|
Post by DocQuantum on Jun 16, 2017 20:45:12 GMT
Chapter 1: No Longer Human
If people had told me when I was just a kid I'd end up in outer space one day, I'd have called 'em a damn dirty liar, and then I probably would've kicked their asses and stolen their lunch money while I was at it. I never did like it when people made fun of me, and going into space just wasn't in the cards for old Billy Peyton.
Yeah, that's my name. There's nothing special about me really. Well, scratch that. There wasn't nothing special about me until about a year and a half ago. That was when all my troubles began. It's a long story, so I hope you don't get bored too easily.
I'd just robbed a liquor store earlier that day and ended up botching the whole thing when a hole tore clear through my loot bag, leaving all the cash on the curb as I made my getaway. There was nothing I could do, neither; the cops were already on their way, and my only course of action was to turn tail and run into the hills.
Mama Peyton's boy never was one to do things in half-measures. I guess I could've just laid low somewhere in town rather than head clear out of Phoenix, but I was too damn scared about getting caught again. Those three-strike laws are a real killer, y'know? So I headed for the mountains, and I figured I'd just go on a camping trip until the heat died down. Paying a quick visit to my sister Jayne's place to pick up some camping gear, I left town.
After heading deep into the forest, I decided to ditch the car and hike up the mountain. It was a real beautiful night that night, and real warm, so I didn't even bother with a tent. I just unrolled my sleeping bag and slept under the stars.
It was just my luck that a beam from space decided to strike that spot at that very moment, while I was sleeping. I had no idea, really, what went on that night, since the beam basically killed me dead.
How can I have died and still be around to tell you this story, you might inquire? Well, I told you it was a long story. Of course I wasn't really dead in the most literal sense of the word. But by all outward appearances that's all I was. I didn't know any of this until later.
Can you imagine falling asleep under the starry night sky, only to wake up to find yourself in a metal drawer in the morgue, a tag around your toe? Yeah, it wasn't too good an experience for me, neither. I was terrified, to tell the truth, and even though I was naked as a jaybird, I hightailed it out of there before anybody could figure out who I was. I had no idea that they'd already fingerprinted me and identified me as the petty thief Billy Peyton already, after a couple of hikers found my body, and the police brought me to the morgue. That would come back to bite me in the ass later on.
For now, though, I was confused as hell and unable to figure out what was going on. My confusion was doubled, even tripled, when I jumped through the morgue window and -- instead of falling to the ground -- found myself floating in midair.
Now, if anyone should tell you that flying is the best super-power to have, you can tell 'em that I say it's the worst. Even if you can control yourself -- and it's damn hard to do that -- there's all kinds of things you can end up flying into. You don't really notice it that much while walking around on the ground, but there are tons of wires and cables all over our heads at any given moment, not to mention trees and birds and planes.
I still don't know how I made my way back to Jayne's that day, but I managed. My sister's a practical sort, so I knew she wasn't going to turn me in. She was mostly worried about me, because, as she told me, I'd been gone for a month! Yeah, I died a whole month ago, and only now came back to life! But imagine trying to explain that to someone.
Jayne didn't want to believe anything I had to say until I showed her that I could fly. As soon as she was convinced it wasn't a trick, she got really excited. I was scared out of my wits, but my little sister was actually excited about what had happened to me.
After I made her promise not to tell our mom, she agreed on one condition: that we test out these new abilities to their limits. And so we headed out to the most desolate spot we could find -- an old army proving ground -- and started figuring out what I could do.
Just as Jayne guessed, I could do a whole lot more than just flying. After a bunch of tests, I found I could shoot blasts of energy from my body when I concentrated, I could focus that energy into my muscles to make myself really strong, and I could keep going without getting tired. But the really freaky thing was that I didn't need to eat or even breathe air in order to survive. Jayne supposed that I absorbed the sun's radiation or something and converted it into energy, so I just didn't need food anymore.
That was startling enough by itself, but when I flew headfirst into a big rock while testing out my flying abilities, Jayne started laughing at me when she saw my face -- which was smashed in flat on one side, with the imprint of a rock in my forehead. There was no blood. When she showed me my horrible misshapen face in a mirror, I freaked out.
Even after my face snapped back to normal, I was upset. I was no longer human! After all, what kind of man can go without food or air indefinitely and live?
Jayne told me I could be a super-hero like Alex Luthor, and maybe help take down the Crime Syndicate of America, but I reminded her that I was no hero, just a petty crook. She just shrugged and said then I could use my powers to make our whole family rich; I told you she was a practical gal.
But the mention of the Crime Syndicate began to send chills down my spine. I knew that Arizona and the whole Southwestern United States was Power Ring's territory, and out of all the members of the Crime Syndicate, Power Ring most zealously guarded his crime territory from any potential rivals. I didn't know if I could be killed, but Power Ring would try if he found out how powerful I was. Even worse, he would get to me through my family.
My choice was made. I had to forget my powers and go back to my old life of petty crime. Jayne was disappointed, but she could see my point. Still, she figured I could use my powers in secret without tipping anyone off, and still make our family rich. I told her I'd try.
I should've trusted my instincts and just stick to what I knew. Instead, I tried something different, and the old Billy Peyton bad luck curse came back to bite me in the end.
Since I had these newfangled powers, I figured I'd try something that one of the big boys in the CSA might pull off. I decided to rob STAR Labs, which had just opened up its newest branch in Phoenix, that very night.
Molding my face, I made myself look identical to an old horror movie star, Rondo Hatton, with a giant chin and prominent brow. Then, shortly after midnight, I smashed open the rear door and walked right in. I still don't know what I was thinking. STAR is one of the worst places for a smash 'n' grab, since they don't exactly have a lot of cash flowing through it like a liquor store. But I figured I could steal a few high-tech gizmos and sell it on the black market, even though I didn't have anyone lined up. I never said I was the sharpest tool in the shed, did I?
The alarms went off, of course, but the STAR branch was in a fairly remote area, and I knew I could get out of there before the cops showed up. I figured at most I might end up crossing paths with a night watchman, but with my strength I could just knock him out and tie him up, just like Rondo Hatton would've.
