Philadelphia, 3:49 PM.

March 26th​, 2010.

The walk back to his hotel wasn’t a long one, maybe ten minutes at a leisurely pace. Aiden made sure to get out at least once a day; for the sake of his mental health, if nothing else, he already got plenty of exercise given his current routine, but being around other people certainly raised his mood.

There were quite a few people out already, which made perfect sense given it was a Friday, and most of the nine-to-fivers were getting close to finishing or leaving early. He had a phone appointment with Dinah again in about twenty minutes as well, which was an interesting kind of battle.

At first, Aiden had hated the forced therapy, mostly because it had felt like such a waste of time, he had initially learned nothing new about himself, and it only seemed like they were collecting information about him in order to build some kind of profile. Aiden had let go of his annoyance though and focused on the silver lining, every week he got to try and piss Black Canary off without the threat of being beaten up, and she couldn’t do anything about it.

It was hilarious.

He made sure to answer most of the questions, although he made sure that anything business-related stayed off the table completely, he didn’t care if they knew about his personal life, but he didn’t need any millionaires stealing his ideas before he’d even had a chance to enact any of them.

A series of gunshots went off from behind a tall building on his right, echoing down the alleyway one after another. Aiden turned towards the entrance, be he couldn’t see anything in the section that was visible, it was deeper in, couldn’t be more than twenty meters away given how loud it was. Now that he was focusing on it, he could hear the sounds of a struggle, and the rapid tap of feet skipping around.

Someone was fighting someone with a gun?

Aiden was almost certain he was bulletproof, and the continual testing of his durability gave him some confidence in being mostly knife proof, anything short of a superhuman he would be able to manhandle with ease, so he strode down the alleyway without fear. He needed to get used to doing things like this anyway, given his future career choice.

Aiden listened to the fight as it seemingly centered around the one place in the alleyway, only moving several meters away before seemingly heading back to the same spot. The gun went off again three times, and he heard it ricochet off the brick walls of the alleyway, but there were no pained noises, so he was assuming all three shots had missed somehow.

Aiden stepped around the corner.

Three people, two upright fightings with an absurd level of martial arts, looked like something out of an action film, but his enhanced reflexes were slowing it down enough that he could follow along easily. There was a third person lying face down on the ground, unmoving. The taller of the two, probably male, wore a full black costume, plus a black cape that fell around his thick boots, the skintight suit covered his face entirely, a white circle right on the face of it.

The woman that was fighting him was much shorter, in a very pale green skintight bodysuit, she had one of those silly little masks on that only cover the eyes and nothing else that some of the heroes wore.

The third woman, the one on the ground, was wearing a black and grey bodysuit, a black mask that left her mouth exposed, and a large amount of long white hair that stuck up in a massive cowlick.

Aiden didn’t recognize any of them, but it took barely a moment to determine who was the bad guy. The shorter woman was fighting to defend the woman on the ground, and the man in black was trying to shoot them both, but every time he tried to line up a shot, the shorter woman would disrupt his aim.

“Hey,” Aiden said evenly, “Need some help?”

The man in the black suit immediately slipped around to the other side and started to disengage away from them all. The pale green woman chased after him, probably to stop him from taking advantage of the sudden distance to shoot at the woman on the ground, and they disappeared around the corner.

“Look after her!” The shorter woman called out as she vanished.

Aiden approached the woman on the ground, she felt relatively strong and healthy in his Ki-sense, but she was apparently injured, he checked if she was breathing and found that she was. Her right arm was twisted beneath her at an awkward angle as if she had tried to use it to brace herself, and it had broken under the force.

He very carefully turned her over, making sure to keep her neck supported to avoid any accidents, before pulling out his phone. As he called an ambulance, he noted that there was a feather sticking out of her abdomen; Further, inspection showed it was some kind of dart-like thing with an empty glass canister.

“This looks like one of those tranquilizer darts from a movie,” Aiden said, amused. “Weird.”

