The Impossibles Pt. 01

"Look honey!" the auburn haired, sun-kissed woman said as she stood directly between Bryant and the centerpiece of the Museum of Super History. On the one hand, Bryant had been waiting in line to see the Omni-Spark for at least thirty minutes. On the other hand, this whole field trip was still time spent at somewhere marginally more interesting than math class. On the third hand - which his best friend L'oquan happened to have... there were worse things than looking at a redheaded MILF.

"What is it, Mom?" the redhead's daughter asked, bouncing and trying to peer around the gauzy screen that kept most people save those standing directly in the observer's plinth from seeing the Omni-Spark bounced and tried to crane her head around. Her father, going prematurely gray, picked her up with a grunt, holding her so she could see.

"That's what the nice men from the government dragged off our farm, Amy, when you were real small, just a baby."

"Whoa..."

L'oquan, whose species had three arms, two hearts, and had been refugees on Earth since the 1960s, was a bit less willing to be patient than Bryant. "Lady, some of us want to see the fancy glowy orb too."

"Dude!" Bryant hissed.

"What, we've been waiting in line for thirty minuets," L'oquan whispered back.

The woman turned back to shoot them a glower that could have shriveled them to ash in a metaphorical sense - you had to be careful with that kind of metaphor in a world with people like Lady Luck and Baron Beast. Or Krazy Klown. But despite her glower, the woman was chivied away by her daughter saying: "I want ice cream!"

And so, perforce, her parents took her off to get ice cream and Bryant and L'oquan were able to step up to the viewing platform. The gauzy shield that separated Bryant from 0.5% of all the observable energy in the universe seemed pathetically thin - and yet, there was the Omni-Spark, humming and buzzing and throbbing and pulsating. L'oquan read off the placard next to it. "After crashing in a Kansas farm, the Omni-Spark was isolated and studied by the United Nations and has served as the basis for all modern energy and technological progress." He shook his head. "And now it's a museum piece."

"Well, based on what Dad says," Bryant said, his voice pitched low. "No one can actually tap the Spark for actual energy. If we could, it'd be in a reactor. But by studying how the dark energy interacts with observable matter, we built a bunch of amazing things. But we've built all the things, figured out all the basic math. Now it's just a big... glowy hood ornament."

"I mean, that just seems wrong, it's more energy than a hundred big bangs!" L'oquan whispered.

"Uh, no, it's half a percent of-" Bryant started.

"Not the beginning of the universe, the time my homeworld exploded. Dude."

"... oh..." Bryant's face colored.

L'oquan laughed. "Hah! Dude, my homeworld is Earth, I was born here. You fuckin' nerd." He punched Bryant's shoulder with his chest arm, while leaning forward to look in at the Omni-Spark. Then, cheerfully, L'oquan added. "I am shocked more super-villains don't try and steal it, though."

Bryant sighed, stepped away from the case, then started to look around for a shelter. Several other people in the line were already starting to step out of it hurriedly. L'oquan looked around - then his triangular face and three eyes all fell at once.

"Ah cra-"

The windows to the museum exploded. Glass shards fell and tinkled around the guests, while the big statue of the 1990s lineup of Shield Squad were sent wobbling and crashing over. In a particularly ironic moment, the head of Legacy managed to land directly on the diorama of Hitler's last stand at Atlantis, and crush the wax figure of the cybernetically augmented Fuhrer. Bryant grabbed L'oquan, but the crush of people meant they were both only able to get a few feet away from the display area when the first of the goons came swinging in.

They were primarily made up of pretty tough looking customers with normal guns - save that they had been forced to dress in pretty remarkable fursuits, with a wide range of predators. Wolves, lions, a few jackals. They landed on the ground and managed to bring their guns to bear on the crowd despite wearing large foam and cloth paws - though, by Bryant's terrified quick glance, he was pretty sure a quarter of them were looking totally mortified. The clack and rattle of their weapons getting readied - ominous clicks of metal on metal - was enough to freeze the whole crowd in their tracks.

"Everyone, freeze!" one man shouted.

Bryant gulped and lifted his hands. L'oquan did the same.

"Check the alien, is he a super?" A lion headed merc said, stomping forward.

