security branch."

"And the rest? I noticed you say partially?"

"I don't know, but if I would hazard a guess, they're PMCs."

"Mercs. Of course." Jones said, rolling his eyes. He sighed and motioned Lynch to come to where they were planning the assault.

"Mister Lynch." Colonel Lane said, "What can you tell me about the hostiles?"

"I saw patrols here and here." Lynch pointed in the map, "And here. There are probably more, but not all that many, given the scarcity of patrols."

 

A manor in Gotham City​

The old man in a wheelchair hung the phone before snorting. So Joyce Kane's daughters have come to Gotham, and he could guess the reason, and probably be right. Thomas had been a very different man than his father, and he and Martha had confided in him about both kids shortly before their death.

He thought on calling Galton, his butler, but decided against it. He dialed a number from memory and he was not surprised when the call was answered promptly.

"Wayne Manor. Who I am talking to?" answered a British-accented voice, that brought pleasant memories.

"I am Silas Wayne. Can I talk with Bruce, Alfred?" Silas said, in a matter of fact tone.

"Sorry, Master Silas, Master Bruce is... indisposed." Alfred said, his hesitation before the last word telling Silas all he wanted to know about Bruce real state.

'Typical.' he thought, 'Sleeping late because he arrived drunk as a skunk, and probably with a blonde bimbo on his arm.'

"All right, Alfred. I know about Bruce sisters, and I wanted to know where they were lodged."

"I presume that your intentions are to make the acquaintance of Mistress Buffy and Mistress Dawn, Master Silas." Alfred deflected.

"Indeed, Alfred." Silas said with a smile, Alfred, despite his more... colorful past, was really his father son, down to the protectiveness of the Wayne family.

"They are in Wayne Tower's penthouse." Alfred said, after a small pause.

'Bruce bachelor's pad. Of course,' Silas thought, with an eyeroll, "Thanks for the information Alfred. If he feels better soon, tell him that I have gone to visit his sisters."

"I'll do it, Master Silas." the old butler said.

After the goodbyes, Silas manouvered the wheelchair through the corridors of the manor. Galton, if he remembered correctly, which, at his age, it was not a given, was in the garage, checking the engine of the Rolls.

 

Mercey Island Airport, Aparo Airfield​

They had barely cleared the gates of the airfield when Dawn started to ask questions.

"Sooo... why the change of opinion, Scotty?" she asked, "You didn't give me much hope when I asked yesterday."

Scott, caught by surprise, stammered a bit before starting to talk.

"Ehhh... ahhh... What I said was that the Professor was selective." Scott said, caught out of guard by Dawn question, "And, ehhh, there were things that, ahhhh, I didn't know back, ehhhh, then."

"Things such as...?" Buffy said, without looking at him, her eyes still locked on the road.

"Ahhh...., well, eehh,.." Scott started to say.

"For God's sake, Scott!" Jean interrupted, "Let me talk about it."

"It's all yours, Jean." Scott said, relieved to let it to Jean. He had planned to introduce it gently, but Dawn sudden question had caught him in the backstep.

Jean didn't reply, making a gesture with her hand as assorted dirt and grime in the car started to levitate.

"I'm a telekinetic." Jean said, as Kitty passed through the backseat, and waved from the SUV trunk, "Kitty can phase through solid matter, as you have just seen, and Scott..."

"It's something about his eyes, isn't it?" Dawn said, "I knew those glasses looked weird when I saw them. Is that Ruby Quartz?"

"Yes, he can shoot energy beams from his eyes, and ruby quartz seems to be the only thing that blocks those, while letting him see." Jean explained, "The reason of these powers is in our genetics, there is a genetic x-factor, or x-gene, that seems to be the reason some people got powers and not others. It's a ne mutation and we are mutants." she finished her explanation, and noticed Dawn's expression, "You seem to have taken it well."

"Not the strangest thing that has happened in my life by a long shot." Dawn said, with a shrug, and a brief look to Buffy, who seemed to be thinking the same as her, 'Damned monks.', before Dawn continued speaking, "I can open portals, but I'm still working my limits. What I want to know is how did you know about me being a mutant?"

 

Wayne Tower Penthouse​

Once they exchanged some pleasantries a silence fell on the group until Buffy tried to break the ice.

"Well, Jean told me about mutants and everything, so what can every one of you do? Well, except the Professor, Jean already told me about your mental powers."

Kurt looked at the Professor, who nodded, and then pressed a button in his watch, switching his appearance to his real furred and tailed self.

"I'm agile and can teleport short distances." he said, making a jump to the higher part of a pillar, before teleporting in a cloud of sulfuric smoke back to the ground.

"Is that Sulfur? I thought that I smelled a bit on you back in the airport." Buffy said.

"Ja, every time that I teleport, I leave a cloud that smells like that." Kurt said, still wary of her.

"On my part I can control weather.” Ororo said as she held her hand and a small white fluffy cloud formed over it. She made a small gesture and it changed to a grayish color, before starting to rain. With another gesture the cloud quickly dissolved.

"So that's how you are so good with the weather." Dawn said, remembering the weather prediction back when they had stopped in the manor, when no weatherman had been able to predict until it had been almost over the East Coast.

"In part, but I have always a sense for the weather." Ororo said, "And it's true that I grew up in the savannah, with my sister." she looked through the windows, "I stayed for a while with a tribe that saw what I could do and considered me a Goddess, until the Professor found me." she considered for a moment telling them about her time in Cairo as an street thief under the Shadow King, but she dismissed it reasoning that it didn't have much relevance to the matter. "I have been helping him since, first to set-up and then to run the school. We've met other mutants, some friendly, some... not."

"And there have been fights, I assume with those 'unfriendly' mutants." Buffy said, with a bit more of sarcasm that he pretended.

"Unfortunately." The Professor said, "My objective is help mutants to master their powers in order to integrate peacefully in society, so when it comes in the open..."

"You can point at them as productive members of the society and not ticking bombs, I understand." Buffy said, while mentally making the comparison with some demons, like the Brachen.

 

A tense silence followed this, only broken by the ringing of the phone. Buffy answered, and after a few words she hang up.

"I had forgotten that Uncle Silas was coming." she said as an explanation.

"That would be Silas Wayne, isn't it?" the Professor said, "I know him, from a few social occasions Thomas invited me."

