Aiden’s Apartment, Boston, 12:02 PM.

October 7th, 2010.

“Busy week, huh?” Aiden said, amused, stepping out of the way of the door. “You look like death warmed over; what happened-got into a fight with a blender?”

Dinah Lance stepped inside at his unspoken invitation, looking tired and with noticeable cuts on her forearms and neck.

“I did some gardening this week. I guess I should have worn thicker gloves, but you’re not looking much better if we’re honest,” Dinah said wryly. “You can take quite the beating, going by the footage I’ve seen, but I’m still surprised you’re up and walking around, bandages or not.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong; his arms were completely wrapped in bandages, his left arm was in a hard cast to keep him from moving it too much. He was also ‘sunburned’ to a massive degree, although much less so than the original burns he’d had after his prototype burning attack. He’d seen the shaky-cam footage of his ass getting kicked, and goddammit, he’d gone from looking awesome to pancake in about ten seconds flat.

Whoever had taken that video deserved a boot to the ass.

“Well, I have no idea what you’re referring to by ‘footage,’” Aiden said easily, directing her to take a seat at the counter. “I fell asleep in a tanning bed, panicked when I woke up before I fell out and broke my hand-happens to everyone honestly.”

Dinah laughed at the absurd excuse that neither of them believed, but he was intent on keeping up the facade.

“Uhuh.” Dinah hummed, “Well, thank you for dealing with the threat of the tanning-bed; there would have been a lot more damage if you hadn’t been there.”

Aiden just nodded but didn’t make any other motion of confirmation.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t come here to scream at me; that would have been awkward,” Aiden said, amused. “I might have even cried.”

He got a deadpanned look for the terrible joke, but he couldn’t help but grin.

“Hilarious,” Dinah said dryly, “I see you’re friend isn’t here today; perhaps we should get our meeting started then; How are you doing, Aiden?”

Well, she hadn’t brought up a single thing about Klarion or Fate, so his trust in Conner seemed to be well placed.

The small talk had been fun while it lasted; time for business.

Aiden’s Apartment, Boston, 6:33 PM.

October 9th, 2010.

He hadn’t heard from Enkidu since the plant fiasco had ended, so it was a surprise when he suddenly received a text message from her.

“Tomorrow,” Aiden said quietly, reading the latest message.

He wasn’t stupid; she was obviously trying to tell him something. Each line was completely unhinged, or rather disconnected from the others; it was almost like she had been talking to somebody else entirely. He certainly didn’t smoke, and there was no reason why she would think he did, so it was a carefully chosen word.

The subjects of each line were pretty clear; Red, Windy, Burned, Drowning, Blow My Top, Smoking, and she used Tomorrow twice.

The first thing he thought of was Red Tornado, but hadn’t that stuff already happened? And why would Enkidu know anything about that anyway? Burned and Drowning most likely referred to those other robots that had attacked the mountain at some point? So what were the other lines referring to? Smoking and blow my top sounded almost like a-

Wait a fucking minute.

There was another one of those robots that appeared at some point, the god damned earth-bending volcano dude; He’d forgotten about him entirely and assumed all of that arc had already happened after that twister dude had shown up and gotten destroyed by Conner and friends.

Aiden hadn’t heard anything about a volcano erupting, which meant that it actually hadn’t happened yet. So somehow, Enkidu knew that the Red Robo-gang was going to attack tomorrow? In an attempt to wipe the world out with that supervolcano or something!

Aiden gritted his teeth and tried to focus.

Mister twister, that had been the wind robot from the start of the series, with the fake machine-man inside that Miss Martian had squished. Red Tornado was the hero that worked in the Justice League and looked after the mountain in Happy Harbor or something.

Red…Flamer? Red Fire-Red Inferno! Was that the fire robot that had the woman’s voice? The other one used water to attack, right? Red Tsunami or something water-related?

Those two had attacked the younger team of heroes and were eventually defeated..in the mountain?

They were helping the volcano android or destroy the world or something? Who had they all be working for again, or rather who had built them? It was some guy with a white suit, whose name completely escaped him, he made all the robots with the help of that guy that piloted Mister Twister?

He ended up getting killed somewhere along the way or something.

Fuck.

Aiden’s Apartment, Boston, 9:42 PM.

October 9th, 2010.

“I told Batman about Klarion,” Conner said curtly as soon as he answered.

Aiden blinked at the tone for a moment before shaking his head.

“Good work, but we’ve suddenly got a much bigger problem,” Aiden said clearly, “Tomorrow somethings going to go down with a volcano exploding; I have no idea where it is, you can probably get that magic wizard girl on your team to help, but the ones that set it off are a group of three robots-”

“How do you know this?” Conner said, frustrated, “Are you working with Red Tornado?”

Working with Red Tornado? Why did he make it sound like working with a hero was a bad thing?

“What? Well, no-I’m not even a hero, you know that, Conner.” Aiden said, frowning. “It doesn’t matter anyway; look, the point is that the water and fire ones will probably be attacking soon-”

“Aiden, they already attacked us last month,” Conner said darkly.