"That's speciest!" L'oquan said. "Only purple Triellians have superpowers, I'm a green Triellian."

"Yeah, and no one's ever heard of body paint before," a wolf said, as he walked over to push L'oquan to his knees, pressing his gun barrel against the side of his head. "Anyone got a scanner?"

"I do!" A hyena said, jogging over.

"We gotta work quick, secure this place before the Impossibles show up," Lion Head said, his voice grim as he gestured several of his fellow animal themed goons forward. They started to sling rucksacks off their shoulders, tossing them to the floor and opening them up to reveal tools required for any proper robbery these days: Point to point transport emitters, laser cutters, transport emission buffers, power cells, fusion batteries. Bryant, who recognized most of it from shop class, shot L'oquan a dirty look as the scanner that Hyena Head was holding chirruped, blatted, and bleeped.

"He's two third green Triellian, one third purple," Hyena Head said.

"Ah, don't shoot him then," Lion Head said.

"Yeah, I doubt Baron Beast is going to give you raises for killing an eighteen year old," Bryant said, glaring at Lion Head.

"You got some lip," Lion Head said, frowning down at Bryant. "Let me guess, you read all the comic books. Well, in a real super sitch, you are a greasy stain on the floor if you don't shut the fuck up and do what we say." He glared down at him. "Baron Beast doesn't give a shit if some twerp kid gets merked."

Trumpeting fanfare blared from the windows.

"Ah shit," Lion Head muttered.

Fluttering eagles and hawks came in through the windows, carrying in their claws long trailing red banners, which were marked with... okay, Bryant had only gotten a C+ on his civics course, but he was fifty percent sure those were the flags of the Wyld Court, the fae country that existed/didn't exist in Yellowstone National Park and technically laid claim to most of California, Wyoming, Utah, and Montana. The trumpets were played by baboons that leaped through the windows after, and the triumphal march ended with a flourish as a sleek, black furred male lion sprang through.

The difference between a lion fur-suit and the actual, factual Baron Beast was quite remarkable. There was no falsehood, no separation between fur and flesh, between the sleek humanoid form and the swishing tail, the paws, the claws, the beady black eyes. Also, comic artists had lied to Bryant - they had never, once, painted Beast's massive, pendulous ball-sack or his sheath. The completely naked would be king and dictator of the Wyld Court spread his arms wide, wearing nothing but a golden circlet and a crimson cape with golden clasp around his throat.

"My people!" he said, cheerfully. "Never fear, your rightful ruler is here to claim his prize."

"Can you please put on pants!?"

It was the redheaded MILF from earlier, her hand clasped over her daughter's eyes, cowering in the corner near the concessions stand.

"Your petty human morals do not apply to the Baron of the Wyld!" Baron Beast said, dramatically, flicking one hand. "Now, my humble soldiers, my men at arms, how goes the capture of the betrothal gift."

"It'd go faster, sir, if you let us work!" Wolf Head said, the laser cutter buzzing as he sawed through the restraints at the base of the Omni-Spark's housing. Bryant frowned, looking for some way he could possibly delay things.

Wait.

He knew one way.

"Betrothal gift?" he asked, jerking his head up. "Are you still trying to marry Mrs. Impossible? Lady Luck?"

The Baron turned to face him. This did mean that Bryant, kneeling as he was, was now on a direct eyeline to the baron's leonine balls, but he supposed it was a sacrifice that he was willing to make.

"And who is this human being? This... this... sproutling!" The Baron said, tucking one paw under his chin in the most camp gesture that Bryant had ever seen on a man whose driving goal had been to marry a woman.

"Bryant DeWitt, high school student, A+ in my Supers class." Bryant said. Which was not quite true, he had gotten a B+, because the final test of his final senior year had involved a ton of stupid trick questions involving dead superheroes who had come back to life and sorting when and how and where they had all shuffled and then deshuffled the mortal coil was hard, even for experts. But that was because Mr. Yelarin had really believed that 'we're preparing you for college' line that every teacher in senior year gave.

"Ah, well, my virginal, pimpled lout, I will have you know that I am not trying to marry Mrs. Impossible. I am going to marry her. And that will knock my pathetic half-brother off the throne of the Wyld Court, and make me King of the Forest! Ahahah!" He laughed, flicking his hand.