"Thomas Wayne, I suppose." Buffy said, with a bit of chagrin, suddenly remembering what she had to say to Scott, and what was teh reason why Silas was coming to visit, if Alfred was right, "Scott, can you come with me? There is something you should know and I had planned to tell you earlier, but with all the mutant thing it totally slipped my mind."

A cave, close to Slaughter Swamp​

Blackout followed the woman, the vampiress, deeper into the cave. She had helped him escape, and she had offered him a job. They had been waiting in a car, inside the mouth of the cave, until she had told him to follow her inside.

After a while they saw light before them, and soon afterwards they walked into a circular space with a bonfire in the middle. He looked at her quizzically, but she smiled and gave an ear-piercing whistle.

A bat flew down from the ceiling, before transformng into a man with a hooded red robe. Correction, a vampire in a hooded red robe, as his glowing yellow eyes could be seen inside the hood, that hid most of the face.

"Neat trick. You are the first vampire that I have seen that could do that." Blackout said with a smirk that showed his steel teeth.

"It's not a skill easy to learn, not to speak of the cost." the hooded vampire said with a shrug, speaking with a faint New Orleans accent. He motioned Blackout to follow him through a passage athat looked like a dead end, only for the wall at the end to disappear, showing a chamber that was set up as an office and bedroom, with a single king-sized bed and a ladder that gave access to a trapdoor in teh ceiling.

He sat down and teh woman sat to his side, leaning on him on a way that suggested taht they were more than friends.

"So, ...ah, how do I call you?"

"Monk. It's not my real name, no more than yours is Blackout." he said, "And I want you as insurance. I have an operation going on in Gotham, and I had some cannon fodder ready, just in case. But I had really understimated the Bat, specially given how he seems to have secured the aid of a Slayer."

 

"...But I had really understimated the Bat, specially given the speed with which he seems to have secured the aid of a Slayer." he said, "Not to mention that there is more than one now."

"Sorry, but you haven't been living as a part of the supernatural world for a few years, have you?." Blackout said with a snort.

"No, we haven't. This little project has taken a lot of our time." the woman said, "I assume then that it is not a recent phenomena then."

"Not at all. The Slayer was based on the California Hellmouth for a while, but six, no, almost seven years ago..." Blackout started to explain about a second Slayer in the Gulf and Central America, who had disappeared around more than five years, only to be replaced by another in the East Coast, a real psycho, this one, and then in the last half year, teams of Slayers had been appearing out of the blue all over the world. He left out that some of his family was seriously considering summoning grandma Lilith to address the situation, that some of the supernatural heavyweights were starting to get a bit cheesed off with the Slayers, or that the Masters of the Mystical Arts seemed to be somewhat involved with them.

Wayne Tower Penthouse​

"...And that is it. We are no more related by blood than two random strangers." Buffy said, in a rather sparsely decorated studio.

"It doesn't matter." Scott said, "You and Dawn have been more family to me yesterday that Hank had been in the last years. Being family doesn't only means sharing blood, although that helps..."

"I know, believe me, I know." Buffy said, thinking about Willow, Xander, Giles, even Faith and the late Anya, "My friends in Sunnyhell, they have become very close to me, like a family. We have had problems..." she said, thinking back to the events that ended with the fiasco at the vineyard, "...but we have endured... Which brings me to the guy that is visiting, Silas Wayne."

"One of the Gotham Wayne's, I presume." Scott said.

"Yeah, Bruce great-uncle. Well, I suppose that he is also my, well, mine and Dawn, great-uncle, too." Buffy said, "I don't know anything about him, and his brother was the responsible for mom leaving Gotham, so be on your guard."

"And you?"

Buffy's only answer was a crooked smile.

 

Triskelion​

The ascent to the third floor had been easy, too easy in Lynch's opinion. It was there, in the third floor when they found the reason of the easiness. In an atrium there was a firefight between two groups. Well, it had started as two groups, now they were reduced to three on one side, and one on the other. Corpses clad in khaki tactical gear, and the dark version favored by SHIELD security, surrounded both sides. They hadn't yet noticed the third group... and then Lynch recognized the sole survivor.

He represed a sigh before he made a sign to the others to stay put. Taking care of remaining under cover he approached the group until he had a good angle, then he carefully aimed, and with two quick shots he killed two of the three, while the third one was nailed by a shot from the other side as he got out of cover for a small fraction of second.

Lynch stood up without lowering his weapon, as the other guy, a younger blond with a scruffy beard, clad in khaki fatigues with a red bandana around his neck did the same. They gave each other a look, their weapons were still trained to each other and ready to shoot. After a few seconds that seemed to last an eternity, the other man was the first to lower his weapon, soon followed by Lynch.

"Cash, it has been a while." Lynch said, "I thought you were in Brazil, enjoying the beaches."

"Got bored, and signed for a PMC." Cash said with a shrug, "I have been a soldier all my life, Lynch. Besides..." Cash looked away with an embarrassed face.

"Besides what?" Lynch said.

Cash sighed and motioned Lynch to come where he was, and lower his voice.

"We had just finished a job in Central Africa when we ran into Slade. Do you remember him?" Cash said, upon the nod and the grimace on Lynch face, he continued with a smirk, "I see you do. Well, he recognized me, we talked and I presented him to my boss."

"Next I knew, the boss told us we had been hired, with a couple other PMCs, to help root a group of traitors in SHIELD, but things started to look wrong shortly after we arrived." he took a deep breath before continuing, "One of the other PMC groups was too tight with a group of the security people here. And then, less than five minutes ago, those bastards started to shoot at us."

"Any idea about why this happened?"

"No clue, but I recognized one of the head honchos of that PMC. He was in IO, one of Craven enforcers." Cash said, "And yes, I'm positive."

"Did you catch the name?" Lynch asked.

"Then, he used to go by Agent Dean, but I think that the name he don't use that name now. But I have seen him most of the time here with one of the Security bosses, a guy called Priest."

"Priest? Are you sure?" Lynch said, startled.

"Completely. Why?" Cash answered.

"It's bad. Really bad." Lynch said, "Come with me. This is above my pay grade."

