Chapter Text
There's something immensely satisfying about breaking a person's nose.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm hardly the type to go around breaking people's noses just for the hell of it. Hell, most of the time, I didn't even really consider it as an option. Sure there are a bunch of smarmy assholes and above-it-all 1-percenters out there who I dream of one day having an excuse to deck, but it'd be pretty stupid of me just to attack someone out of nowhere just because I didn't like them.
But, well, occasionally, you get a really good reason to, a reason that no sane person would have objections about. Like, say, when a group of armed thugs decides to try and rob the soup kitchen you're eating at.
"I mean seriously, who does that?" I finished my thought aloud, even as the moron I'd broken the nose of flew back and hit the wall. I took a second to shake my fist to get some of the blood off before I turned to the next one, who was running at me with a pipe and screaming at the top of his lungs.
"I mean, it's a soup kitchen, for crying out loud!" I continued, sidestepping his wild blow. "They don't make any goddamn money, you morons. What were you expecting, to just waltz in there and take all their bowls or something?" Rather than give Chucklefuck #2 time to answer, I snapped my leg up and planted it firmly in his solar plexus. His eyes bulged out under his ginger fringe as he fell back, and I made sure to step out the way before he heaved his lunch up.
Once I was sure he wasn't gonna get back up, I turned to the last of their little trio. Chucklefuck #3 was shaking a bit, holding up a tiny little switchblade in what he might have intended to be a threatening manner. Don't know why he was expecting that to work on me, considering that he'd seen me tank the three bullets Chucklefuck #1 tried to put in me when I'd first charged them. The spots he'd hit would probably bruise a bit, yeah, but they hadn't even slowed me down before I crashed into all three of them and sent us careening out into the alleyway.
... Reminder to self, apologize to Dolores for putting a wall in her soup kitchen's wall. For the third time this year.
"Well?" I asked Chucklefuck #3, crossing my arms. "Enlighten me. What exactly was your plan here?"
Credit where credit's due, he actually gathered the courage to sneer at me. "None of your business, freak!"
Oh. Oh, I did not like that. And Chucklefuck #3 could probably tell he'd fucked up even more from the way he nearly dropped the knife as a wave of pure heat slapped into him.
"Freak, hmm?" I growled out, moving my arms out before bringing my hands together and cracking my knuckles, even as I stalked over to him, stepping over the broken remains of the trio's single gun. I'll admit, I took no small amount of pleasure when, in response to the flames flickering into existence across my arms, a dark stain started to spread along the front of his pants and down one leg, the ammonia-stink of piss wafting across to me with it. "Well then, how about I show you just how freaky I can be?"
For what it was worth, the brave idiot didn't try to run. Though I guess that wouldn't have saved him.
A few hours later, I found myself lying down atop one of the many abandoned warehouses scattered across New York's many boroughs, contemplating the events of the day.
Once I'd finished beating the shit out of the Chucklefucks Three, I'd gotten with a few of the guys, regulars at Dolores' kitchen, to haul them out to a more populated area of NYC so that someone could pick them up, be it the cops, one of the crime families, or even an errant superhero - Jon Stewart was known to patrol here on occasion, though he was usually more commonly seen around Manhattan. Once that was done, I'd made my way back to Dolores' and promptly begged forgiveness. Thankfully she still had the old tarp from the last two times something like this had happened, so the hole was quckly covered to protect the patrons from the elements, and I'd gotten away with little more punishment than scrubbing the dishes for a few extra hours. Lucky Dolores was understanding of how hard it could be to control my powers sometimes.
... My thoughts began to drift, thinking about how much my life had changed in the last couple of years since I'd made my way back to New York. The smell of the city, polluted and dirty yet somehow comforting, was like an old friend. And smell, well, I'd learned over time you could tell a lot about a city from the way it smelled.
In Gotham, you barely needed the stench to tell how bad things were there. Maybe not as bad as they had been a few years ago, surely. Between the various welfare projects and the absolutely terrifying furry cosplayer running around, a lot of the street-level crime and minor gangs were practically non-existent now. But that just made more room for the bigger threats, the supervillains and syndicates, to move in the tighten their grip. No doubt about it, Gotham's rot was far to deep-set to remove in a few short years. I was glad I hadn't spent more than a year there before getting the hell outta dodge.
Metropolis, in contrast, seemed almost too good to be true at first. Shining vistas, perfectly swept streets, and a perfect cultural melting pot gave the city a shiny chrome finish, a perfect place to live. An image only reinforced by the presence of the Big Blue Boy Scout himself. Yeah, perfect... as long as you can afford it. Stay there for too long, and it becomes obvious why they were able to retain their picturesque image. The scum of society, the homeless, the criminal, and the overall downtrodden were pushed to the side more and more each year, as new policies and laws were implemented to make the center of the city utterly hostile to them. Most people, from the outside looking in, didn't see the places like the Suicide Slum. No, all they saw was the perfect city, just what they wanted to see.
Now, New York... it was different. Even after living here for years, it struck me as just how much it seemed to be the perfect blend of the other two cities I'd lived in. The poor and hopeless were here as they were everywhere, but while they weren't seen too much by the common people, they weren't hard to find either. There was crime and corruption, but enough security that everyone thinks that it couldn't happen to them, really. It was... honest, without holding pride in its rot.