"How?" L'oquan asked, looking at Bryant. "Mr. Impossible is the King of the Forest, like, Lady Luck isn't in the Fae court, she got her superpowers when she hit a leprechaun with her SUV."

"That's... not the..." Bryant flushed. L'oquan loved teasing him about having a crush on Lady Luck. It wasn't that he had a crush on Lady Luck. It was that he was male and lived in Century City. If L'oquan found human women attractive, he would have gotten it too.

"Well... you see... the..." Baron Beast spluttered, his tail swishing. "The under... the... the Fae Court never adopted Salic descent... of... shut up!"

"No, no, keep going, this is really funny."

Bryant jerked his head around so hard that he almost gave himself whiplash.

Standing in the entrance of the museum was Lady Luck. She was just as gorgeous in person as she was on the TV shows and in the comic books - even the off model ones that refused to draw her with her actual bust size. She was dressed in her skintight spandex outfit of white and red, with her crimson cape fluttering behind her, her domino mask letting her wild mane of bright blond hair spill along her shoulders like a waterfall of gold. She was also checking her handheld, frowning as she tapped at the holographic interface with one thumb.

"Lady Luck!" Baron Beast actually slicked his paw along his mane, trying to get it to floof more impressively. "I see you've come to speak to me without your... husband... how inappropriate."

"He's putting out a fire downtown, takes a surprising amount of elephants for that," Lady Luck said, cheerfully. She flicked her handheld shut with a click, then slid it into... a... Bryant was honestly not sure. There was no way she had a pocket on that uniform. He could swear he could see her belly button. Then she blinked, her eyes widening behind her domino mask. "God, Baron! Remember what we said at the last rehab session! Pants! You have to wear pants." She smacked a gloved palm against her knuckles to emphasize each word.

The Baron sniffed. "And deprive you of the glory of my beauty?" he asked.

"Mmm!" Lady Luck said, waggling her hand. "I kinda have a thing for prey animals."

"Prey animals!?" The Baron gasped.

"Did she just say she fucks horses?" L'oquan whispered to Bryant.

"She's married to King of the Forest," Bryant hissed back. "Remember, KOTF can only become prey animals, like how BB can only become predators."

"God, you are a nerd," L'oquan whispered.

"This is important, we're gonna freaking die if we don't remember this shit!" Bryant snarled.

"Ah, good point!" Baron Beast said, his clawed finger hooking on Bryant's collar and yanking him to his feet, then swinging him around, his naked body pressing to Bryant's back - his right hand reaching around to press a bared claw to Bryant's throat. "If you take one step closer, Lady Luck, then this childling... will die!"

Lady Luck raised her hands, slowly, palms spreading, fingers outstretched. "Lets not get too hasty, Beastie..." She looked right into Bryant's eyes. Then she winked at him.

Oh shit. Do I have to do something? Bryant thought wildly. He looked left. Right. Left. Up. Down.

"I saw that wink!" Baron Beast snarled. "If you try anything-"

"My powers are totally off right now, promise!" Lady Luck said, clasping her hands behind her back as she did so. This had the side effect of making her back arch in a remarkably distracting way. Like. It would have been distracting if she had been in a nun's habit, but as she was in white and crimson outfit that looked less like clothing and more like particularly well done body paint, it was so distracting that Bryant barely noticed when Hyena Head dropped his laser cutter.

The laser cutter's safety interlock was supposed to keep the trigger from being depressed unless the cutter was pressed to some metal. However, due to an unforeseen flaw in the design, if the cutter fell at the exact angle (42.3 degrees, to be specific), the interlock failed and the trigger could be depressed by the force of the sudden stop. The cutter fired off a single pulse of invisible laser light. It crossed the space of the museum, zipping past several civilians to cut one of the guide-wires that kept the small awning that leaned over the gift shop.

The wire snapped.