 

They came back shortly, having talked with Jones and Lane and gotten new orders, after Cash revealed that all the communications in the assaulting forces were routed through a central node. The orders were to take a mess hall on the fifth level, where they had to wait for more instructions. Cash agreed to accompany the group, with the condition that they try to save the guys from the PMC he had been working with.

They managed to get the fifth level without more firefights, as apparently more and more of the patrols were being needed in the higher levels, close to the director office.

"Why do you think this is happening, John?" Cash asked as they started to secure the room, "And don't tell me the usual crap about how 'that's above my pay grade'. Back in Team 7, you always knew more than you let anybody know."

"...Fine, but not here, Cole." Lynch said, before getting them further from the door, where the troopers couldn't overhear them, "Faraday has always been a bit of a paranoid asshole, and Priest must have been feeding him some bullshit that has fed his paranoia. But for all his paranoia, Faraday is an smart asshole. Frankly, I wouldn't bet on the winner in a battle of wits between him and Craven."

"So, you think that Faraday has clued in that he has been fed bullshit?" Cash said, looking away at how the Rangers and the HRT were covering the entry.

"Probably, I did with you after all." Lynch said, and Cash heard a click as well as a pressure, as if a weapon was being pressed on his side, "Do you want to know a secret? I still have a bit of the psychic powers that the Craven experiments gave us, enough to know when somebody is bullshitting me, like you were when you told me your sob story."

"Goddammit." Cash said, after a few moments, Lynch had hoodwinked him, "Okay, okay. Craven shit left me very messed up, and I was very intent in becoming a violent drunkard in Rio when I met... her."

"Her?" Lynch asked.

"Her. She gave her name as Shannon, but I know that it wasn't her real name." Cash said, starting to reminisce, "Long platinum blonde hair, legs that went and went for hours, tall and fit..."

"Your dream woman, in other words." Lynch said, remembering some talks in the past.

"Yeah..." Cash said with a sigh.

 

"So, you met this Shannon, and then what?" Lynch asked.

"She... helped me to focus myself, and gave me a purpose." Cole said, reminiscing, "I infiltrated the PMC on her behalf, she had info that their next job would make them cross Slade's path, and wanted to keep an eye on him. We helped Slade against some African guerrillas... nasty stuff, those guys were crazy... The thing is that afterwards, it happened more or less as I told you."

"And where is that 'Shannon', right now?" Lynch asked, interested.

"No idea." Cash said with a shrug, "Last thing I got from her was that something had come up, but she didn't specify what it was."

"Interesting, but..." Lynch started to say, before being interrupted by a communication from Jones and Lane.

Apparently, if they knocked down a plaster wall they would find a door to a maintenance access that would give then a way to reach both the communications node that the attacker would be using and the helipad in the roof, three levels over the director's office.

"Just how many secret passages there are in this goddamned building?" one of the Rangers said, in a low voice, when the new orders were announced.

Triskelion. Office of the Director of SHIELD.​

King Faraday was alone. Some of the Security people had wanted to do some kind of fighting retreat, but he couldn't stomach more innocent deaths because of this clusterfuck, so he had tricked them, locking them into an out of the way store room before all the exits from this level had been blocked.

And all this mess, all the suffering he had caused to his people, just because he listened to Priest, who had regaled his ear with what he wanted to hear. And too many good people, like Chandler, had paid the price of his foolishness.

Priest, as Deputy Chief of Internal Security, would probably try to paint his actions as the ones of a deranged lunatic, a Miles Craven in the making, who had only been stopped by his, meaning Priest, prompt action in taking command of "loyal" security forces, as well as subverting elements of the PMCs. And of course all people who could refute this would be unfortunate casualties. Diabolic in its simplicity.

He looked at the heavily reinforced door. Six inches of heavily reinforced steel, locked in place by bars of the same steel that were inside walls 20 inches thick of high quality reinforced concrete. He was sure that they would be able to penetrate his office, but it would take time. Maybe time enough to leave some metaphorical time bomb to screw over Priest and his shadowy backers.

 

Door to the office of the Director of SHIELD​

"How long?" Priest asked. He was wearing a helmet and armor over his three-pieces suit, which made for a somewhat incongruous image.

"Twenty minutes, to half an hour. I have to check that there aren't other security systems in place in case somebody would try to do exactly what I'm doing." said the electronics expert from the false ceiling, where he could access the gate mechanism, before he went back to manipulate it while he was mumbling about cheapskate beancounters and old fossils that would still be using an abacus if it depended on them.

Priest rolled his eyes and tried again to contact the team in the third level. Static, just as before. He was tempted to sent a team to investigate, but the doomed resistance of the security elements loyal to Faraday had left him dangerously understrength, so he decided to stay the course, consolidating his troops in the upper levels, and leaving alone the paperpushers. That team had probably fallen afoul of remaining elements of Faraday's loyalists, but once he had dealt with Faraday, he could afford to mop the resistance.

He walked a bit apart of the group to sit in an chair and think about the situation. He should have protested more and try to stage a home invasion gone bad or a car bomb on Faraday when he started to plan his clean sweep or better, when he started to suspect, but no, his bosses had to overreach with this grandiose clusterfuck.

"Yeah, a real clusterfuck." his number two for this operation said besides him, "Don't be surprised, is written all over your face."

"Did something like this happened in yourtime in IO, Dean?" Priest asked.

"Not really. The Covert Action Teams sometimes got fucked over without lube, but it was usually because Craven had some big plan that usually succeeded or wanted to test some of his guinea pigs on field conditions, not because some high ranking officer that had never been in the field got visited by the good idea fairy." Dean answered, rolling his eyes as he said the last phrase, "And somebody has already noticed the situation. There is a concealed encampment on the otehr side on the river. Rangers and HRT, would be my guess."

"Fuuuck." he said, "We have to finish this before the mount an assault."

"Yeah, especially as I revisited the roster of the PMCs that we hired as cannon fodder and got a familiar name in them. Cole Cash." Upon seeing Priest confused expression, he added, "One of the members of Team 7, and guess where he was before we started our sweep?"

"Third Level?" he said with a sinking feeling, remembering the lost contact.

"Exactly. So we have a, let's not mince words, a fucking supersoldier running around in the building, and he has no reason to trust us."

"What do you suggest?"