"So, you just gonna mope around up here all night?"
I was shaken from my thoughts as a voiced pierced the air behind me. I sat up, turning to look at the speaker. An older black man, balding and missing an arm, grinned back at me.
"Oh, hey Al," I said. "Sorry, it's just... it's been a long day alright?"
"I'd say," Al chuckled. "I heard through the grape vine about what happened over the Dolores' kitchen. You scared some people, you know. Most people don't expect a pretty little thing like to to be shot, nevermind that it didn't even hurt you."
I barked up a laugh, leaping to my feet. "Who you calling little, old-timer?" To prove my point, I walked right up to where he was standing beside the door leading down into the warehouse proper. Al wasn't a small guy, by any means, but he came close to six foot when we was standing up straight. And when he straightened to match me was I came up to him, our eyes met at a perfect level - I was easily the same height as him.
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, Amazon," he chortled, his good arm pushing me a little as I grinned.
Al was a good guy. A vet who served in the army some years ago, who got honorably discharged after losing his arm to a landmine. Unfortunately, America's pretty shit at taking care of its vets, so he'd ended up on the streets after years of financial struggle. He tried to make the best of it, though, and helped the other homeless he'd ended up among. In particular, he's the one who'd help teach me how to read and write, among other things, all those years ago during my own first few years on the streets, before I'd ditched NYC for Metropolis and later Gotham, and was the sole familiar face when I got back just the year before.
"It's getting pretty late," he said, breaking me out of my reminiscence. "C'mon, Ash, let's head in for the night."
"Sounds like a plan."
It took me a while to get up the next morning. Not because I slept in, though I'll be the first to admit I do have a... slight problem with that sometimes. No, this time, it was because of the two little munchkins clinging to me when I woke up, like they were lizards and I was their hot rock.
Fred and Suzy were twins, pretty young ones, when they and their mother had been kicked out of their shitty little apartment. With their deadbeat dad long gone and no other prospects, they'd probably have been written off as a nameless statistic if not for Al. He'd formed a little community with the other homeless folk in a several-block radius over the past couple of years, where we all pooled together whatever meager resources we could to help us all get by. The first winter had apparently been pretty tough on everyone, with some of the older and sicker homeless losing their lives due to a lack of any proper heating. The twins' mother... she'd been among them.
Thankfully the next winter had been much easier, though it landed me with a bit of a reputation as the group's living bonfire in order to keep them all warm.
Eventually, the twins started stirring, which was my cue to push them off and get up myself. At 17, coming up on 18 pretty soon (or at least, near as any of us can figure. Hard to get a proper idea on a birthday when no actual record of you legally exists), I was one of the younger members of our little community, and definitely one of the most able-bodied. That meant that I generaly got asked to help a lot whenever someone needed it, but... I really couldn't complain.
Me, Al, the twins... Everyone here's had a pretty shitty life, one way or another. But we'd all come to lean on each other, rely on each other, even when the rest of the world spat in our faces. These guys were the closest thing I'd had to family since Atlas since I'd shown up in NYC the first time, and I'd do anything for them.
It was around noon when it happened.
Our daily goings-on were rudely interrupted by a screeching, squealing noise, one harsh enough that I wasn't the only one to throw my hands over my ears as it rang out. I turned to look at the front of the warehouse, where the large rolling steel door was opening, revealing... several metal boxes behind some guy?
He looked, to be entirely honest, like a college professor. A short college professor, at that. Green sweater vest, red bow tie, black pants, slightly balding red hair - nowhere near my own vibrant shade, being ginger rather than properly red, honestly - his expression was one of surprise as he saw us all gathered in here.
"Ugh, seriously?" he exclaimed. I could hear the exasperation in his voice. "This warehouse is supposed to be abandoned, not filled with squatters. I knew I should have scouted this place out first."
A ripple of confusion spread through the warehouse before Al stepped forward. "And just who are you?" he demanded, his voice ringing out clearly.
The weird man opened his mouth, like he was going to respond, closed it, then smirk. "You know, that's not really important. This is actually an excellent opportunity!" He clapped his hands together. "You see, I was going to take an experiment of mine for a bit of a... let's call it a test run today, and you would all be perfect to help with it!"
He snapped his fingers, and to my shock, monkeys - flying, robot monkeys - flew out from behind the pile of boxes, floating up to the largest one, an upright box taller than any of us here. They landed on either side of it and pulled some sort of hidden levers, causing the box to open with a mechanical hiss, jets of steam escaping from it.
Out of the box, a nightmare stepped. Easily seven feet tall, it was humanoid, with grayish skin flowing into green metal where its "pants" were. It was built thick and psuedo-muscular, and its head was adorned with pointed, elfin ears. Red, merciless light gleamed within its eye sockets as it coldly regarded us.
The moment I saw it, I began to move forward, dashing from the back of the warehouse up to where this... this asshole stood with his... creation, I guess? The second I had seen it, I'd had a feelingn a feeling that this man was about to unleash hell on all of us, just for being convinient targets. And that feeling was confirmed a mere second later.
"Now then!" the short man said, his jovial tone a contrast to the twisted grin on his face as he pointed at us. "Amazo... kill."