The awning fell and struck a dolly that had been parked there, carrying heavy tanks meant for the superconducting exhibits. The tanks were full of highly pressurized gasses, and designed to handle being hit by Major Earthquake - in that, literally, Major Earthquake often went to testing facilities to slam the bottles against the walls with his patented 'sledgehammer rocker' power move. However, one of the bottles landed edge on to the ground, snapping one of the nozzles open and letting a gout of high pressure gasses spurt out of the end of it and sending the bottle shooting off like a rocket.

Baron Beast, by now, had realized something was happening.

"Shoot her!" he shouted, flailing his free paw at Lady Luck.

His fursuit clad goons snapped their guns up.

And the rocketing bottle shot past Lady Luck, hit the Omni-Spark containment unit, rebounded off it, and knocked every single gun out of their hands at once. The guns flew up into the air, their actions working due to the sudden jostling as their safties failed. Their bullets struck the ground, ricocheting off harmlessly in every direction - and causing the men to flail and dive for cover. They all managed to land precisely where the guns came back down, their arcs sent into chaos by their firing. Kinetic reactions and all that.

Each gun butt cracked into the back of each man's heads, knocking them instantly and relatively painlessly unconscious.

"Youuuuu!" Baron Beast lifted his knife, about to slit Bryant's throat.

The flying bottle hit the wall, rebounded, smashed into a lighting fixture, which immediately plunged down. Baron Beast screamed, jerked backwards as Bryant flung himself away with a frantic leap. The knife went skittering along the floor as the fixture crashed down between the two of them. The electric cable that was yanked down by the lighting fixture fell in a perfect loop around the Baron's ankles just as the rocketing bottle came back down, lodged itself in the tangled mass of metal that had been the lighting fixture.

The whole assemblage shot off as Lady Luck stepped aside, her hands still behind her back.

"I'll get youuu for thiiiiiis!" Baron Beast shrieked as his ersatz rocket sled yanked him - via the cables, which drew taut around his ankles - out of the museum and towards the police van that had parked across the street so the overfed cop within could buy doughnuts at that exact moment. The bottle ran out of pressurized fuel at the exact right moment to land safely before the police van and send the Baron whipping into the back of the van, which slammed and locked its doors.

The cop, with his doughnut in his hand, blinked and turned back to the museum.

"Thanks Mrs. Impossible!" He called out.

"Please, the PTA calls me Mrs. Impossible, you can call me Lady Luck!" she said, giggling and then turning back to Bryant.

"So!" she said. "Are you okay, citizen?"

"Well, I..." Bryant, at that moment, noticed that the Omni-Spark's housing was cracked. The impact had shattered something deep inside and the chunk of raw cosmic energy that had catapulted humanity's technology forward a century overnight was beginning to throb and hum. Lady Luck blinked, then turned around and shouted to the crowd.

"Everyone, out now!" she said, hurriedly. "Now, come on, just run, you'll make it!"

People started to stand and run - and coincidentally, nearly every direction they chose to run ended up being a shockingly safe place to go. Lady Luck's brow was furrowed and Bryant wondered, exactly, which was harder: a single obviously improbable event that took out a few goons and Baron Beast, or nearly a thousand random events that guided nearly two hundred people safely out of a jam packed, panicky museum.

Then he realized that all of that attention was focused away from the Omni-Spark.

Which was why Lady Luck did not notice that the edge of the containment unit was glowing and straining and beginning to melt, directly at her.

"Lady Luck, get-"

Bryant leaped.

"-down!"

His shoulder slammed directly into the spandex clad super-heroine. He had a moment to think: Oh, hey! I'm her lucky d-

And then 0.5% of all the observable energy in the universe got crammed into his body at once.

***

Pain.

Fire.

Noise.

And through it all, Bryant DeWitt. A tiny shell of potentiality, a barely noticeable twitch on the skein of space time. Measurable impacts: Nill.

In short, the galaxy would never notice him, if he was missed.

Against that, the pain and the fire and the noise seemed unstoppable. He felt every atom of his being starting to tear apart, screaming into hissing quarks. The Higgs field, the immensely complex assemblage of primeval forces that created gravity and magnetism and all the complexity of the atomic and strong/weak forces, blazed through his body. His soul was flensed apart. Torn asunder, leaving a hazy array of connective neural patterns, suspended in thin air for a tantalizing second.

