Central City, Selena’s Home, 8:07 AM.

August 3rd, 2010.

“And here I thought that the biggest news of the day was going to be the bridge incident that occurred with Superman and Superboy.” Cat Grant said urgently, “We’ve received reports of the Justice League appearing in force in Litchfield County; they are currently attempting to stop the rampage of an unknown man.”

Aiden watched the footage roll past; a shirtless man with pointed ears and short-cropped red hair was somehow fighting what looked like the entire Justice League at once; the strangest part was that the guy wasn’t immediately being destroyed. He realized who it was a moment later when the guy somehow went intangible and immediately started shooting red beams of light out of his eyes.

It was that Amazo robot dude; he’d forgotten what he had looked like.

Wasn’t there supposed to be flying monkeys involved in this or something? There were none currently in the shaky-cam footage, but they might turn up at some point. He remembered the younger team of heroes fighting the guy as well; where were they at?

“Ouch,” Aiden winced.

Superman just got punted through the base of a building, shattering most of the walls on his way through before Martian Manhunter caught him. They both had to scatter as another burst of heat vision cut through where they had just been standing, destroying the building further. The fighting kicked up a cloud of debris and smoke that blocked the rest of the fight from view before the footage cut off.

He was feeling excited just watching it; he couldn’t help but want to just fly straight over and join the battle. That same strange urge to fight was scratching at the back of his mind once more; was this how the Saiyans all felt? Was this why they seemingly took such strange actions, extending fights even when there was so much at stake? Allowing enemies to power up before fighting them? Healing the enemies to make the fight last longer?

The thought was terrifying; this strange urge might continue to grow to such an extent that he might struggle to control himself. Worse still, if the urge became so normalized, he didn’t even realize it influenced him anymore. Aiden forced himself to unclench his fists and tried to calm himself; he was still on the job for a few more days.

No risky actions until after he was finished.

Central City, Selena’s Home, 12:00 PM.

August 7th, 2010.

“Well, they’ve assured me at this point that I’m under constant watch for the foreseeable future,” Selena shrugged, “I’m just hoping that they are half as good at protecting me as you’ve been.”

Aiden just nodded; both the Justice League and the Police had been in contact with her multiple times over the last week about a more permanent solution, so his first legal bodyguard mission was finally coming to an end.

“Well, if you change your mind at any point, you have my work number,” Aiden said evenly, “I’m always down to come beat up some assassins if you need an assist-for the right price, of course.”

Selena laughed.

“Of course, a job well done needs compensation, after all, speaking of that, the full payment should have been transferred by now.” Selena smirked, “Bryna said that you were looking for clients when she met you the first time, so I’ll keep my ears open for anything to send your way; if you want, call it a bonus.”

Aiden smiled behind his mask.

“That sounds perfect, Selena,” Aiden said simply, “Stay safe, okay?”

“I will,” Selena nodded, “Goodbye, Bubbles.”

Star Labs, Philadelphia, 10:03 AM.

August 8th, 2010.

“Come in,” Emil said distractedly, “You missed our last appointment, you know?”

“Why can’t I feel your Ki?” Aiden said, frowning, “It’s completely gone; what did you do?”

Emil stilled for a long moment before turning to face him.

“I presume that means my masking device is working correctly then,” Emil said, seemingly pleased with himself.

What?

“You made something to hide your Ki?” Aiden said incredulously, “I’m the only person who can even sense it, as far as I know anyway. Why bother?”

It was weird being able to stare right at the man but not be able to feel him with what had become just another sense that ran quietly in the back of his mind. Emil set about setting up the scanning equipment while he sat on the edge of the bed.

How did he manage to figure out how to do that since his last visit? It hadn’t been that long; this guy was absurd. Emil sat down at his desk and tapped away at some keys for a moment before replying.

“I…was uncomfortable with the idea that you could track my location at all times,” Emil said carefully, “But it is no longer a problem, now-why did you miss our last appointment?”

Aiden let it go; he could understand the need for privacy, he would have done the same thing had he the intellect needed to create such a thing.

“I was working in another city, so I couldn’t make it, sorry,” Aiden said breezily.

Emil just made a slight disgruntled noise in response to his useless answer.

“The spread has increased significantly,” Emil murmured, “Much faster than early periods of the same duration-at least forty-percent faster; what have you been doing differently?”

Aiden tilted his head in thought.

“I’ve been attempting more internal uses of Ki, enhancing my muscles, splitting my energy, stuff like that,” Aiden answered easily. “It’s the first time I’ve been using it like this.”

“I see, then the most likely answer is that of internal vs. external usage.” Emil murmured, “The more often your body is exposed to larger or denser portions of Ki, the faster the spread becomes in response; Aiden, you said you are aware of what will happen once your entire body is exposed to these cells?”

“Yeah,” Aiden answered idly.