"Start the mopping up now, and don't engage him directly." Dean said, "Use stun and smoke grenades to soften him and then normal grenades to cripple him, and only then go for the kill with overwhelming force. I would love to have heavier weapons or more people against him."

"And if wishes were horses..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know."

"Take your best people, we should have enough to finish with an old man."

"I'm going, then." Dean said, and put his hand on his old friend shoulder, while saying low so that only he could hear him, "Hail Hydra."

"Hail Hydra." he answered in kind.

 

SHIELD director office​

A light in his desk changed from red to green, signaling that his time was up. He hoped that he had done enough to give his successor a fighting chance against the cabal that had orchestrated this mess. The desk was solid oak, reinforced with inserts of ironwood and steel, where he could get away with it. If he took refuge behind it, he could make their attack a nightmare if he played well his cards. That, of course provided that they didn't brought an anti-vehicle weapon.

But what purpose would it serve? He only had nine bullets in his pistol, and the armor they were wearing was good enough to stop them. After all he had ordered buying them, and knew its specs. He was weighing what to do in the final seconds before they stormed his office, when he heard a noise that only could come from the upper level, and noticed a small fiberglass camera in the window. He looked at it, waved and smiled, before throwing himself behind the desk as the door started to open with a hiss of compressed air..

A hail of bullets rained over the desk before several men entered the room clad in tactical gear. They looked around, and gave the all clear signal to somebody in the back, without stopping aiming at the desk.

"Well, well, well." Priest said as he entered the office, "You can get up, Faraday. Or do you want to die hiding like a rat?"

The only answer of Faraday was laughter, something that puzzled Priest.

"Have you finally gone mad, old fossil?" he said, more bothered than he wanted to admit.

"Actually, I'm waiting for the cavalry." Faraday said, as several figures rappelled down, broke the windows by shooting at them and entered the office, securing it quickly.

"Director?" one of them said, removing the helmet that obscured the face of John Lynch.

 

"I have told them," Dawn said when they came back, "About the Waynes."

"Then, you already know." Buffy said, "We still don’t know what we are going to do about that."

"Yeah, that's right. Silas Wayne is coming..."

"Silas Wayne, great-uncle to Bruce, I presume." Professor Xavier said, earning a look from Buffy, "I know him. Thomas presented us, shortly before his death. A pretty interesting man, but, it has to be said, more than a bit cranky and opinionated. "

"Wonderful." Buffy commented sarcastically, just as the buzzer rang.

She went to open the door, showing a frail white haired man riding a motorized wheelchair. The man stopped when he saw the people gathered there, and smiled wryly before addressing the other man in a wheelchair.

"Hi, Charles, and these must be students on your school." the old man said, talking in a snobbish tone, belied by the smile in his face.

"Actually Ororo, whom you have already meet, is faculty now." Charles said, unfazed by the tone in the other man's voice, "As well as my right hand, as you well know. That was good imitation of your brother, by the way."

"Yes, Patrick grated on everybody nerves." the man answered in a more normal tone, "Anyway; I came to visit my grandnieces... You don't seem all that surprised."

"I just told them... Ahm... How do I call you?"

"Uncle would be nice, but I would settle for a simple Silas." Silas Wayne said, "And can you introduce me to your visitors?"

After introducing everybody, Silas looked at Scott with special attention.

"Scott Summers? Any relation with Hank Summers?" he asked with a frown.

"My uncle. But I haven't seen or heard of him since two years ago, and even then it was because I was looking for him." Scott said, and then looked down, "It went... poorly." He gathered himself quickly, and looking to the old man eye to eye... well, eye to sunglasses, rather, he added in a challenging tone, "Whatever the blood relation, to me, Buffy and Dawn are family."

"Good." Silas said with a smile and then turned to look at Xavier; "You have a good one here, Charles." he turned back to Scott and said, "In that case, I hope that will forgive this old coot if he considers you family too."

"Ah... Thanks?" Scott said.

"Don't thank me yet, kid." Silas said, with a smile "I can be a terrible nag at times, as Bruce can probably tell you." He took a deep breath, and turned to Buffy, "As a said, I came to visit you two. I didn't expect a full delegation of Xavier to be present."

"We were discussing Dawn enrollment in Xavier's school, actually." Buffy said, "They have an opening, and Dawn isn't happy in her current High School."

"Interesting. Do you need any help with tuition, or...?"

"No, even before we knew about the money that Thomas and Martha left us, we had enough." Buffy said.

 

"And you, Buffy? What are your plans for the future?" Silas asked.

"...I don't really know." Buffy said, "The last years in Sunnydale were so much of a nightmare, that I never had time to think about what I wanted to do with my life."

"That bad?"

"You have no idea." Dawn said, her hand, unconsciously, going to her abdomen.

Silas noticed the gesture, but decided to leave it for the moment. Instead he focused his gaze on both Summers sisters and he didn't like what he saw. He prided himself in knowing what made people tick, even if his grandnephew baffled him on occasions, and there were hints of things he had only seen in war veterans.

He decided that he had to research Sunnydale in depth as soon as he could, because if things were as bad as he suspected from the sisters demeanor the city destruction had been a blessing in disguise, for everybody involved.

"What do you think?" Dawn said, which brought him back to the present, realizing that in his introspection, he had missed a chunk of the conversation.

"Sorry, what were you saying? I was woolgathering" Silas said with a sheepy expression.

"Scott had suggested that Buffy could go back to college here in Gotham..."

"Yes, Gotham University has a great reputation. The Psychology School in particular is one of the best of the country." Silas said.

"Really? I studied Psychology on UC Sunnydale." Buffy said, interested, "But with my work in the NGO, I don't know how much could I go to class."

"I could always talk with Hugo to see what can be done."

"Hugo?" Buffy said, "Sounds like a fashion designer."

"Maybe, but I'm talking about professor Hugo Strange. A good friend, and he is the dean of the School." Silas explained, missing Xavier's frown upon hearing the name, "I'm pretty sure we can hammer an arrangement about your classes."

 

Kent farm​

Nick got out of the pick-up and took a deep breath. No, despite what his instincts were telling him, he wasn't going to write the report right away. With things as they were right now in the Triskelion, he wasn't even sure that at the end there would be a SHIELD to report to. He shook his head, and focused in the here and now.