It would have taken an Nth level genius to use the powers that that neural pattern had access to to save itself. Former President Madeline Deinhardt might have done it - but she was currently serving at least one consecutive life sentence in maximum security for using her immense intellect to first, get elected as the President of the United States at age sixteen despite several laws and at least one constitutional amendment... and then turning Mount Rushmore into a combat mecha that nearly destroyed New York City.

Skrayper, the tech-genius member of the Shield Squad, probably could have done it, had she been given the two weeks of lead up time that a N-1th level genius would have needed to study up on the biology and atomic mechanics to apply the powers effectively.

For Bryant DeWitt, moderately successful high school senior, to successfully rebuild his body from the atomic structure upwards using his hazy mastery of his newly granted cosmic powers, it would have taken a lucky shot nearly sixteen hundred trillion to one.

If he had rolled a die once every second, it would have taken several times longer than the projected lifetime of this universe to manage to roll the dice successfully.

But Bryant DeWitt did not live on Axinar or Tellerak VI or the Torment Nexus.

He lived on Earth.

And Earth, to the frustration of galactic empires, temporal despots, would be star gods, and the occasional entropic phase bird, never played by the rules.

***

For a few seconds, there was a nervous system, suspended in a glowing field of blue sparkles. Then it vanished.

Then, a partially muscled skeleton appeared, screamed, and clawed at the air.

Then, at last, with a blooming explosion of raw brilliance, Bryant DeWitt was reborn in a haze of raw quantum fire. He floated for a few seconds, then dropped to his feet, smoking faintly. His eyes went in and out of focus - then he blinked down at his fingers, which were shimmering blue. He blinked. Then he looked down at his chest. His chest was blue. His belly was blue. His... all of him was blue. The other anatomical changes hit him then when he felt his ears twitch upwards and he clapped his hand to his head, feeling that his ear was elongated, coming to a tufted, furred point. His hair, which he could just barely see out of the corner of his eyes, had turned a pale, chalk white.

The two final details he noticed was that he had a glowing teardrop shaped gemstone on his chest, situated right between his nipples, glowing and throbbing with the same iridescent inner light as the Omni-Spark.

... the other thing was that he was buck naked.

Lady Luck's mouth was opened in shock as she looked at him. Then she turned her back on him, laughing. "Uh, you may need this!" She slung her cape off of her shoulders, offering the red cloth to him. Bryant grabbed it, whipped it around his hips, then realized that the luck-driven evacuation of the museum had just saved his secret identity. And his shame. He tightened the cape and decided he would think about the oddities of his transformation - there had been some decided differences in the crotch region that he was still processing - later. Much later.

"T-Thanks!" he said.

The downside was that now Lady Luck's spectacular, preposterously toned and taut ass was now even more visible, since there was no cape to cover it.

"Sooooo, uh, are you ready to jet?" Lady Luck asked, grinning slightly over her shoulder at him. "We need to get you to a UN Metahuman Response and Study Facility ASAP. Fortunately, I think there's one riiiiiight around the block."

"Oh thank god," Bryant whispered. "A-And, uh, uh, can you, I mean, the secret identity, how is my face, does my face look different?"

"Differentish," she said. "The fact you're now a blue space elf twink is going to help distract anyone who knows you." She giggled, softly. "And, uh, don't worry." She leaned in, her voice soft. "I won't tell anyone, Mr. DeWitt."

She seemed inordinately amused by something. In fact, as Lady Luck guided him towards the back exit of the museum - which itself just so happened to open on a back alleyway that had just had the dumpster carted away and cleaned out so there was not a hint of trash, muck, or mire anywhere in the narrow, private alleyway, she started to bounce. She bounced from foot to foot, humming to herself and giggling occasionally. The effect that this had on her ludicrously perfect body was now transmitting itself directly into the center of Bryant DeWitt's eighteen year old brain.

The issue that he, in fact, had a girlfriend and that Lady Luck was most famously extremely and supremely married to one of the most powerful superheroes in the world was itself very difficult to keep straight as he walked after Lady Luck, his eyes glued to her buttocks with every wiggle, jiggle and bounce. "S-So, uh, w... what, uh... what has you so happy?"