What I didn't count on was running into Kitty Faulkner.
Having stayed late at the office, she'd been listening to her Walkman in the bathroom the whole time I'd been robbing the place. When she stepped out of the bathroom and saw me creeping through the darkened hallway, she screamed. I got spooked and cried out as well, dropping the heavy equipment in my hands like a hot potato. And as it smashed to the ground, I couldn't help but mumble, "S-sorry."
I wasn't prepared for what happened next.
The look of sheer terror on the lady scientist's face slowly changed to shock and then rage. Y'see, what I'd stolen and then dropped, utterly destroying, was the prototype of a device that Kitty Faulkner had been working on day and night since she'd transferred from Metropolis to Phoenix a few months earlier. It was, as I later found out, part of a pollution-free energy system that could've revolutionized the world. And I'd smashed it into a million parts on the ground. I could see why she might be angry.
Kitty isn't a large woman by any means. In fact, she's kind of on the skinny, even frail side of things, and she wears glasses, to boot. But you should never make her angry. You wouldn't like her when she's angry. She changes before your eyes -- literally.
The hair was what I noticed first. Kitty normally has straight, shoulder-length light-brown hair, but that hair suddenly started to disappear, only to be replaced by a fierce-looking dark red mohawk. Her fair skin turned into an angry shade of deep golden yellow. She grew in stature from little more than five feet tall to a towering eight feet at least. And, after almost all of her clothes split in half and fell away, she was stark naked.
Not that I had a chance to appreciate the beauty of this towering Amazon before me, though, for I found myself sailing through the air toward a wall, then pounded into said wall and clear out through the rear of the building.
It was the most unexpected moment of my life. I was getting my ass kicked by a nude, eight-foot-tall golden woman, and all I could do was let her. It was painful, but not fatal, and I think she somehow knew how hard she could hit me without killing me.
Only a few seconds passed, but it felt like an eternity as the painful blows kept ringing down on me, cracking the pavement around my body as it was nailed into the ground. And then it ended. The huge golden woman looked stricken for a few moments, and she began to change once more back into Dr. Kitty Faulkner.
Kitty ran back inside to grab a lab coat, then timidly stepped back out to the destroyed parking lot, a gun in her hand. She no longer looked angry. In fact, I could've sworn she looked... a little guilty.
"I'm so sorry about that," she said. "Are -- are you OK? Should I call an ambulance?"
I was still trying to get my throat working again. She'd smashed my plasticized body into the pavement pretty good. Finally, it popped back into place, and I was able to croak out, "I-I'm fine. Uh... How are you?"
"I haven't had an episode like that in a long time," she told me, still holding the gun on me. "Not since Metropolis." Shaking her head, Kitty sighed and said, "Oh, hell, I hoped to put all this Rampage business behind me, especially since Ultraman threatened to put me in the ground if I ever showed my face around there again, or became Rampage even once more! I don't know what he's going to do now."
"W-won't tell anyone about it," I told her. "P-promise."
A tear fell from Kitty's right eye. "You mean that?"
"Honest injun."
"Thank you," said Kitty with a smile.
"J-just don't tell anyone about m-me..." I said. She hesitated for a second, until I added, "...when they b-book me downtown. I don't w-want anyone to know what I c-can do. Y-you understand?"
"Of course," said Kitty.
And that was that. I kept her secret, and she kept mine. And she was smart about it, too. She came up with explanations for all of the damage in the building without mentioning monsters or super-powers of any kind. She told the cops that I'd been careless with some of the equipment and caused all the damage, as well as incapacitated myself, through sheer idiocy, after having haphazardly played around with the buttons and such.
I went to jail. A year later, I was released, and waiting outside to drive me to the trailer park, where Jayne had set up a trailer for me, was none other than Kitty Faulkner.
We went on our first real date that night, after corresponding for all that time, and I proposed. A week later, we were married. It was a bit of a minor scandal at STAR when she ended up marrying the same thug who had tried and failed to rob STAR Labs, but people are bound to talk about stuff like that.
All we cared about was that we were happy, and finally free to be together as Mr. and Mrs. Billy and Kitty Peyton. As the months passed during our blissful honeymoon period, we knew that there was just one more thing that would make our lives complete. We wanted a baby.
Looking back on it, we really should've quit while we were ahead.
|
|
|
Post by DocQuantum on Jun 16, 2017 20:45:53 GMT
Chapter 2: The Incredible Rampage
You might be wondering why we were so eager to have a baby. Well, suffice it to say that Kitty was worried; the clock was ticking, and she wasn't getting any younger. It wasn't that she was all that old, either -- she was only twenty-nine, just five years older than me. But her body was kinda unique, becoming a monster whenever she got upset or angry, and she wasn't sure how that had affected her womanly parts. She never did tell me much more about her condition while I was courting her from prison. Each time I brought it up, she just clammed up about it, so I stopped asking. But I think our shared feelings of being a bit less than human was the glue that brought us together.
Our honeymoon phase was great. We were actively trying to have a baby as soon as possible, so we just made love whenever and wherever we could. She was still working at STAR Labs, and I'd gotten a warehouse job as part of my work-release program, so every day after work we just hopped into bed, and... well, you get the picture. Y'know, for a little woman, Kitty was a real hellcat in the sack. But don't tell her I told you that, OK? She'd find some way to kill me.
But after months of trying, we realized that nothing was working. So we went to the doctor, we did some tests, and we got some bad news. It turned out that I could only shoot blanks. Yep, I was completely sterile. It didn't surprise me, really, since I'd come to terms with the fact that my body wasn't exactly all that normal any longer. Why would I expect anything else? Kitty was upset; she started going crazy, telling me I should've saved my sperm at a sperm bank before my accident, and I couldn't reason with her about it. How was I supposed to anticipate something like that?
Then the tests came back for her, and the doctor told us that she'd never be able to bear children to term, and even if I wasn't shooting blanks, her body would most likely treat the fetus like a parasite or something and kill it. I didn't know why that would happen, so I asked her again what was behind her change.
She finally told me her story.