“Is it going to result in something dangerous?” Emil said, frowning, “Do you need to be quarantined?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Aiden said, surprised; he hadn’t realized he had given the man that impression. “I guess I should have just told you instead of messing around; it’s another transformation.”

Emil stared at him with narrow eyes.

“Another transformation like the enormous ape that you were using as an excuse to try and get me to cut off your tail?” Emil said waspishly.

“No, this one is very different,” Aiden laughed, suddenly hyperaware of his tail curled around his waist. “A simple hair color change and an increased amount of Ki.”

“A hair color-this is ludicrous,” Emil snorted, “These transformations have absolutely nothing to do with each other.”

“I didn’t make them okay?” Aiden defended, “Blame the guy that wrote-uh-experimented on me.”

Emil scoffed and fell silent once more.

“Hey, I managed to convince Tracy to start on that Gravity room idea,” Aiden said thoughtfully, “Think you can still handle the licensing and room situation for that?”

“Yes,” Emil said distractedly, “Tracy already called me; we’ve spoken about it already. I’ve located a warehouse near the river that should suffice.”

Damn, Emil was efficient, and Tracy worked fast.

“Thanks, Emil,” Aiden said honestly, “Think there will be anything interesting to learn about how my body performs under higher levels of gravity? Think we could make some kind of Ki measuring system?”

Emil turned to face him again, looking interested.

“Yes.” Emil asked bluntly, “I can put a basic scan system inside the room to attempt to measure the increase in Ki and keep track of the biometric growth-it will like take a while to design, however. You’ve been particularly secretive about these things in the past, are you changing your stance now?”

He’d known the guy for a while now, and he’d seemingly kept on the up and up. He hadn’t, as far as he knew, given his information to anyone; Emil had also handled all of the licensing for the gravity situation apparently before he had even gotten around to asking the man.

He was a total bro.

“Yeah,” Aiden said easily, “I’m pretty sure you're not going to sell me out by now, not to mention that you’ve done a lot to help me so far.”

Emil nodded firmly before turning back to his computer.

Apartment, Philadelphia, 9:53 PM.

August 8th, 2010.

“For those of you just tuning in-less than half an hour ago, the Miami Beach University was attacked by what eyewitnesses have described as some kind of grey fog-” The newscaster turned his head and spoke to someone away from the microphone for a few moments.

Aiden nodded to himself; that would be the Serling situation coming to a head; they had managed to stop it pretty easily, so he wasn’t worried.

“We are getting reports that a similar attack is being carried out on a business downtown-two almost simultaneous attacks, could this be countrywide? No information on which location in Philadelphia was-no wait,” The news Caster said urgently, “Star Labs has just collapsed, a strange grey fog was seen nearby, that’s all the information we have for now. Emergency services are on route as we speak-”

His mask was on his face, and he was halfway out the door in a moment. How could he have forgotten that? It hadn’t been random locations the fog attacked; it had been places with blueprints or technology the fog could steal the designs for the League of Shadows.

“Fuck.” Aiden said quietly, and the wind rushing past stole the word.

All of his medical data was housed in that facility, which meant that the League of Shadows now had information on him, some of which could be used against him, as the transformation during the full moon or the fact that his tail was his weak point.

He arrived at the ruins of Star Labs about the same time as whoever was inside the invisible ship hovering above the city, and he immediately caught up to it, before landing on the roof. He walked along the length of it until he was standing right in front of the two signatures at what he assumed was the front of the ship.

He crossed his arms and stared right at the invisible but smaller signature. They obviously discovered him because one of them got up and moved to the ship's roof before opening up a small section.

“Bubbles, what are you doing here?” Robin said seriously.

“I was going to ask you the same thing, Robin.” Aiden said bluntly, “I have a vested stake in the building below me that just got destroyed, so I’m really, really pissed off; where did that grey fog go?”

“You’re after it, too, huh?” Robin said, surprised, “We are scanning for its next location now, but it’s most likely still in the city.”

“I’ll be coming along, hope you don’t mind,” Aiden said flatly.

“Uh, sure,” Robin responded, “Come on, then, I can’t fly the ship from out here.”

Aiden followed him down into the hatch and touched down at the base of the ladder Robin had been climbing. Superboy was standing by the console staring at him with hard eyes.

“Superboy,” Aiden greeted as Robin sat back at the console.

“Who is he?” Superboy muttered darkly.

“Remember, I told you about that mission that went bad; that’s the bodyguard that KF tried to tackle.” Robin said distractedly, “Don’t worry about him, he liked that building, so he’s going to help us, stay cool.”

“Fill me in on the situation?” Aiden asked without care, staring out the window at the city.

“That fog is a swarm of nanobots, made by Serling Roquette-” Robin said idly.

“That’s the scientist that got kidnapped a while back?” Aiden asked simply, already knowing it was.

“Yes, she was forced to create it by the League of Shadows,” Robin continued, “They are stealing all the technology, data, and plans from all the companies they can get there greedy little bots into.”