"Oh, I'm just glad to see a new member of our little club come into their own. Got any idea what powers the omni-spark gave you when it zapped ya?" Lady Luck asked, her smile beatific as she paused at the exit out of the alleyway. She didn't even hesitate - simply walking forward into the street without glancing either way. She instead called over her shoulder. "There's no traffic, come on!"

And, of course, there wasn't any.

"How amazingly convenient," Bryant whispered. He wondered what life would be like to be Lady Luck all the time. He figured it would have to have the same cognitive impact as being a billionaire or being kicked in the head by a horse.

They came to the MHRAS Facility and the doors opened with a hiss - revealing the warm, pleasant, high technological facility that the United Nations had built in basically every single city. In a world with mutants, demigods, magical artifacts, freak accidents and people who were so determined that they could learn how to punch bullets, a MHRAS just made sense. Bryant was still a bit surprised to see all the helpful posters. One of them had a lizardman covered in spikes who was holding the hands of a concerned looking nurse.

CONCERNED ABOUT MUTATIONS? was written above him. WE ARE HERE TO HELP! was written below him, with a line for a help group and self esteem therapy. Another poster showed a super standing before a man in a stretcher, covered in bandages. The super had a comical expression of shock and horror.

PEOPLE ARE BREAKABLE! CHECK YOUR STRENGTH!

The third and final that Bryant saw was a man with goggles and a complex gizmo in his hands, surrounded by devices marked with biohazard signs and radiation symbols. The man was looking overwhelmed, holding his hands up in a shrug.

WE ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH SUPER WEAPONS! It said above him. DON'T MAKE MORE! was spelled out below.

Lady Luck walked over to the counter and bent over it, smiling at the man who was sitting behind it, who looked at her as if she had just kicked him in the head with a horse. She smiled at him. "Hello sir, I have a newly emergent superhero here to get the skinny. Do you mind signing him in and getting him a check up."

"Uh, y-yes Mrs. Impossible!"

"Please, Lady Luck!" she said, giggling. "People always want to call me Mrs... it makes me feel old."

"Sorry, uh, here!" the man almost fell out of his chair to give her a handheld terminal. She turned and gave it to Bryant, who sat down so he didn't have to keep the cape around his naked waist with one hand. He turned the terminal on and saw the form to fill out. They did not ask for name, but did ask for date of birth. He filled that in. Next, source of powers. He frowned, tabbing through the options.

"Discovered I'm a demigod, dimensional portal, artifact infusion, uh... which should I put down, it was kind of both artifact infusion and cosmic energy infusion," he said, lifting his head up, while Lady Luck tapped at her own handheld phone - she was clearly sending a text to someone.

"Oh, cosmic energy infusion," she said, without hesitation.

"Got it..." Bryant tapped that in. Power level? Unknown. Powers? Unknown. Mutations? He checked mutations. No gross body form changes, but he did check 'exotic skin color', 'altered extremities' and 'sexual characteristic changes', his cheeks flushing at that last one. Finally, he got a question that made his eyebrows shoot up.

Do you have any plans to be a supervillain?

He regarded the question with the same sensation he had to the question in his superhero history final about When Did The Superhero Known as Legacy Die? Because there were, like, six different answers to that depending on who you asked, and that was just dealing with Legacy I, let alone Legacy II. He hesitantly checked [Not At This Time] rather than [No], just to be safe.

"All right, uh, thanks, Lady Luck," Bryant said as he stood and handed the terminal to the desk jockey. The man stood and hurried away - leaving the two supers alone. Bryant was still for a long moment, then stammered. "H-How do I give the cape back?"

"I'll collect it after they give you your symsuit, okay?" Lady Luck said, patting his cheek gently. "We'll have stuff to talk about then."

"My what?" Bryant asked, but then Lady Luck was skipping out of the door. She leaped and landed right on the side of a bus that chose that exact moment to drive by, hooking her arm around the side view mirror and hanging off of it as it zoomed away. Surely, it was taking her exactly where she needed to go. And probably would end with her winning the lottery again. Bryant shook his head slowly, then turned back as the door to the facility opened and an older looking gentleman with a whisper thin mustache walked out and smiled at him.