Back before she moved to Phoenix, Dr. Kitty Faulkner was working at a privately owned research lab, heading up an alternative energy project that was going to revolutionize everything. It had something to do with multiplying solar energy a hundredfold through organic cells or something; I never could understand all that science crap. The media had extensively covered the project, since it had the potential to really change the world, and Kitty was at the top of her game.
Little did she know at the time that a rival scientist at the lab, a guy named Dr. Thomas Moyers, had grown jealous over her and had begun loudly complaining about her to anyone that would listen. He even got the EPA involved, and threatened to shut everything down. But Kitty was determined to go through with the final testing phase, and told Moyers that he could go to hell. That was a bad move.
Even worse, just as the revolutionary new solar cells became active, an intruder alarm went off. Kitty saw this young man -- little more than a kid, really -- snooping around the solar cells and taking pictures of it with his camera. She knew the sheer amount of energy that could be drawn through those cells, and she knew there was a real danger of a reaction if any foreign objects got into those cells. Again, all this science mumbo-jumbo is way over my head, so my apologies if I'm getting this really wrong. You can go ask Kitty if you want a more precise answer, though she does tend to run on a bit if given a chance.
The point is that this kid was going to die if someone didn't save him, and Kitty knew she was the only person in the world familiar enough with her solar cells that could both save the kid and keep the cells from overloading and exploding. So Kitty charged forward and entered the testing room herself, then started screaming at the kid to get out.
But she spooked him, and he dropped his camera into one of the cells. There was no going back. Grabbing his jacket, she swung him away from the cells and told him to get down below the barrier, even as she went forward to do what she could to repair the cells.
It was too late. The solar cells exploded a moment later, and Kitty was caught full-on in the explosion. She'd saved the kid's life, though, so her final act was a heroic one. The lab workers got the kid out in time before the fire spread too far, but nobody could do anything for Kitty.
But Kitty Faulkner didn't die that day. No, instead, the lady scientist had been transformed by the revolutionary new solar cells that she had developed. Basically, her body fused with those cells, and she began to absorb massive amounts of solar energy. And it changed her into the monster that I'd met before.
With everyone at the lab busy fighting the blaze, no one noticed a hulking, eight-foot-tall golden Amazon wearing only a torn metal mesh bodice that was the remains of a radiation suit as she burst through a wall and onto the streets of Metropolis. She started causing massive amounts of destruction in her rampage, and one of the radio stations inadvertently gave her a name because of that -- they called her Rampage.
Meanwhile, the kid whose life she'd saved called in a friend of his. Y'see, this kid's name was Luke Carver, but he was better known as "Snap" because of the way he snapped his fingers when he was nervous. Nobody really knew it, but "Snap" Carver was the Crime Syndicate of America's original snitch. They'd even brought him along to meetings once in a while for laughs back in the early days. He'd fallen out of favor since then, and some other moron called Johnny Thunder had taken his place as the CSA's mascot, and even had a signal watch he could use to signal Ultraman, but Snap was always scheming to get back into the inner circle.
The reason Snap was snooping around was that he'd been spying on the alternative energy project for the CSA, and now he called in one of the Syndicators to tell him about Rampage. You wouldn't think that Ultraman would've cared much about it, but Rampage was tearing up his city, and he had a lot of money on the line.
So, moments later, Ultraman showed up and picked a fight with Rampage while she was tearing up the streets. The people were terrified, not knowing what to do when a monster and a major super-villain were about to come to blows -- it looked like everyone was going to get killed. There was panic in the streets as the two powerful figures fought, and from all accounts Rampage was more than holding her own against Ultraman. In fact, the madder she got, the stronger she became, and her superior strength and invulnerability more than made up for the lack of all the other powers that Ultraman had, such as his super-vision.
Rampage became a bit more clearheaded the longer she fought, too, so she took care not to harm anyone, which is more than could be said for Ultraman. Finally, when it looked like Rampage stood a real chance of beating Ultraman, the crowds began to cheer for her. In a matter of a few minutes she'd gone from a fearsome monster to a hero of the people!
Ultraman couldn't have that, either. It was bad enough that Luthor had begun this "super-hero" trend a few years back. He couldn't let himself be beaten in public by some run-of-the-mill monster, and a girl monster at that. It was time to play his ace in the hole.
The Syndicator sent a message via heat-vision to the CSA snitch, "Snap" Carver. True to form, Snap jumped to it and went off on his mission, returning a few minutes later with a lead-lined box, which he presented to Ultraman. It was a box that Ultraman had secretly hidden in the basement of the Daily Planet for just such an occasion, and Snap had retrieved it with no problem, since the building had been emptied because of the big fight.
Snap opened the box before Ultraman, and the radioactive material inside shone a sickly green glow over Ultraman's face. He grinned an even more sickly grin, though, as he felt a peculiar tingle pass over his body. Y'see, whenever Ultraman is exposed to a new piece of kryptonite, he gets a new, albeit temporary, super-power. This time, it was exactly what he needed.
Ultraman went back into the fight even more vigorously, and although it started as it had before, with neither side having the upper hand, he soon started to get in more and more blows against Rampage. Even worse, she started to slowly shrink in size. It was all thanks to his new super-power -- energy-absorption. He was basically sucking all the juice out of her, turning her from the powerful Rampage back into the ordinary scientist, Kitty Faulkner. In a few more moments, the fight was over.
The people had stopped cheering once they realized that Rampage wasn't going to win, and now they just went on their business, trying as best they could to keep from incurring Ultraman's wrath any longer.
After making sure that everyone could see what his mighty foe had turned into, and shouting to all of Metropolis to never forget this moment, Ultraman flew off into the sky with the beaten Kitty. Everyone was sure she was a goner, including Kitty.
A couple of miles above the city, Ultraman asked Kitty to give him one reason he shouldn't just drop her and let her fall to his death, after all the trouble she'd given him. Kitty was able to give him two reasons. First, she couldn't guarantee that she wouldn't change back into that monster if she got upset again. And second, she gave him her word that she'd never give him trouble again if he let her live. Ultraman must've been feeling charitable that day, or maybe he just didn't want to take the risk of fighting such a powerful foe again without his special energy-absorption power, but he agreed on two conditions. Kitty had to clear out of Metropolis altogether, and she had to make sure she never became Rampage again. Kitty hastily agreed, and Ultraman brought her back down to earth.