Returning home would have to wait, at least until the situation with SHIELD becomes clearer. Jonathan was already getting some things down from the attic, while Martha and Jack were taking care of the baby. But something was telling him that it hadn't finished yet.

To his death bed, he couldn't say what made him look at the road. Maybe he had in consciously glimpsed the dirt moving out of the corner of his eye, or maybe it was just coincidence, but he was looking in the right direction to see something crystalline emerging from the ground, some distance from the house.

"That damned thing is still after the kid!" he said running into the house.

"But we saw it be destroyed." Jonathan said, as he looked out of the window and saw the thing prowl toward their home. Yes that was the word, prowl like some kind of beast. He looked at Martha who had already taken the baby, and all of them started to ran toward the back of the house.

"How vulnerable is that thing?" Jack asked.

"No idea. Why?" Nick asked.

"I have some explosives in the old barn." Jack said, and then explained, "There is a big stump in the middle of one of the new fields. We were going to blow it up next week. And don't worry; I have my certification up to date."

"And how do we make it explode without us getting blasted in the explosion?" Nick asked.

 

"Don't worry about that." Jack said, looking back, "I have an idea."

"Let's hear it, then." Nick said, looking back and seeing that the thing had appreciably sped up, though not as much as he would expect. Maybe this... whatever it was had been damaged in the explosion, "But do it quickly."

"Jonathan, when I finish explaining, get the kid and run toward the barn. And, this is what we are going to do..."

Triskelion. Lower levels.

"So, this is the great 'Grifter'," Mr. Deacon, the former IO agent turned mercenary, said as he threw Cole Cash toward the wall, beside a window, "I hoped more of a member of Team 7."

"Life is full of little disappointments." Cash said as he ostensibly cradled an injured side, while hiding a .50 Desert Eagle loaded with Armor Piercing bullets, "What the fuck are you, by the way, Dean? Another of Craven's little experiments?."

"It's Deacon now, and that's for me to know and for you to wonder about... at least until your death." Deacon said as he tried to pick-up Cash.

"Surprise!" Cash said, as he produced his gun and shot him on the face twice, before shooting the glass of the window, and throw Deacon's body through the now broken glass. With metahumans better safe than sorry. If he was dead, they would fish his body from the Potomac later, if not, well, he would need time to come back, and then it would be John's problem.

Unknown to him, Deacon didn't intend at all to return. As he fell into the Potomac, half his face blown up to reveal the alien metal underneath, he received a transmission from his superiors, recalling him to base. As he settled on the bottom, and before he started to swim downriver to surface somewhere in Virginia, he briefly wondered what had happened. He surmised that while the diversion had been a success, the capture operation had failed. It didn't matter, Priest was the only loose end, and he wouldn't be that for long.

Kent farm​

The drone could perceive its objective. One of the natives was carrying it and taken refuge in a structurally compromised building made of dead vegetable matter. The Infiltration unit was not ready to act independently for prolonged periods, and it was already experiencing a serious degradation in performance, especially in sensor coverage, even before taking in to account the damage suffered in the reentry and the impact on the planet surface. But even a diminished performance should be enough to fulfill its objective.

The first news the infiltration unit had of the plans of the natives was the roaring noise of an engine coming to life. It ignored the noise at first, but as the vehicle started to go near, it decided to destroy it before continuing to finish the objective, only to find itself scooped by a ground material collector attached to the front part of a farming vehicle, full of a slippery substance that made the task of getting upright again more difficult.

It had finally managed to reach an upright position and it was about to rip the vehicle to pieces, when the vehicle stopped, the combination of inertia and the slippery surface throwing it into the ground, just as both the native carrying the objective and the vehicle driver ran out. It did barely had time to consider this new development when something exploded inside the building, very close to the gate, before everything went black.

 

Triskelion. SHIELD Director's office.​

James Priest was lying on the floor very quietly. Just as the loyalist assault had started, he knew that everything was lost, so he did the only thing an inveterate opportunist like him could do, throw himself to the ground while the assault forces mowed down his soldiers like the chaff they were. Down on the ground, he reviewed his options, and they weren't good. He was going to jail, and he knew too much about HYDRA infiltration in SHIELD to be allowed to live, so his only option was to spill the beans as soon as possible, specially given that he was HYDRA's highest ranked infiltrator in SHIELD, and hence he knew who were most of the others. But all his planning was interrupted when he felt his entire body growing numb.

'What!?' he thought as his body started to move of his own accord.

His hands stealthily grabbed a pistol from a nearby fallen soldier, and his head moved slightly so whatever entity was controlling his body had a better field of view of Faraday. He tried to stop himself, but his body was no longer answering his commands,

The hand with the gun moved slowly, aiming it very carefully, and shot, hitting Faraday in the back of the head, just before his body jumped behind the desk and put the gun in his mouth, carefully aiming to a particular part of the head. The last thing that passed through Priest's head before the 9 mm bullet that killed him was a perverse consideration of how at the end he had been just another pawn like the dead soldiers around him.

Kent farm​

While Jonathan and Martha carried John, who didn't look very well right now, and the kid to the house, Nick neared the flaming wreck of the barn carefully, the gun still in his hand. He wanted to be sure that that thing was dead once and for all.

He could see that the tractor was pretty much untouched, having been protected by the backhoe, but the granary, while the structure looked more or less intact, would need a lot of work to be usable. Given how it looked he wouldn't blame the Kents if they demolished it and built a new one in its place.

He had barely cleared the tractor when he saw movement to his left, just where the explosion had taken place. He had barely had time to react when something full of soot and ashes threw him to the ground, and the left side of his face exploded in pain.

Blindly he tried to hit it with the gun, only to get the cannon jammed inside a gash on its outer cover. Whatever it was chose that moment to hit his right arm, causing it to close the grip on reflex. The shot sounded dimmer than it should to his ears, but before he lost consciousness he felt the thing fall off him, its limbs suddenly immobile, and heard people running toward him and an ambulance getting closer.

 

Somewhere​

Nick awoke slowly, in an unfamiliar bed, with something covering like half of his face. As he wondered about that, the events of the last 24 day came back to him.

"Ah, you are awake." a woman's voice said from his blind side. He turned his head to look at a middle aged woman in a doctor's coat, while a nurse left the room, "I'm Doctor Gannet, and you are in Smallville Medical Center. What do you remember?"