The guy in black had obviously shot her with the dart and then tried to kill her, which was strange. He landed the first shot clearly, why didn’t he just gun her down if that was his plan? The leggings he had initially thought were grey in the low light were actually a very, very pale purple.

“Yeah, in the alleyway across from the music shop,” Aiden confirmed to the lady on the phone. “Should I be doing anything? She seems to be breathing perfectly fine, but her arms pretty messed up, blood around her nose as well.”

Aiden listened to the instructions, following the advice until he could hear the sirens in the distance.

“Nah, she's got a mask on, I’m not touching that with a ten-foot pole,” Aiden said, amused, “I don’t want some hero coming to beat me up in revenge.”

Aiden glanced up as he felt the pale green woman return, he knew it was her because her signature was the strangest thing he had ever felt, she was probably an alien or something given how different she felt from all of the others around. Wasn’t that strange given how many of them were apparently running around on this new world?

“Aiden Neve, yeah, thanks,” Aiden said easily. “I can hear the ambulance.”

Aiden ended the call as two men rounded the corner with a gurney, looking hesitant for a moment at the woman at the end of the alley.

“These two are heroes, the bad guy got away,” Aiden said easily, he was still wearing a suit so they must have deemed him as somewhat credible because they moved in after a moment. “I’ll leave her to you guys.”

The woman at the end of the alleyway watched them for a moment before turning away. Aiden immediately headed after her, wanting to ask some question, and he felt her jump up to what had to be the fire escape of a building in a single leap.

Aiden rounded the corner and looked up as she skipped over the edge of the roof.

“Hell no,” Aiden said, amused, “I’m not that easy.”

Everyone already knew he was an alien, so it wasn’t like he really needed to hide it. Aiden dashed up into the air and landed on the ledge of the same roof with a small burst of Ki. The pale green hero spun around almost before he had landed.

“You’re a metahuman?” She asked curiously.

“Something like that,” Aiden said easily, “I’m surprised you didn’t recognize me, I’ve been on the news quite a bit lately.”

The woman relaxed fractionally but made no move to approach him.

“Aiden, everyone thinks I'm an alien, but I'm just really handsome,” Aiden introduced, “What's your name, hero?”

“Enkidu,” Enkidu said, amused, “Humble, aren’t you?”

“I don’t want to hear that from a woman who calls themselves Enkidu,” Aiden laughed, “Try not to piss off any gods, yeah?”

“I’ll keep it in mind, but who knows what could happen?” Enkidu said easily. “Thanks for the distraction down there, that guy was a handful.”

“He got away?” Aiden guessed. “Who was he?”

He doubted she would have come back straight away if she had captured him, or at least brought him with her.

“Yes, unfortunately,” Enkidu admitted, “Onomatopoeia, a serial killer.”

Aiden couldn’t recall ever having heard of the villain, but then again, he hadn’t heard about Enkidu either.

“Who was the other woman that he was trying to kill?” Aiden asked curiously. “I didn’t recognize her either, honestly can’t at least one of you be famous? How am I supposed to brag about this if nobody even knows who you are?”

“Virago,” Enkidu laughed, “You can brag about helping her, I suppose, she’s been making waves recently.”

Somehow he had missed her in the news then, that was annoying, he would have to start adding an hour worth of hero/villain research to his daily routine. He didn’t want to run into some random villain who could kill him with a glance or something.

“How come I haven’t heard of you?” Aiden asked curiously, “Pretty memorable name.”

“I only started this year,” Enkidu said easily. “Why does everyone think you’re an alien?”

A new hero, that would be why then, he didn’t have an exhaustive knowledge of DC, he knew the big names and the interesting ones, but there were likely thousands here that hadn’t even been covered in any form of media.

“Don’t you watch the news?” Aiden said, bemused, “That spaceship that crashed into Lake Michigan, I was in it.”

“Oh, so everyone thinks you’re an alien because you came from space.” Enkidu said archly, “Where on earth did they get that idea?”

“Hilarious,” Aiden rolled his eyes, “I was abducted, experimented on, and now here I am, back on earth. What's your story? Metahuman? An experiment gone wrong? Power of an ancient god? Wizard? Witch? Tell me if I’m getting warmer.”