True to her word, Kitty left town that night with little more than a single suitcase and the promise of a job opening in the remotest city she could find -- Phoenix, Arizona. Once in Phoenix, she landed the job at STAR Labs, met me one night, and the rest is history.
Her brief time as Rampage had left an impact, though. Kitty was sure that Ultraman had watched her leave Metropolis with those super-vision powers of his, but she also admits she could've just been feeling paranoid. Not long after she took up residence in Phoenix, she received this creepy letter from an old scientist named Dr. Thaddeus Bodog Atlanta, who wanted her to join some society or other, for individuals suffering from similar afflictions as she was. He wouldn't divulge any further details, but urged her to contact him at her earliest convenience. It was obvious, from the talk about Ultraman, that Dr. Atlanta somehow knew that she was Rampage as well. Kitty tore up the letter and never mentioned it again, until she told me about it now.
The night that we met was the first time since the accident that she became Rampage at all, and she feared what might happen the next time. As she described it, Rampage took all of the anger and aggression that she'd learned to repress over a lifetime of being a woman in a world full of jerks, and lashed out. Although she talked about Rampage being a separate person, she was really Kitty's inner self made flesh. Because Kitty would never kill anyone, Rampage had also never killed anyone yet, but she worried that it was only a matter of time that the monster within would cause untold death and destruction, whether intentionally or accidentally.
Now, finally, I understood what was going on in my wife's heart. This was the most she'd ever confided in me since I'd known her, really, which was kinda sad when you think about it.
And so we went into mourning for the child that we'd never had together. It was made even harder when we learned that we could never adopt, either, thanks to my prison record.
As if to pour salt in our wounds, my sister Jayne had recently given birth to her own firstborn, named Raymond Peyton Sandoval. She'd married a Latino fella named Rafael -- one of those American-born Mexicans who call themselves Mestizos -- and they were living the life that me and Kitty could only wish we had.
The situation started to get real bad. Kitty got a doctor's note and took a medical leave from work, but she mostly spent each day crying or just sleeping in bed. I tried to understand where she was coming from, but even though I was kinda sad, I was also kinda relieved at the same time. We had our answer, and a baby just wasn't in the cards for us. Still, just to be safe, I kept those thoughts to myself and just focused on work when at work, and glued myself to the TV whenever I was at home.
Sometimes Kitty would join me at the TV, but we hardly spoke a word to each other. This went on for weeks.
Then it happened. I came home one day to find Kitty frantically tidying up our little trailer home. It was like she was on speed or something. She'd already scrubbed all the windows and walls clean, vacuumed the carpets and swept the floor, and was in the middle of tidying up everything when I stepped through the door.
Finally, I thought to myself, we'd had a breakthrough! Kitty had gotten over her weeks-long bouts of depression, and life was going back to normal. We'd be honeymooners again. But it wasn't that simple.
When I asked her how she was, and what was going on, she could barely hide her excitement as she threw down a newspaper on our little kitchen table and opened it up to the centerfold. She urged me to take a look at it, so I sat down and started to read.
I didn't know what I was supposed to be reading. It was about a local celebrity, a businessman by the name of Rodney Knight, better known as "Cosmic" Rod Knight. He owned and operated a chain of electronics stores called Radio Hutch. I'd robbed one or two back in the day, so I knew the name. But old "Cosmic" Rod was better known for his infamous past than his current business ventures.
Back in the 1940s, when the very first super-villains started to appear, a guy called Spaceman was one of them. He used this incredible device called the space-rod to defy gravity, erect force-fields, shoot blasts of energy, and several other things. Wearing an outfit that looked like something out of Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers, Spaceman operated primarily in Opal City and really had the cops on the ropes with his bigger and even more grander crimes each time he appeared. Eventually he was caught, and it turned out that he was a millionaire and an Opal City playboy named Rodney Knight, who was secretly an amateur scientist who'd stumbled upon an incredible source of cosmic power from space and used his space-rod to harness it. Since he was wealthy, he didn't even need the money he stole, and in fact anonymously donated much of it to charities all around Opal City.
After two or three decades in stir, he emerged from prison to find the world a very different place. Gone were the kinds of "gentleman thief" science-crooks who'd caused the police some trouble back in the 1940s, but didn't really hurt anyone. Now the super-villains who had arisen and banded together as the Crime Syndicate of America held the world in fear, and they weren't above killing anyone who got in their way. While Spaceman had been an independent outlaw back in his day, with no affiliations to organized crime, the Crime Syndicators had already begun taking over a lot of criminal organizations around the world. They never threatened to conquer the world, because they didn't need to -- they already ran most of it. There was no place in such a world for Spaceman. In fact, to make his point, the CSA threatened him with bodily harm if he returned to Opal City or became Spaceman again, and to prove they meant business, they showed him pictures of all the other villains that they'd killed or maimed when they refused to heed their first and only warning.
So, finding himself exiled from his home, "Cosmic" Rod Knight instead bought a small retail company that specialized in electronics and built it into America's largest retail tech store. He settled down in Phoenix for much the same reason that Kitty chose this city -- it was about as far away as you could get from the super-villains' main bases. His first wife Doris had divorced him when he was sent to prison, so he met a much younger woman after getting out of jail and married her.
Adele Drew Knight was a very fertile woman, having just had her tenth baby. That was what the story was about. She'd already had nine kids composed of twins Theodore and Bruce, triplets Michael, Gavin, and Scott, and quadruplets William, David, Thomas, and Daniel. Her tenth baby, Jack, was unique in that he didn't come from a multiple birth.
I finished reading the story, then looked up at my wife, who looked almost crazy as she stared back at me with a grin.
"Don't you see, Billy?" she asked me. "Don't you see?"
I didn't see. "Don't I see what?" I asked her.
"It's the answer to all our problems!"
I still didn't see. "Don't know what you mean, hon."
"There!" she said, pointing at the picture of the little baby, Jack Knight. When I shrugged, she stabbed the picture again and again and said, "That's our baby!"