"Not much, really." he stalled, before remembering the cover story he had agreed with the Kents before going to inspect the barn, "The Kents were carrying me back to town, when we saw those meteors coming." He frowned as in deep concentration, and proceeded to tell a very sanitized version of the events of the day, "...and I was going to examine the barn for damage, and I don't remember anything else."

"...We heard another, much smaller, explosion and Martha went to see what had happened." Jonathan Kent said from the door, "You were lucky that we had already called an ambulance to tend my father."

"Yes, now that I remember he didn't look well." Nick said, "Wait, how he is?"

"Chest pains, the doctor used a fancy name for it, it was not as bad as we feared, but his doctor decided that he had to remain here a few days." Jonathan explained, and then sat down, "For a moment there, we thought he was having a stroke."

"But he is well, right?"

"As well as a seventy-six year old man with a bad heart can be." Jonathan said, "We'll keep a better eye on what he is doing, that he takes his medications, and all of that."

"Giving my experiences with my father, that's the best you can do." Nick said, "But eventually..."

"Yeah..." Jonathan said, looking at the floor.

They kept in silence for a while, until the doctor broke the silence.

"Jonathan, I heard that you found a kid." the doctor said, trying to put their mind out of so heavy matters.

"Ah, yes. Your husband..."

"He is a pediatric specialist."

"...says that he is well. We have decided to name him Clark, for Martha's maiden name." Jonathan said, "A bit of a peace offering to Martha's family."

"Clark Kent? A bit alliterative, perhaps." Nick said, while thinking, 'At least is not as bad as Richard and Mary wanting to call his first son Peter.'

"Better than every Kent in Lowell County." the doctor said.

"We are all called John, Jonathan or Joseph, or some combo of them." Jonathan explained, "It makes family reunions a bit awkward."

"I can imagine." Nick said, with a smile.

"Mr. Kent, I have to remind you, that these aren't visiting hours." The doctor said, while looking at a wall clock meaningfully.

"Sorry, I'm going, I'm going." Jonathan said, "We'll come back later, me and Martha."

Jonathan left and the doctor started to check his responses to stimuli.

"Doctor, how bad it is?" Nick asked, pointing to his face, "And how much time do I have to remain here, in the hospital?"

"...Bad. We could save the eye, but it's heavily scarred." the doctor said, "And about your stance in the hospital, well..."

Lowell County. SHIELD encampment​

A man with long, auburn hair and a short beard, wearing an expensive suit, was examining the pieces of the drone that SHIELD had collected over the last two days.

"Interesting. Is this all?" he asked, speaking with a German accent.

"No, there is another warehouse with more pieces and the inactive thing that attacked one of our agents, Mr. Luthor." the SHIELD agent said, "And we are still collecting pieces from the countryside."

"And there was also something interesting in the meteorites, ja?" Alexander "Lex" Luthor Senior asked, "Some kind of radioactive crystal?"

"Yes, sir." the agent said, pointing to a lead-lined box.

"Wunderbar." he said, his smile turned predatory, "In fact..."

"Mister Luthor, you'll have time to examine the alien tech later." said a voice from the door of the tent.

"Of course, General Jones." Luthor said, getting out of the tent to talk with the general.

"Your opinion?"

"Crystal based tech, and that is all what I can tell you for now." Luthor said, dropping the jovial facade, he and the general had disliked each other for too long for those tricks to work, "That doesn't mean that I don't have a few ideas about how can it work, or how to use that radioactive mineral that came with the meteorites. But SHIELD has pretty good scientists working for them, why bring an external consultant like me?"

"Sorry, I can't tell you. It's classified." Jones said.

"Very well." Luthor said, noticing how uncomfortable Gabe Jones seemed. 'It seems that what I heard about what happened in the Triskelion is true. Interesting.' "Are you going to stay here?"

"No, Director Carter and me are going to Smallville for a couple hours. Anything you need, ask Doctor Caulder."

 

Smallville Medical Center. Fury's room​

Fury was surprised when Gabriel Jones and Peggy Carter came to visit him on his room, and he was even more surprised as after they closed the door, they started to produce a series of devices, and placing them on the window, the door and the walls, as well as closing the curtain, that would guarantee they weren't eavesdropped.

"Why all the secrecy?" he asked.

"An informal debriefing to prepare the formal one in a couple weeks, as well as to inform you of a few developments." Jones said.

"Or in more simple terms, to tell you the news, and see how many lies we are going to write on the official report." Carter said, referencing an old joke that was as old as SHIELD itself, or maybe older, dating back to the SSR.

"What do you mean with developments?" Fury asked.

"We'll explain later." Carter answered, "From what we have discovered, Faraday thought that SHIELD had been heavily infiltrated by an organization he had called in his notes the Secret Empire. This belief was fed by spurious reports created by the Deputy Chief of Internal Security, James Priest."

"I have met him, an ambitious bastard." Fury commented.

"Yeah, he was. Faraday and Priest planned to supplement the security troopers with a few PMCs that Priest had hired off the books, in order to clean house, so to speak." Carter continued, "Priest was hoping to use the crisis to appear as a hero, but Faraday caught up earlier than he thought and he was forced to improvise, starting a massacre and hoping to hang everything on Faraday's head. Fortunately, your warning allowed us to frustrate their plans, but not before Priest put a bullet on Faraday's head before killing himself."

"That's what happened?" Fury asked, having noted Carter's expression as she told the story.

"That's what is going to be official version. Faraday is in a coma, so he can't dispute any of that, and any of the survivors were too low in the totem pole to know anything about it." Carter said with more than a bit of bitterness on her voice, "And, of course, the Council is using this to increase their control of SHIELD, in the name of oversight."

"And I gather that the official version has no great relationship with the truth." Fury guessed.

"Not exactly. The sequence of events is roughly as described, but there are some things that are making us think that Faraday's suspicions weren't completely unfounded." Jones said, eliciting a nod from Carter.

"And those things are?" Fury asked.

"Nothing that I can put a finger on.” Carter said, "Basically some of the events have a timing a bit too convenient, and one of the mercenaries turned out to be a metahuman."

"Nothing else?" Nick said.