"Ah, our newest super, do you have a nickname in mind? Or should I just call you blueberry?" he asked, cheerfully.

"Uh..." Bryant flushed. He had, of course, come up with half a dozen superhero names for himself. Of course, several of those had been predicated on a certain theme or gimmick - he had once thought if he ever got ice powers, he'd call himself something cool like Ice-9, but not only did he not get ice powers (at least, he was fairly sure he didn't get ice powers), but also, someone had already come out with the name Ice-9. So.

"All right, Blueberry, come on. Lets get you your symsuit," the old man said. "Oh, also, I'm Dr. Jeffries. Dr. Wildman Jeffries."

"Right," Bryant said. "Uh. What's a symsuit?"

"You ever wonder where these superheroes got all their costumes? Or how the costumes don't burn or catch fire or why the suits go with em when they teleport through hell and beyond?" Dr. Jeffries waved his hand. "Symsuits! Symsuits is how!"

Bryant blinked. "Huh. Why have I never heard about it?"

"There's a certain thin gold line, in super circles. Don't talk about certain stuff. You'll figure it out real quick, don't you worry," Dr. Jeffries said, which made Bryant suddenly quite nervous. Before he could say anything, they reached a small room that reminded him of his last visit to the doctor's office, save, of course, for the globby egg-like object sitting on the examination bed. It was about the size of a football, but it also looked like the kind of thing that would attach itself to a human's face and lay its eggs in their stomach. Dr. Jeffries gestured to it. "This is your symsuit."

"... okay, but what is it?" Bryant asked.

Dr. Jeffires sighed. "In the 1930s, a bunch'a alien space plants landed outside Knight City, and the Bat-Knight had to deal with it. The first one, that is."

"Right," Bryant said.

"Well, one of them plants, it extruded a psychoreactive shapeshifting skintight fabric that symbiotically binds with metahumans. So, if you pass the Determination Threshold, get exposed to cosmic radiation, mutations trigger, bear Excalibur, whatever it takes to kick you from being human to metahuman, it activates the seed pods and it fuses with your nervous system. Makes symbsuits." Dr. Jeffries said.

"... t-that sounds like a long term plan to invade and conquer the Earth," Bryant said.

"Course it was a long term plan to invade and conquer the Earth!" Dr. Jeffries said, sounding annoyed. "We won, now we get to keep the symsuits. Put it on!"

Bryant gulped. He placed his hand on the symsuit. The egg-shaped object opened. Writhing tentacles of grayish material flowed out of it. They pressed to his skin and the prickling sensation of them brushing against him was nearly overpowering - it was like being brushed with a dozen tiny paintbrushes. All at once. He shivered and shuddered - then gasped as he felt a connection deep inside of him. His eyes closed and he felt the lack of distinction between the synsuit and him. It... his palm... it was all one thing. And he thought, in a single dizzy moment...

Jeans and T-shirt please.

The movement was so fast that it was nearly a subliminal blur. With his eyes closed, he more felt it than saw it. But when he opened his eyes, he was dressed in a pair of jeans and a simple white T-shirt. They looked totally normal.

But they didn't feel normal.

They felt like his skin. He could feel the breeze along his body, tickling between his thighs, along his back.

He felt naked. Even though he looked entirely clothed. His cheeks heated, and he wondered how a blue skinned space twink blushed.

"Voila," Dr. Jeffries said. "Now. Lets get to testing."

***

The testing was slow. Grinding. Boring. Bryant's blood got taken. His brain got scanned. His skin cells were put under a microscope. He was put into half a dozen different kinds of spectrometer and graviometrons and dark energy detectors. He was poked, prodded, and scrutinized in ways that he had no idea had ever existed. Most of it required him to simply lay there with his eyes closed and try to not worry that his parents were going to kill him. How was he going to lie to them about his... everything. Was he going to have to get a holographic disguise to cover for his normal identity? What was he going to tell Melissa, his girlfriend?

These questions bounced around his head, and when he was finally slid out of the last tester, Dr. Jeffries gave him a fishy look.

"So, are you a gambling man, Blueberry?"

"Uh... I wasn't," he said, hesitantly.

"Well, cause you won a jackpot. Congratulations, you're cosmic." He handed a tablet to Bryant, who blinked down at his displayed abilities.