I suddenly had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. This wasn't going anywhere good. Not at all.
|
|
|
Post by DocQuantum on Jun 16, 2017 20:46:24 GMT
Chapter 3: The Kidnapping
A few nights later, we were just about ready to go fetch our baby.
You might be wondering, at this point, why I was simply going along with it. I might ask you a question in return. Have you met my wife? There's absolutely no denying her anything. What Kitty wants, she gets.
Of course, I argued with her, told her it was crazy. That ended up being a big argument in itself, when she insinuated that I thought she was crazy, and I ended up having to backpedal as much as possible to assure her I didn't think she was crazy. (Though, to tell you the truth, I really did think she was going a little crazy...)
That seemed to be the end of it, and she didn't bring it up again. But then she started laying on the guilt trips. I'd already seen her weeping for the pregnancy that she'd never have, and now there was this perfect baby out there whose own family hardly had any more need of him than we did. Couldn't I just try to see it her way?
I hate to admit it, but she wore me down over time. Now, remember, Kitty's not a bad person, but she tends to be very singleminded at times. It's what helped her to be such a great scientist, I guess. I wish I had one-tenth of her dedication to an idea. After a misspent life of petty crime, coupled with occasional work as a roadie for a couple of rock bands over the years, I had little to show for it.
What could I offer my wife to show her that I really loved her? I couldn't give her a child of her own, even if her lady-parts were working normally. I certainly hadn't been able to keep any of the money I stole over the years. And my family had always been dirt-poor, so it's not like being Mrs. Peyton really meant all that much.
She knew I'd cave in eventually, so she stopped pushing, and just let my own guilt and desire to please work its magic in me. Day after day, all I could think about was how she just wanted one little thing. It was illegal, sure, and it sure as hell was immoral, but did that make it wrong? I guess if I was some kind of hero, or even a stronger-willed man, I would've just put my foot down and put an end to this nonsense. I would've just told Kitty to get over it, and that life would go on for us. We could live vicariously through my sister's kids and spoil them rotten every chance we got, while enjoying all the free time we'd have to ourselves that new parents just didn't have.
But I ain't no hero. I told her I'd do it, and she made me promise to keep my word. If I wasn't going to be a hero to the world, at least I could be a hero to my wife and make her a mommy, even if that meant ruining some other mother's life. I tried not to think of the consequences -- hell, there was no use trying to start thinking of the consequences now, after a life of crime -- but I couldn't help but think that I was just switching out one kind of guilt for another, even worse kind.
So, with these heavy thoughts weighing me down, I started making preparations for us to go fetch baby Jack, while Kitty started nesting again, ensuring that our little trailer home was spic and span as it was ever gonna get.
We also ended up spending what little money we did have on all kinds of supplies for the baby, from diapers, formula, and pablum, to a crib, a swing, and toys. And, brother, I had no idea how expensive a baby was gonna be until we walked out of that Wal-Mart with two full shopping carts and an empty wallet. We were flat broke, and getting ready to raise a baby in a trailer park, and Kitty was on an indefinite leave from her job. The only good thing was that I still had my job at the warehouse.
This is the part of the story where things took a bit of an ironical turn for the worse. I should've realized that God, or the devil, or the universe -- whoever -- was trying to tell me something.
On the day that we were planning the kidnapping, my mind was completely elsewhere. I'd never felt so conflicted about things before in my entire life, so it wasn't easy to keep my mind on my job.
That was why, while I was unloading a bunch of skids from a flatbed truck one day, I ended up turning the forklift just a wee bit too quickly while the forks were in the air with a six-hundred-pound load of ball-bearings.
You can imagine what happened next.
For those of you in the audience with a lack of imagination, let me spell it out for you. First, a top-heavy load just doesn't like being swung around suddenly, you know? It will just keep moving, even when you've stopped the forklift. And then, after it tips over and falls, it has a nasty habit of knocking into anything in its path. In this case, it was a thirty-foot-tall pallet rack already overloaded with heavy skids. That pallet rack, in turn, started wobbling over, even as the original skid broke open and started raining down a thousand ball-bearings onto the warehouse floor, where they spread until they reached pretty much every wall, even bouncing and smashing through the window leading into the foreman's office. But that didn't really matter quite as much in the end, because that pallet rack had already decided it was going to topple over... onto the next pallet rack, which toppled onto the next, and the next, and... well, everyone knows about dominoes.
By the time the commotion had settled down, I'd made a few hundred grands' worth of damage in the warehouse. The ball-bearings could be gathered up, of course, but pretty much everything else in the warehouse was damaged beyond repair. It wasn't a matter of whether or not I'd lose my job at that point, but how fast I could get out of my red-faced boss' sight before he murdered me on the spot.
Filled with shame, I spent the last few bucks in my wallet at the bar down the street. Alcohol doesn't really have that much of an effect on my system, unless I drink the heavy stuff in quantities large enough to kill a regular man, and that stuff is expensive. The buzz still wears off too quickly, though.
So I was dead sober by the time I got home at the usual time. I had to tell Kitty that I'd lost my job, and would probably get sued or something for all the damage I'd done. I certainly wasn't going to get another job all that easily, or at least one that paid much of anything. There was no way we could afford a baby anymore. We'd have to call it quits on the whole kidnapping, obviously.
Then Kitty greeted me at the door wearing an apron and a smile -- and nothing else -- and my resolve melted completely away.
Forty-five minutes later, we rolled out of bed, got dressed, grabbed a bagged lunch, and went to stake out the Knight home for tonight's kidnapping. I was so screwed.
***
That night, with Kitty waiting in the car, I easily flew toward Knight Manor, dressed in a stupid Spandex costume that my sister Jayne made for me back when I was in jail, and which she gave to me as a joke the first Halloween I was out. Yes, I could still fly, though I hardly ever did. The risk of being found out, then killed off by Power Ring and the rest of the Crime Syndicate of America was just too great. Besides, my life with Kitty was meant to be a turning point. I was gonna remain on the straight and narrow, and we'd be happy.
But there was just one little problem, and it was sleeping in a nursery on the third floor.