"Afraid not. As an interim Director, I'm trying to shed some light on it, but with the Council breathing down on my neck, I have to be careful, or be accused of being another paranoid nutcase like Faraday. " Carter explained, "And by the time a more in depth investigation can be done, the candidate to director that was voted by the Council will have recovered from his wounds."

"And who is...? Oh." Nick said, the pieces finally fitting in place, "Why me?"

"Because you are the highest ranked agent that is alive and hasn't been splashed by this clusterfuck, and more important in the eyes of the Council, Pierce likes you." Peggy said, and sat back on her chair, "Look, I know that it's not precisely what you would like to be faced while you are recovering, but given what you are going to be saddled as soon as you recover, better to start as soon as you can."

"And to let you go back to retirement." Fury said, with a smirk.

"I'm old, Nick, tired, and my head is starting to go." Carter said, "I'll do what I can, but it will fall to you to build SHIELD into the next generation. But if you want my advice, you should build a cadre of loyal agents and have contingency plans for your contingency plans. Gabriel should help you in the beginning."

"I'll try to delay my definite retirement as long as I can, but don't expect me to last in the Pentagon beyond a couple years more." Gabriel said.

"I'll take that into consideration." Fury said, and then he said, snapping his fingers, "But, there is something you could help me with, the Kents have a child under their care and want to adopt him and..."

"SHIELD could help to expedite the paperwork.” Carter said with a smile, "Consider it done. And now that you mention it, I should go to visit Jack now that we are here."

A secret base somewhere in North America​

The android formerly known as Randolph Dean and Robert Deacon examined its new appearance in the mirror. A middle aged man with a fatherly appearance and a deep resonant voice with a mid-west accent. Another one of its brethren had entered the room, this one using the disguise of a middle aged woman with a no-nonsense look, his partner in the current mission: keep the last known Kryptonian under constant watch and build a network of human acolytes, willing or otherwise, between the population of Smallville, Kansas.

The High Master relayed the last instructions, they would be deployed to Smallville by one of their stealth craft and they would replace two of the medical practitioners in town, a married couple of doctors named Gannet. They didn't have any doubt that they would have success on their mission, because nobody escapes the Manhunters.

THE END... for now.

The story will continue on "Kids from Smallville", when 'Flight from the Rogue' finishes.

 

A small cabin, close to Gotham​

The redhead parked her car, a robust SUV with good off-road capabilities, in a clearing of the woods. She could already see the cars of the other members of the circle parked here, and a short distance away, the cabin she had come to visit stood under the shadow of the trees. She shivered for a moment, thinking of the proximity to Slaughter Swamp and all the legends that came with it, and not for the first time, she desired that the Monk had chosen a different place for the meeting of the meditation circle.

She took a deep breath and walked resolutely toward the cabin and knocked on the door.

"Ah, Miss Madison, we were expecting you." said Dala, the Monk assistant, who was the one who opened the door.

"Sorry about being late." Madison said.

"Actually, we hadn't started yet." Dala said with a close smile, "Enter, please, out of your own will."

Julie rolled her eyes at Dala's dramatic invitation as she stepped into a big room with a tarps engraved with mystical designs covering the floor. Her fellow members of the circle, socialites, a couple college professors and a curator of the Gotham museum were already there, all of them sitting on the tarp on a circle, with their legs crossed. Dala went to the back and returned almost immediately with the Monk in tow.

"Greeting, my pupils." he said in an affable tone, speaking with an unidentifiable accent, before he sat down, Dala to his side. "We'll start with the meditation exercise we practiced last time. Close your eyes, breathe deeply and void your mind of all thought." He said after a pause, an odd cadence to his voice, "Now, hear my voice, and follow my words, empty your mind. Hear my voice, follow my words, and empty your mind." he repeated this she felt herself fall into trance.

Nicholas Dubois lowered the hood of his habit when every one of the fools they had bamboozled into this, had fallen into his thrall. He quickly removed it, it was heavy and it still smelled weird, even after several washings.

'Suck it up, Wallachian dandy.' he thought, surveying the empty faces of the "meditation circle", now his thralls.

 

He then turned to the curator of the Museum.

"Did you bring it?" he asked.

"Yes, Master." he said, using a subservient tone, "They were in storage, so nobody will notice that I replace them with fakes."

The curator opened his suitcase and produced a small statue of some kind of hooded demon with bat wings, and a clay tablet enclosed in plastic, with several inscriptions on an unknown ideographic alphabet.

"Excellent, give them to me." the Monk said, taking them carefully from the hands of the man and handing them to Dala who placed in a shelf.

He repeated the action with each one of the members of the Circle, each one of them bringing some artifact or information where it could be, until he reached Julie.

"I looked through the ruins of Kyle Manor, Master, even in the basement, and I couldn't find any of the objects you tasked me with." she said, "They may have been sold out when the Kyle fortune was lost in 1929."

"You are a friend of Bruce Wayne, aren't you?" the Monk said, lost in thought.

"Yes, Master." she said, vaguely puzzled by the Monk's sudden topic change.

"Kenneth Wayne's wife was a Kyle. He was also a collector of antiques." he said, more talking to himself than to the young socialite, and then he turned his gaze to her, "You are going to visit Wayne Manor, and ask about the old Kyle collection. Do a bit of research on your own, so it sounds more authentic."

"Yes, Master." she answered, obediently.

After that, he gave instructions to all of them, some of them about more artifacts they had to retrieve, in another cases he gave some of the artifacts in the shelf, pointedly excluding the statue and the tablet delivered by the curator, to others, as well as instructions to place them in specific places inside the city, always out of the way places like basements, abandoned sewers, and other similar places.

"Focus in my voice. Hear my commands. Feel my will." he said, "You won't remember what happened here until the next time I impose my will on you. But you will follow my commands as if they were your own ideas."

"Yes, Master." they said as if they were a chorus.



Julie Madison awoke from the trance feeling at peace with herself. Her mind was clearer, and she felt well rested.

The Monk retreated into the back room, while Dala said goodbye to everybody. She walked back to her car thinking back to her exploration of Kyle Manor ruins. Stephen Kyle, the last Kyle of Kyle Manor, had been an avid collector of both antiques and curios. She wondered what had happened to his collection…

 

Ma Hunkle safehouse, noon​

Ma Hunkle put the groceries in the table. She had just bought enough for the two of them, as well to collect a couple items she had asked from Rex last night, and then she would sent her underway, after a bit of preparation of the disguise. It wouldn't be good if some of those people recognized her at the bus station.