Aiden tried to parse that bit of information completely without success.

“What the hell? Did the volcano explode as well? I didn’t see it on the news?” Aiden said, honestly shocked.

“I don’t know anything about a volcano,” Conner said firmly.

Aiden wracked his brain for an answer to the situation.

If the two androids, Red Inferno and Red Water-guy had already attacked a month ago, but the volcano hadn’t exploded yet, had they not gone after him yet for some reason?

“Conner, where is Red Tornado?” Aiden tried.

Did they manage to beat the robots somehow before they could do it? Red Tornado might know what was going on.

“Nobody knows,” Conner said angrily. “He attacked us after we finally beat those other robots.”

Red Tornado attacked them? What-

“Oh,” Aiden said in understanding.

That’s what he had been missing; they captured Red Tornado! Turned him to their side somehow, and then they later went after him in revenge? Then the volcano stuff happened at a different point in the series!

“Okay, I know what’s going on now.” Aiden said firmly, “Conner, tomorrow, they are going to blow up a volcano in an attempt to destroy the world and kill everybody on the planet; you guys need to get on that immediately, sooner, the better.”

“Where?” Conner said hesitantly, after another long moment.

“I can’t remember the name-but it’s in America somewhere; get Robin to search for volcano’s that could do damage on that level with help from a super-powerful geokinetic android,” Aiden suggested, “Or tell Batman about it; actually, you should probably get them on it anyway better safe then extinct, right?”

“Fine-” Conner snapped before sighing. “Thanks.”

Not the most grateful thank you he had ever received, but the kid was clearly under some stress.

“If you want some help, send me a message,” Aiden offered to try and soften the exchange. “Good luck Conner.”

Aiden’s Apartment, Boston, 11:13 PM.

October 11th, 2010.

The result of him giving an early warning to Conner had ended up being entirely invisible.

The volcano had still entered a very tenuous state in which it was in the process of exploding, the massive ash cloud had still appeared, and the heroes had still managed to avoid everyone dying.

There had already been news reports on the situation flooding every station, a police investigation into the culprit had revealed some key information to the public about the villain responsible, and there were even several things recovered from the secret base under Yellowstone Park.

According to the news reports, the man who’d been reported by the heroes to be behind the plot was one Thomas Morrow, or T. O. Morrow-a villain’s name if he’d ever heard one.

A bit of further investigation revealed that the man was somehow almost a hundred years old.

The pictures that had surfaced of the man’s mechanical body had shown that he was one of the super-realistic fake humans, like the pilot Bromwell Stikk had been. The real man had been bedridden and in a coma for years.

He had somehow created a perfect copy of himself in machine form. That very machine had been designing things like the replica of Bromwell, Mister Twister, and Red Volcano-a much more advanced android than Morrow had even managed in his original body.

The systems inside the recovered body were reported as completely indistinguishable from humans, even while under intense scrutiny, some kind of visual and scanning interference that reported them as completely normal.

A man that was capable of completely creating a human-level intelligent robot capable of defeating advanced scanning systems, who’d had decades to accomplish whatever he wanted while staying hidden-Aiden was about two million percent certain that the old man lying in a bed in Belle Reve Penitentiary was about as real as the one in Yellowstone had been.

Thomas Morrow, from the very little Aiden, actually remembered, had been defeated pretty early in the series and had nothing to do with the larger shadow organization, or at least he thought so.

So the question that was burning inside him now was; how on earth could Enkidu have known about anything to do with this situation in the first place?

Thomas Morrow had worked with Bromwell, and that was it, so unless she was in contact with him, how could she have found out about the volcano days before he revealed his plan-especially when it was in such a hidden location?

“Well, I know one way to find out,” Aiden said quietly.

He opened his phone and carefully crafted a message, making sure to really load it up before hitting send. There was a period of almost twenty minutes before he finally got a reply, but the wait did nothing to dampen the chill that ran down his spine.

Aiden’s Apartment, Boston, 8:13 AM.

October 12th, 2010.

“That’s stretching the line of ‘bodyguard,’” Aiden said dryly, “Who exactly are you going after this time?”

Enkidu had called him the next day and made absolutely no reference to the hypothetical he had sent to her last night, so he did the same.

“A villain, Doctor Thaddeus Sivana,” Enkidu said easily.

A villain? The name wasn’t familiar to him, but if he had ‘Doctor’ in his name, he must have been one of the crazy scientist-types.

“Why are you going after him in the first place-better yet, why do you need me at all?” Aiden said curiously, “I’ve fought you; I think you can handle yourself.”

“He has a heavy hitter on his side,” Enkidu said seriously, “I don’t know who it is, but they found me when I was doing reconnaissance.”

“So, you want me to what?” Aiden guessed, “Keep this mysterious person off of you?”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking,” Enkidu said cheekily, “I need you to body-block them while I take Sivana down, the Doctor Is a pretty big name, so this should do wonders for your reputation.”

Aiden could tell that she was hitting him in the weak spots, but a boost in reputation would help him draw in more clients.