It's hard to keep your head held high with the thought that you're living an honest life for the first time ever, when you kidnap a baby. That pretty much reduces all your hard-fought morals into a crumbled piece of garbage, then throws it out the window. I tried not to think about it too hard. I still felt ashamed about losing my job and lying to Kitty about it. The only way I could feel better about it was to give Kitty exactly what she wanted, even if that meant heaping even more guilt on my head to deal with later on.
Hovering in midair, I was able to peer in through the windows from close up. The curtains were all drawn, but the window had been left open a crack, probably 'cause it had been a hot day. I managed to peek between the curtains as they billowed inward, and I could see there a small figure sleeping face down in the crib. There was no one else in the room, either.
I tried to open the window, but it didn't budge, and I realized it was locked. Wishing it didn't have to come to this, I decided to use my powers to melt the damn thing. But the burning plastic smell was awful, and I was glad to be able to open the window up all the way to clear out the room. That can't have been good for the baby.
Speaking of which, I saw the little guy up close for the first time when I stole into the room. He was sleeping so peacefully, I hated to interrupt his sleep. But as I glanced back out at the street, I could see Kitty waiting for me.
I could also see something else when I glanced over at the nearby dresser drawer. It was a baby monitor.
Quickly grabbing baby Jack, I flew out the window and back to the car. I barely even got a good look at him, and I only hoped that nobody heard me when I left.
"Awwwwww! He's adorable!" Kitty whispered as I gently handed the baby to her. As for Jack, he just seemed to melt into her arms as he continued sleeping.
"OK, Kitty, let's go!" I said, moving toward the driver's seat.
"Not so fast!" my wife hissed. "Do you mean to tell me we're just going to take this baby away from his mama and let her think he's been kidnapped?"
I nodded. "Uh-huh. Wasn't that the idea?"
"You men!" Kitty said. "You never think! I can't take baby Jack, here, away until we've made sure to let his parents know that he's going to a good home!"
"Kitty, we really gotta go!" I replied, but she shushed me for being too loud. Whispering a bit quieter, I said, "I think I mighta been heard. There's a baby monitor in there!"
"Listen to me, Billy Peyton," Kitty said in a serious voice. "I'm a mother now, and I'm not about to start my first day of motherhood by ruining a whole family! Now, you head right back over there and leave a note behind, letting them know that he's in good hands now."
"But--" I began, but Kitty stopped me in my tracks with a huff. I knew there was no arguing with her.
So I flew back to the nursery and into the open window, and I searched around until I found a pen and some paper in a cupboard. Taking the pen in my left hand, I scrawled the words: We Promise to raise Jack up to be a Good Boy. I chuckled at my cleverness in disguising my handwriting that way, then left the note on the crib.
But just as I was doing so, I heard a door creak, followed by a gut-wrenching scream!
I bolted for the window, stumbling a bit, but managed to leap outside just as the lights were flicked on.
I was about to fly back to the car, when I realized it wouldn't be safe to do so, and suddenly veered off in another direction. Kitty must've got the hint, because she jumped into the driver's seat after putting Jack in the baby car seat in the back, and peeled off before anyone saw our car.
It was a close one, but we'd gotten away clean... or so I thought. Actually, as I found out later, the Knight family's nursemaid had caught a glimpse of me as I flew out the window, but all she really saw were the red boots of my never-before-used costume.
Anyway, I flew around in circles for a while until I finally spotted our car. Kitty had sped off at first, but drove fairly slowly the rest of the way home so as not to disturb the sleeping baby. I dropped down in front of the trailer just as she was opening the car door.
"What are you doing?!" she cried. "Everyone's gonna see you in that costume!"
"Don't worry," I said, reaching into the backseat. "That's why I left my trenchcoat back here."
Without another word, Kitty picked up the baby from the car seat, then shook her head at me and gave me a piece of her mind. "You're a daddy now, Billy Peyton! You can't go off and get sent back to jail!"
"I know, I know, Kitty..."
"Promise me, Billy. Promise me you'll never do another dishonest thing again. Tell me you'll do it for me. And for little baby Jack, here."
"I promise," I said, holding up the palm of my hand. "Honest injun."
"Hmph," said Kitty, and turned on her heels to head back into our little trailer home.
Inside, she put the baby in a large crib at the foot of our bed. Despite all the ruckus, Jack had slept through everything. We'd found ourselves a keeper.
Kitty was all smiles for the rest of the night. She began to have a glow about her that I'd never really seen before. It was the first time she'd ever really been happy since our troubles began. And then it hit me: Kitty was a mommy now! And I was a daddy!
I sunk back into my La-Z-Boy and let it really hit me. I couldn't really explain how I felt. It was the happiest I've ever felt, but at the same time it was the most terrifying. I felt so many conflicting emotions at once, as I began to imagine our lives together as the days, months, and years rolled by.
I'd get another job, of course. With my powers, I was able to take on the riskiest of jobs without much fear of getting hurt, and those jobs paid well. Kitty would be a stay-at-home mom for a couple of years, until she decided it was time to go back to work. We'd tell everybody that Jack was our own baby, since Kitty had kept herself secluded for so long. Or, if that wouldn't work, maybe we'd just say we'd taken in Jack from a distant cousin who'd taken ill or something.
Jack and me would be the best of pals. I'd make sure to raise Jack only with good influences, so he wouldn't turn out to be a lowlife petty crook like I'd been. We'd start goin' to church, a real Bible-believing, hellfire and brimstone kind of church, and maybe even start believin' it for ourselves. Jack would have the fear of God instilled in him from a young age so he'd be able to avoid all the mistakes both me and his real father had made. We'd play catch in the park, and go on fishing trips. And every once in a while, without letting Kitty know, I'd take him flying with me through the mountains, as long as he promised not to tell his friends or teachers that his old man had super-powers.
Those thoughts were sharply interrupted when we heard three heavy thumps on our front door.
"What th'--?!" gasped Kitty. "Who's that? They'll wake the baby!"
"Just -- just go back into the bedroom, Kitty," I said, rising from my seat. "I'll handle this."
"Whoever it is, tell them to go away."
"I'll try," I assured her, and cautiously opened the door.