“All of them obviously,” Enkidu said, smirking, “I’m also the secret love child of Lex Luther and Superman, as well as an android created to destroy the Justice League and the chosen one who is destined to vanquish all evil from the world.”

“That’s a rough beginning, huh?” Aiden snickered, “Makes just being a fake alien pretty tame in comparison.”

“Sorry, not everyone's origin story is as cool as mine,” Enkidu said smugly, before tilting her head. “Why’d you chase me down anyway, are you planning on becoming a hero? Wanted some tips?”

“Absolutely,” Aiden said wryly, “Teach me to be a really cool hero who catches all of the villains just like you!”

“Dick,” Enkidu said, annoyed. “Think you could have done any better?”

Aiden would probably have gotten shot several times, but he could have bulled his way through it and pinned the guy, probably, but the other woman would have been shot during the process, though if he wasn’t fast enough.

“Probably not, I’ve never done something like this before,” Aiden said easily, “I wouldn’t have done any worse, though.”

“The safe answer, huh?” Enkidu said dryly, “Want to tag along with me next time I’m on patrol, get some experience?”

Aiden didn’t have any intention of being a hero, at least at the moment, but the experience would be invaluable, and he wouldn’t likely get this offer from anyone else easily.

“You know what?” Aiden said thoughtfully, “I think I will.”

“Huh,” Enkidu said slowly, “Nobody ever accepts in the movies.”

“This isn’t a movie, dumbass.” Aiden said smugly, “When and where?”

Philadelphia, 4:04 PM.

April 2nd​, 2010.

“I already told you why I missed it,” Aiden said dryly, “Mandatory doesn’t mean you couldn’t have rescheduled it for the next day, you chose not to follow up after I failed to answer a single phone call.”

“I am aware, I am simply reiterating the importance of these meetings,” Dinah said curtly.

“No, you’re simply repeating the same thing hoping for a concession that I am not going to give you,” Aiden said idly.

“Very well,” Dinah said, annoyed. “You were involved in an incident with metahumans, explain it to me.”

“Didn’t you read the report over Batman's shoulder?” Aiden said, amused but answered anyway. “A guy called, uh, Onomonopeter or something, ambushed a hero called Virago, shes new apparently, and another hero called Enkidu chased him off before he could kill her.”

“How did you become involved?” Dinah said seriously.

“I heard the gunshots and decided to see what was going down,” Aiden said easily.

“Why would you go towards gunfire?” Dinah said immediately.

“Well, obviously someone was being shot at,” Aiden said obnoxiously. “I wanted to see if anybody needed help.”

“You weren’t worried about being shot?” Dinah asked calmly.

Aiden almost sighed the same thing as every other time, questions designed to fish out anything revealing about him. They knew about his ‘super strength’ because of the incident with Diana, and despite Emil’s assurance that none of his medical data would be shown to anybody, he was almost positive they had the results of his scans.

“Nah,” Aiden said casually.

There was a long pause as he brushed the entire question off, locking her out of gaining any knowledge without pressuring him again, but surprisingly this time, she bulled ahead anyway.

“You weren’t worried about being shot, interesting,” Dinah said sharply, “Is it because you are immune to bullets, or something else? Perhaps an ability to evacuate an area in a hurry?”

They had seen him flying at some point, obviously, either when he followed Enkidu up onto the roof, or it was confirmation that they had bugged his old apartment.

“You’re a bit more energetic today,” Aiden said curiously, “Someone asks you to apply some more pressure than usual?”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Dinah said evenly, “Avoiding such a simple question could be an indication that I’m on the right track.”

“I could have sworn I agreed to therapy sessions, not another interrogation.” Aiden laughed, “Besides, I thought that was Diana’s gig?”

“Even metahumans aren’t comfortable with the idea of being shot at if they do not have a way to survive the experience,” Dinah brushed past his attempt to derail her, “You have shown a complete lack of worry towards the idea, it’s a pretty safe assumption to make.”

“If you say so, Big D,” Aiden said idly.