“How strong is this person?” Aiden said hesitantly, unable to help himself.

The idea of a nice fight was already sending a thrill up his spine.

“Stronger than me physically, faster too.” Enkidu said honestly, “I was more skilled by far, but I couldn’t even do any damage to them when I did land hits; it felt like fighting you in a way-they had much better technique, though—you kind of suck.”

Aiden huffed at the jab; despite what she said, he was getting better with every single fight he had with Conner, and the tutelage of Diana was probably the main factor in his increasing skill.

“How did you get away?” Aiden asked curiously.

“I set off a fire in the building, and they broke off to deal with it before it could destroy the building.” Enkidu admitted carefully, “I pretty much fled; I was getting my ass kicked.”

That alone tilted him all the way into accepting the job. A potential battle with somebody who was stronger than Enkidu but less skilled? That sounded like someone he could have an equal match against.

“How much are you paying me?” Aiden sighed, caving in. “You better make it worth my while.”

He could almost hear her smile as he agreed to take the job, and he raised an eye at the price she offered.

“Is this a funded venture?” Aiden asked curiously, “Or do you just really hate this Savana guy? That’s not exactly a small chunk of change.”

There was a moment where Enkidu paused to choose her words more carefully.

“Doctor Sivana has been one of my long term objectives for a while,” Enkidu admitted cagily, “I only recently figured out where he was hiding.”

It didn’t really answer his question, but he wasn’t sure it would matter too much in this case. The guy was known publically as a villain and had presumably committed multiple crimes, he would have to look into him a bit to make sure that was the case, but you could find a lot of stuff online about these villains.

“Alright, when, where, and how are we doing this?” Aiden prompted, “Give me the deets, bae.”

She left him hanging for just long enough for him to huff out a complaint before she spoke up.

“Total cringe—” Enkidu snickered. “Alright, this is what we’re going to do.”

Aiden felt like pouting.

Fawcett City, 3:13 PM.

October 13th, 2010.

Fawcett City was pretty lively, even during the day.

Aiden didn’t stand out too much, wearing his business suit and walking towards the café he was supposed to meet Sarah at. Apparently, they were supposed to be meeting before moving to Doctor Sivana’s current location. The villain had moved locations several times after the assault on his previous base. However, Sarah had indicated that she had managed to tag several of the man’s vehicles in advance just in case.

He noticed her almost immediately, looking the same as she had last time he saw her unmasked-without her costume on, her appearance was that of someone completely normal. It was almost jarring how much she seemed to fit in, sitting at a table drinking her beverage of choice.

After stepping through the door, he approached the counter and ordered his own before moving to sit across from her.

“There are two cars currently in the city, ones on the east side of the city-in transit-the other is about ten blocks north-west, parked in an underground car park,” Sarah said, smiling, before taking a sip of her drink.

“Plans never survive contact with the enemy, huh?” Aiden said idly, “Are we splitting up?”

“No, we can stick with the plan, slightly modified.” Sarah said easily, “If I get caught out by the bodyguard, there’s no base I can set on fire this time.”

Aiden just nodded in agreement.

“We can go after the closest one first, investigate the building, see if we can’t find Sivana.” Sarah outlined, “If he’s not in the building, or nearby we can go after the other one.”

“Are you sure he’s still here at all?” Aiden asked curiously. “What if he took a plane trip somewhere else?”

“I have surveillance footage of him entering the city in one of the cars,” Sarah admitted, “There was a shell-game play along the way, so exactly which of the two cars he left in is now unknown-but he is absolutely in one of them-or was at least.”

“Alright,” Aiden said evenly, “What’s the slightly modified part of the plan?”

Sarah finished the last of her drink, and with his improved sense of smell, he could tell it was hot chocolate.

“I was originally counting on sneaking into his building while you provided the distraction, but the fact that he’s moved locations—to a populated area as well—makes this much more difficult,” Sarah said, frowning. “His guard is now up, we don’t know the layout of the buildings, and he has had time to prepare for us.”

Aiden nodded, thinking about all of it.

“Instead of you just busting in and drawing all of the attention, we will be attempting to hit them with a blitzkrieg,” Sarah said carefully, studying his face for signs of discontent. “As soon as we locate him, I will snatch him and run. You’ll need to hold the bodyguard off long enough for me to get away, and I’ll send you a signal as soon as I’m out of range.”

It seemed solid enough for him, his own flying travel speed would allow him to get away afterward without much difficulty, but Sarah would need to travel by foot.

“How long do you think you’ll need to get out of range?” Aiden wondered.

“Ten minutes, max,” Sarah said quietly.

“What do I get when I beat them in five?” Aiden said, grinning.

Sarah let out a startled laugh at the brag.

“You’re definitely underestimating our mystery fighter,” Sarah said, amused, “But maybe I’ll let you take me out for dinner.”

He raised an eyebrow at her archly.

“I thought I was going to get a reward,” Aiden smirked. “But instead, I get a punishment, figures.”

“Hey!” Sarah squawked indignantly.