My jaw dropped as I saw the two figures standing at the door. If we weren't in trouble before, we sure as hell were in trouble now.
|
|
|
Post by DocQuantum on Jun 16, 2017 20:46:42 GMT
To be continued!
|
|
|
Post by DocQuantum on Nov 20, 2022 20:52:22 GMT
Chapter 4: The Buzzard and the Pigeon
"BILLY-BOYYY!!!"
I jumped back, startled to see the faces of the two men standing before me. But before I could say anything or even react, really, Hank pushed his way past me and stepped into the trailer home. Donnie flashed me an apologetic look and followed his brother inside.
"Well, pick that jaw up off the floor, Billy-boy! Aren't you glad to see your old cellmates, the Heller brothers?"
That was Hank Heller who'd spoken so far. He was a big, stocky fellow with bright reddish-brown hair who'd spent far too much time in the weight room in prison; he'd also had his nose broken and reset several times since his childhood. His little brother Donnie Heller was a bit shorter than him and a whole lot scrawnier; the blond young man had formerly worked in the prison library and had never been known to hurt a fly... unless you pushed him too far, and then he'd flip out and go mental. It was Hank's favorite game to push Donnie's buttons. I really never knew how two brothers who came from the same father could be so different.
"Uh... hey, guys," I finally said, still in shock. But my mind was racing. As Hank plopped himself down in my La-Z-Boy, and Donnie timidly sat down on the carpeted floor, cross-legged, I was trying to find a reason -- any reason -- to send the Heller brothers packing. They were bad news.
***
I'd been friends with the Heller boys in prison, so I knew a bit about their history. Hank and Donnie were the sons of a retired con artist and grifter named Irv Heller who had trained his boys to follow in his footsteps since childhood. Ol' Irving had also been quite the ladies' man in his youth, and left a string of broken hearts in his wake, two of those women being the boys' mothers.
After many years of rambling all over America and finally settling down in a small Midwestern town -- Elmond, I think it was called -- ol' Irv used his ill-gotten gains from many years of criminal activity to set himself up as a wealthy benefactor and leader of the community. And he was real good at it, too. He did the whole kissing babies thing, and seemed to be well on his way to being the unofficial mayor of Elmond.
The only problem was that the local police chief suspected something was fishy about Heller's story. Police Chief Kit Dargo began looking into Heller's background a bit too closely, asking all the wrong questions. Well, it all started to get Irv worried, and that was saying something, since Irv was legendary for always maintaining a cool head at all times. He decided he needed to do something to stop Dargo's investigation.
Irv posed the question to young Hank and Donnie: how would they take care of a problem like Chief Dargo? Hank was the first to reply, of course, and figured the best way to approach the problem was to threaten and intimidate the police chief at first, and if that didn't work he'd take a couple of big guys along with him and beat him up, while masked, in a dark alley.
Donnie took a bit longer to think out the problem, but he was always more of a thinker, that Donnie. As he saw it, the best way to take down a police chief -- or any politician, for that matter -- was through a scandal. He figured he could find a way to slip illicit drugs into the chief's uniform, and if that didn't work, he knew a few "ladies of the night" who'd be willing to pose for some racy photos with him if he could somehow get Kit Dargo drunk or drugged.
Irv Heller listened to each of his boys' proposals and told them he'd think on it. But unknown to him, time was not on his side.
Chief Dargo, perhaps realizing he didn't have much time to waste, had decided to move in on Heller with what he'd already found out about him. He'd been talking with police officials all across the country and realized he was dealing with a sophisticated con man who was good at covering his tracks, but hadn't been able to cover everything. Against his better judgment, Dargo decided to arrest Heller.
So, one day when Hank and Donnie were at home with their father, Dargo had the house raided on suspicion of holding stolen property. Irv was injured during the raid and hospitalized for a few days, which enraged his boys to no end. But Dargo, for his efforts, ended up finding nothing to prove his case. Oh, he could've planted some evidence to keep Heller locked up, giving Dargo time to build a case, but for all his hot-headedness he still had to follow the rules. He had to let Heller go home after his stay at the hospital.
It ended up backfiring on Dargo. The whole town started to see Irv Heller as a victim of injustice, and scolded Chief Dargo for his persecution of the poor man. Irv played up the role of victim for all it was worth, and even wrote a letter to the local newspaper in which he professed his forgiveness for the police chief and begged him to get back to doing the job of protecting the fair city of Elmond from crime as he was supposed to, rather than persecuting honest and upstanding citizens like him.
Unknown to Irv, though, Hank and Donnie were making plans of their own. They'd seen how Chief Dargo's reckless police raid on their home had left their dad injured and hospitalized, and they wanted revenge. They decided to go after Kit Dargo themselves without their dad knowing about it, giving him plausible deniability.
Hank, of course, wanted to jump the police chief and beat him to within an inch of his life, but Donnie managed to talk him out of the direct approach, at least for now. He reasoned that they still didn't know how much Dargo had dug up on their dad, and they needed to find out what they could.
That night, the two Heller boys broke into the police station so they could find all the dirt Dargo had on their dad and remove all the evidence. Well, nobody ever said they were the brightest bulbs. Even in a small city like Elmond, police stations were staffed twenty-four hours a day. While rifling through a filing cabinet, the boys were caught, and though Hank tried his best to fight his way out, while Donnie tried to sneak away, they ended up being thrown into jail until the police chief could decide what charges to press against them in the morning.
They didn't actually find anything they'd searched for that night, but they did overhear a couple of cops talking about their dad. One cop mentioned that Chief Dargo was pretty desperate to take Heller out while he was still hospitalized, and that he was pretty sure that if he didn't act now, he'd miss his chance, and Heller would make a break for it.
Now, Hank and Donnie didn't know Chief Dargo all that well, but they'd known plenty of crooked cops growing up, and when they heard that Dargo wanted to take out their dad, they freaked. To them, it meant Dargo was going to make sure their dad never left the hospital alive. Irv Heller had embarrassed the police chief so much that he just wanted to kill him.
In retrospect, the boys later admitted that Kit Dargo probably meant that he just wanted to indict their father, but you have to remember that they were just kids at the time, and full of emotion. They thought their dad was going to be murdered.