Philadelphia, 2:58 PM.

April 16th​, 2010.

“Busy month, huh?” Aiden said good-naturedly, “How are you holding up?”

“Busy is understating it,” Tracy said tiredly, “The upside is that it's all behind me now, I can start playing catchup on your commission.”

“I don’t mind pushing it back another week if you need some time to get yourself back together,” Aiden said easily.

“Absolutely not,” Tracy denied, “When your next appointment with Emil?”

“Four days from now,” Aiden said easily.

“Oh,” Tracy deflated, “The next one?”

“Uh, twentieth of next month again, probably,” Aiden said curiously.

“I’ll definitely have it finished by then,” Tracy said firmly.

“Sounds good to me,” Aiden laughed.

Philadelphia, 10:04 AM.

April 20th​, 2010.

“So was there a change between the first scan and the second?” Aiden asked curiously after pleasantries had been addressed.

“There most definitely was,” Emil said evenly, “The mutated cells have increased in quantity, some other clusters are appearing as well, but they are far more scattered than those two points.”

“Any idea what they do?” Aiden asked curiously, they were probably the S-cells. “Do we need to do the test for space cancer?”

“What a ridiculous notion, there is no such thing,” Emil snorted, “Without being able to observe a sample, I couldn’t tell you exactly what they are doing.”

“Fine,” Aiden huffed, “I’ll let you take your damn sample, but I swear Emil-”

“I will not break patient confidentiality,” Emil said immediately, “Not even for the Justice League, you need not fear.”

“Have you met them?” Aiden said dryly, “They have mind readers and guys who can see through walls, hell I haven’t even given you the sample yet, but I’m pretty sure Batman somehow already has it.”

“I understand your concern completely, but I assure you they are not nearly as omniscient as you seem to believe,” Emil laughed, he actually laughed. “Rest assured, I will endeavor to make sure it is kept out of their hands.” Philadelphia, 4:17 PM.

April 23rd​, 2010.

“I don’t know where you are based, but did you see that report on that snowman guy who’s going around robbing places?” Aiden said, laughing, “Villians are ridiculous, somehow smart enough to make a power suit, and they use it to steal from a pawn shop.”

It was ludicrous, why not just sell the damn power suit? The guy could be sitting on enough money to make a dozen of them afterward, what did he get at a pawn shop? A couple hundred at most?

“I saw a mention of it,” Dinah said idly, “But I’m not seeing your point.”

“Why don’t you get one of your rich buddies to hire all these crazy scientists?” Aiden spelled it out for her, “Set them up with all the equipment they need, give them a ton of recognition in the media to feed their egos, but have them pumping out useful things, like green energy, or fixing global warming, that has to be a better idea then just beating them up every couple of weeks surely?”

“I couldn’t tell you the motivations of superheroes,” Dinah said stoically, “I do not interact with them directly, I am simply a therapist on contract.”

Aiden rolled his eyes.

“Fine, what were you saying before we got off track?” Aiden huffed.

Philadelphia, 2:37 PM.

April 30th​, 2010.

“I’m just painting it, but it's completely functional,” Tracy said, sounding pleased with herself. “Most of the work was just trying to reverse the effect.”

“You’re amazing, Tracy,” Aiden said genuinely, “How much did you manage to increase the force of it?”

Aiden could almost hear her preening at the attention.

“It's able to increase local gravity on the wearer by five times,” Tracy said easily, “That’s all you’re getting out of the power sources I have available anyway.”

“That’s pretty incredible,” Aiden said honestly, “When I’ve outgrown it, I’ll have to commission you to make something stronger.”

“Like that room, you were talking about?” Tracy asked curiously, “It would be pretty expensive, and you would need somewhere to store it while it's being built, and afterward.”

“I didn’t think it would be cheap,” Aiden said honestly, “Think you could make something like that, given enough funds?”

“Unlimited funds?” Tracy said cheekily, “Easily.”

“I’ll make sure to call you up once I shave my head and change my name to Luthor then,” Aiden said dryly.

Tracy laughed.