“My own information was stored in that building,” Aiden said darkly, “So the League of Shadows has it now?”

Robin glanced over his shoulder at him for a moment and hesitated. Superboy hadn’t stopped staring at him since he’d gotten on the ship.

“Yeah,” Robin said simply.

The ship had started moving further towards the center of the city, and they remained in an uncomfortable silence during the flight, with just the tapping of keys to break the tension.

“The next target is a Wayne Tech Facility!” Robin said harshly, “We need to stop it before it manages to get into any of the systems there.”

Superboy finally looked away and down to his friend, as he opened the door on the back of the ship.

“There are people on the sidewalk and inside the building,” Superboy said, frowning.

“Wayne Tech runs a twenty-four-hour workforce; we will never be able to evacuate the building in time,” Robin said urgently. “But it shouldn’t matter, Serling is sending the virus now-”

“Don’t need it,” Superboy said before jumping out the back hanger of the ship.

Aiden followed him out immediately, angling down towards where he was falling. There was a black van there, a man with a red-eye in the middle of a full-face helmet and a large canister. The man noticed their approach and immediately blasted Superboy with some kind of eye laser, launching him back through the air.

“Hey, asshole!” Aiden called out, swerving to avoid the follow-up attack. “Give me back my shit!”

A grey cloud burst out of the end of the container simultaneously as he stomped on the back of the van, tore through the side of it, and grabbed the man by the face. The man shouted in panic, and his eye started to glow, so he stuck his finger through the glass and shattered the device before peeling it off.

The man stared at him in horror.

“Wheres my information?” Aiden demanded, lifting the guy up by his head.

“I’m not telling you anything!” The guy gritted out.

“Dickhead.” Aiden accused and tossed him out of the truck towards where Superboy was now standing watching them.

Superboy knocked the guy out without fuss and turned to him.

“Are you a Kryptonian?” Superboy asked quietly.

“Nah,” Aiden sighed, “I’m a ‘Saiyan’ technically, but I’m really just a human who got experimented on. What about you, kid?”

“Half-Kryptonian,” Superboy muttered.

The amount of Ki he could sense in the guy was almost exactly the same as everyone else he had met.

“Did you get all the powers?” Aiden asked curiously, “I noticed you didn’t fly away from that attack.”

“No, I didn’t.” Superboy gritted his teeth.

Aiden watched him for a moment; he could probably earn some goodwill with the guy if he taught him how to use his Ki to fly. It would take a while before he had built up enough of the energy to actually be able to do it, but he had a feeling he would be pretty motivated.

“If you ever want to learn how to fly like me,” Aiden said easily on a whim, floating off the ground. “Come find me, I’ll teach you; it’s something anyone can learn.”

Superboy’s eyes went wide at the comment, but Aiden was already halfway to the Wayne Tech building entrance. He touched down next to the hole in the doors and stepped inside before striding past the front desk.

“Hey! You can’t come in here!” The security guard said incredulously, “Who are you, people?”

“That first guy was Batman’s Sidekick; Robin. We are trying to stop that grey fog from killing everyone here, evacuate the building immediately,” Aiden said firmly and clapped his hands loudly when the guy didn’t move. “Get your ass in gear, man, if people die because you are too busy freaking out, then I’m going to be pissed.”

“Right!” The guy said before hitting an emergency button under his desk.

He left the guy behind, following the trail of destruction through the building; the machines had eaten holes through walls, windows, ceilings, desks, and everything else in between. Most of the lights had been destroyed along the way, either from cut cabling or the lights themselves having been eaten by the fog.

Robin was standing in front of a desk in a large room when he spotted him, and red goo was slowly sloping down from the ceiling.

“What the hell is that?” Aiden said, frowning, stepping away from it.

“The virus worked,” Robin said, sounding relieved, “The fog is neutralized.”

“Where is the information stored? In the canister?” Aiden asked, frowning.

“It’s already been sent out,” Robin sighed, “We were too late for Star Labs and Miami Beach University, but at least we stopped them from getting anything from Wayne Tech; that’s something, right?”

“Well, the League of Shadows just topped my shit list,” Aiden sighed, leaning against the counter. “Any idea where they are based? I might stop by and kick the crap out of them.”

“We don’t know yet,” Robin said evenly, “You know, I thought you were a villain, you helped The Blue Snowman rob several businesses.”

“Nope, that wasn’t me; I’m a bodyguard for hire,” Aiden affirmed immediately, “Don’t let Batman tell you any differently, or I’ll cry.”

Robin snorted.

“Hey, if you ever end up going after those guys, feel free to invite me along; I’ll help out pro bono,” Aiden said easily, pushing off the wall. “I’ve got a score to settle with them now.”

“I’ll keep you in mind,” Robin said, bemused.

Aiden tossed the kid a wave over his shoulder and left; Tonight was a complete failure on all fronts.