Only problem was, Hank and Donnie was stuck in jail with no way out until the next morning. The two started going crazy, trying desperately to pull at the bars in an effort to escape, but all they ended up doing was tiring themselves out and annoying the police officers who ended up slamming the outer doors closed so they didn't have to listen to any more racket.
They were utterly powerless to stop Dargo from killing their dad, and they wanted power to stop him. The boys ended up screaming out to anyone in the universe they could reach for help, hardly expecting an answer, since they'd never gotten one before.
This time they did.
A voice, low and rumbling, but loud enough to vibrate through their skulls, answered them, saying, "Power? You wish power? Then so be it."
The voice never told them who it was, but it listened to them as they each said what kind of power they wanted. Hank wanted to be strong and powerful enough to smash into those cops, while Donnie wanted stealth and speed so he could reach their dad and tell him what to expect before anyone else could. As was typical, of course, the two fell into bickering about what was more important before the voice interrupted them again.
"Silence, both of you! We seem to have here a bird of prey and a homing pigeon! So be it! Let the transformation begin!"
And then something weird happened. Their clothes began changing into strange, colorful costumes. Hank found himself in a red and white outfit, and knew he was now the Buzzard, while Donnie ended up in a light blue and white number, and knew he was to be called the Pigeon, much to his dismay. That name gave Donnie years of grief, in fact, since his fellow cons' obvious nickname of Stool-Pigeon was the one that stuck.
The voice, whoever it was, had been true to its word, and said that whenever they ever needed the power they only had to speak the names of the Buzzard and the Pigeon, and that power would be theirs as long as they used it for their own gain. This stipulation, I might add, seemed a bit peculiar but ended up ensuring that the boys never got it in their heads to use their powers to become heroes or anything like that. Hank and Donnie now had all the power they needed, and soon enough the Buzzard and the Pigeon had broken out of jail and were on their way to the hospital.
It became a competition as to who would get their first, with Pigeon taking the lead when they were forced to swim across the river, while Buzzard overtook him when they were back on land. Since they couldn't just walk through the hospital without causing a stir, they had to climb up the side of the building, and Pigeon again took the lead.
Finally, the boys reached the floor their dad was on and burst in on three policemen who had their guns drawn, apparently to kill ol' Irv Heller. The fight was on, and Buzzard proved to be the best fighter; he was in his element, and all his fighting skills seemed enhanced, not only by greater strength but also skill. As for Pigeon, he got knocked out of a window during the fight and only managed to keep himself from splatting all over the pavement below by grabbing onto a flagpole. Ironically, this helped him reach their dad's room first when he climbed right back up through another window while Buzzard was preoccupied fighting two of the cops, leaving Pigeon to stop the third cop from shooting their dad.
Buzzard burst into the room then and delivered the knockout punch to that cop, just as he'd already done to the first two. Irv Heller saw the two costumed kooks but didn't recognize them as his own. He thanked them for saving his life, but before he could say much more they made their escape before the impending transformation would turn them back into Hank and Donnie.
The two got out of there as fast as they'd arrived, and after slipping out the back door they changed back into their old selves. Since the danger was over, they decided to go look in on dad, this time walking through the hospital's front doors. When they got to their dad's floor, they found a whole bunch of reporters and policemen standing around Irv's hospital bed. And what they heard their dad shocked them.
Irv Heller told the press that these two strange characters calling themselves the Buzzard and the Pigeon came in and attacked the good policemen watching over him, nearly getting him killed in the process due to their recklessness, and urged them to turn themselves in to the police at the earliest opportunity.
The boys were disheartened when they realized they had misinterpreted the entire situation and had nearly gotten their dad killed. Even worse, they were now forced to keep their new identities a secret from their dad, since he was using their infamy for his own benefit. They nearly quit right then and there, but the mysterious voice wouldn't let them. They never quite figured out what the voice was, but a friend of their's named Lilith later speculated that it was a "night bird" or demon bird that had given them their powers.
As for Irv Heller, his fortunes looked up when Police Chief Dargo was caught up in a sex scandal and forced to resign. He never admitted it to his boys, but they both suspected their dad was behind it. The city of Elmond got a new police chief who was willing to turn a blind eye to Irv's misdeeds for the right price, and ol' Irv continued to play the role of an upstanding citizen.
Meanwhile, the Buzzard and the Pigeon established quite a reputation for themselves as the best bank robbers in the Midwest, until they ended up getting themselves arrested. They were always able to break out of juvie and later prison without too much trouble, but their criminal reputations forced Irv to again move on to another town and take up a new identity. The boys haven't seen their pop ever since then.
Back then Buzzard and Pigeon also joined up with a gang of other super-powered and costumed juvenile delinquents who called themselves the Teen Terrors, the self-proclaimed junior version of the Crime Syndicate back when that group was still stuck in Limbo. Besides Buzzard and Pigeon, their members included the witch Lady Lilith, her caveman boyfriend Garn, a water-breather called the Sea Prince, his girlfriend Sea-Chick, a shape-changer called the Human Zoo AKA the Menagerie, Spotter Mal with his magic whistle, and his girlfriend the flying Miss Hornet. That group broke up after a while, but while they were in stir with me, the Heller boys never shut up about eventually getting the gang back together, even though they weren't exactly teenagers anymore.
And that was their story.
|
|
|
Post by DocQuantum on Nov 20, 2022 21:07:37 GMT
I hope I haven't stepped on anyone's toes by introducing the counterparts of the Earth-3 Teen Titans. I figure they must have been a group that had existed but could be brought back again in the present (as the New Teen Terrors?) with some new members, such as Owlman's kid partner and others, such as an Earth-3 Vic Stone.
Also, it took me quite a while to figure out the dynamics of this origin story. I wanted it to be based on Hawk and Dove's origin story, but I couldn't figure out how to present their father until now in this world where the good are bad and the bad are good. I think I've managed to strike a nice balance in this Earth-3 retelling of the origin.
|
|
|
Post by starskyhutch76 on Nov 21, 2022 0:37:07 GMT
Very nice read. And I think I recognize the inspiration.
|
|