Rogue was reading at the table, still immersed in "Under the Hood". John would be proud of being able to attract the attention of younger generations, although she still thought Jonathan was right on decking him for what he told about the fictionalized versions of Libby and him.

A couple hours later, after they had eaten, she broached the matter to her.

"Marie, I doubt that they had stopped looking for you. If you are going to take that bus, you will need to disguise your appearance." Ma said.

"I know, I'm pretty distinctive, aren't I?" Rogue said with an ironic smile, "What do you have in mind?"

"Makeup, clothes and either hair dye or a wig." Ma said.

STAR Labs​

He saw as the security personnel carried away Henry Rathaway, or as he had known him, the Pied Piper. He had tracked a few of the future rogues, and he had subtly encouraged them to be away from Central City for the next two years, he calculated. Enough time to enact his plan without undue interference, and in case some of them came earlier... well, as much as it irked him, the Flash would be here to stop them.

Now, about other possible interferences... most of them were too young or too far. Even Stark was focused mostly in cleaning the messes his family had left behind right now. And while Rogue had managed to escape...

Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by a message warning from his phone. He frowned, the few people who knew this number, knew better than to send a message. He took the phone and looked at the message, and a chill ran down his spine.

'You have been a naughty boy, Eobard, sending the FoH after Rogue.'

The sender was hidden, and his attempts to identify whoever had send him were met with failure. He was about to start a heuristic search on Gideon's files when he received another message.

'Don't worry about your little scheme about Flash, I have no interest in foiling that. But X-Men and Brotherhood members, present and future, are off-limits for the Reverse Flash. After all, you are not the only time traveller with plans.'

Just after he stopped reading the message, he received a call from a hidden number. With trepidation, he answered the call.

"Harrison Wells speaking, who is it?" he said, with the more normal voice he could muster.

"I hope that you received my message, Doctor Wells, or should I call you Eobard Thawne?" a digitized voice said.

"What do you want?"

"Many things, but what is important right now is that I have plans for some of the mutants in the X-Men and the Brotherhood, and your little stunt would have cost me one of my pawns if I hadn't reacted quickly." the voice said, "On the other hand, Flash may prove a nuisance in a few months, so I have a..."

Somewhere in the Midwest​

"...little proposal for you." the voice in the computer said, "I'll try to steer any mutants clear from Central City or Keystone City, and in exchange..."

"I keep Flash focused in Central City for the time being." Wells answered, "That may be a bit difficult since he seems to have befriended Oliver Queen."

"Let me worry about that." the voice said, a sneer evident in its voice.

"No skin off my nose, but I agree to your terms. I intended to do so anyway." and Wells cut the call.

"Do you think he has bought it?" another voice, belonging to a man wearing a hooded robe, answered.

"Probably, if not, we'll know soon enough."

"My time grows short, Adrian." the robed man said, "And we'll need the three of them when my greatest failure returns."

Ma Hunkle Safehouse.​

"Are you sure about this?" Rogue said, looking at herself on the mirror, "I look..."

"Absolutely unlike you." Ma said, "People see what they expect to see, so a young redhead dressed like a hippy won't attract the attention like a goth teenager, or a preppy blonde."

"Still..." Rogue drifted off, not having a counter for that, " I suppose that I can change back later." she said with a sigh.

"Not until you have reached Topeka." Ma cautioned, "In the meantime, I can give you the two-dollars tour of Keystone City and Central City."

"Are you sure we'll have time?" Rogue said, "The ticket is for the last bus of the day, but still..."

 

Hemery High School. A week after the Great Storm​

"What do you want, A?" Deedee, one of the banes of her existence, said, using the nickname she hated.

"First, D, don't call me A," she answered in kind, "Second, Marcy wanted a copy of my material for the essay on English Lit, but I haven't seen her today."

"Give it..." she said, a bit too eagerly.

"...to you? No, thanks." she said, leaving 'you lazy bimbo' unsaid, but the blonde heard it anyway, "You'll have to ask Marcy if she wants to share." Her eyes went down to the other girl hand, where she was holding a bucket, and then looked in the direction Deedee had been walking when she had asked her about Marcy, and she understood, "Really? That's the best thing you want to do with your time?"

"I don't know what the hell are you talking about." Dee answered airily.

"Sure thing, now go and put that bucket back where it was, what were you doing with it, anyway?" she said, implying without saying it that she should make herself scarce.

For a moment it looked as if DeeDee was gong to dispute this, but she visibly deflated and walked down the corridor without saying anything. She kept eyes on her just in case, but she left the bucket in a corner before going into a classroom, probably to bitch about her. She shrugged and went towards the two girls that Deedee had been walking to. One was a Asian girl freshman, and the other was...

'Ah.' she thought,'The new girl, Jenny something, from Wisconsin, I think?'

"Yo, Rica." the Asian girl said as soon she noticed her, using her preferred nickname.

"Yo, Jubes." America 'Rica' Chavez answered, "So, who is your friend?"

"I'm Jenny Hayden, from Milwaukee" the other girl said, holding her hand, covered by a fingerless glove, that clashed badly with her 'my mom still chooses my clothes' style.

"America Chavez, but call me Rica." Rica said, shaking her hand carefully, "And you already know Jubilee."

"Jubilee? Weren't you..?" Jenny said, a slightly confused expression in her face.

"Jubilation Lee. Jubilee. Got it?" the Asian girl said with a smile, "But my friends call me Jubes. So, Rica, what does brings you here, with the plebs?"

"Deedee..." Rica started to say.

"Hemery's wannabe alpha bitch." Jubes explained to Jenny.

"...was going for the old bucket routine with either of you." Rica explained, "Marcy..."

"Hemery's current queen bee." Jubes supplied.

"...usually keeps her under her thumb." America continued, ignoring Jubes running commentary, "But now that I think about it, I haven't seen her since yesterday."

"I saw her yesterday, in the evening." Jubilee said, thoughtfully, "She was boarding a minibus marked with a big G with Rox."

"Rox?" Rica asked.

"A girl that I know from the mall." Jubilee explained, aand then turned to Jenny, "And now you are completely lost."

"A bit." Jenny acknowledged.