Subject has the ability to consciously influence patterns of observable matter and energy, forming new superpowers along these themes as required with moderate concentrations. By expending additional effort, he can increase the impact to an unknown maximum limit - potentially infinite, but most likely limited by willpower, situational pressures, and imagination.

"... uh..." Bryant said, slowly. "This says I can... excuse me, I... this can't be right."

"Eh," Dr. Jeffries said. "You're mid-tier cosmic."

"Mid?" Bryant whispered.

"Legacy II, he can juggle planets any time he wants. You can do anything, but have to build up to it. It works out in the wash." Dr. Jeffries said. "Still don't go around vaporizing muggers. Get a trainer. I'd say you should check out Skrayper or Bat Knight III or maybe try and flag down that fuckhead... you know... the one with the hat." He waved his hand. "Ach, I forget. There's too many damn metahumans these days."

Bryant blinked at him again.

"You'd... say that... but?" he prompted.

"Oh right, but you already got a training request." Dr. Jeffries reached over, patting the tablet. Bryant saw it at the end.

Lady Luck.

There was also an address.

"Can I get bus fare?" Bryant asked, nervously. "I... don't really want to try using my powers to get there. What if I fuck up?"

"... Blueberry..." Dr. Jeffries said, taking out a small cigarette and tucking it into his mouth. "You just gave me a whole lot of faith that the planet ain't gonna explode in the next two weeks."

***

Bryant stepped off the bus with a lot of quizzical looks following him. The building he was supposed to meet Lady Luck at was a tall office building, and as he regarded the roof, he took a step forward and yelped as the manhole cover that he had stepped onto was hit by a coincidentally exploding water main - which, itself, burst just in time to douse an underground fire moments before it could extend into a catastrophe. The manhole cover shot him straight up and with a stumbling lurch, Bryant arrived on the rooftop.

Lady Luck was sitting on the top of an HVAC system, her legs kicking against it, her grin huge and shit eating.

She was not alone.

There was the King of The Forest. He was everything that Baron Beast wasn't: effortlessly imposing, regal and elegant, confident in his being and nature rather than perpetually trying to show off. He was also a perfect fusion of a man and a buck deer: his antlers were all the crown he needed, his shoulders were broad, his body muscular and towering overhead. There was only one similarity between him and his half brother and perpetual rival.

He also wore no pants.

But there were two others who left Bryant flummoxed. He could understand why KOTF was here - he was, after all, Mr. Impossible. He was married to Lady Luck.

... so why was Starfleet here?

Starfleet was a humanoid robotic girl, her body done in brilliant whites, reds and blacks. Her form was slender and modestly curved, unlike Lady Luck, but she still had a look of near nudity thanks to her humanoid features. Her eyes were camera lenses, her hair was braided cables, and she hovered a few inches off the ground thanks to quietly humming agrav engines built into her shoulders and ankles. She was named Starfleet because, well, firstly, her robotic body was a completely functional spaceship... and secondly, it wasn't the only one. This particular body had the marking of SF-4 on it, meaning that SF-1 through SF-10 were probably out and about town, helping out.

Next to Starfleet, though, was Corvi Magpie, one of the newer magic heroines on the beat. She was obsidian skinned, red eyed, elf eared, and dressed a bit like a vegas showgirl, the kind who would be sidelining a magic show. Her top hat and her wand were on - the top hat at a jaunty angle, the wand twirling between her fingers. She smirked at him, her red eyes making it hard to tell quite where she was looking, since they had no clear iris.

"Heya!" Starfleet said.

"W-What's all this about?" Bryant asked.

Lady Luck beamed. "Well, Bryant!" she said, hopping down off the HVAC system.

"Lady Luck!" Bryant squeaked. Giving away his first name was insanely dangerous - even if these were all heroes, heroes did turn evil sometimes and-

Lady Luck took hold of her domino mask and flicked it off, holding it between her two fingers.

Bryant gaped.

"... Mom!?" he asked, his eyes wide.

Lisa DeWitt, mother of Bryant DeWitt, and Lady Luck herself, beamed, while KOTF turned into Daniel DeWitt, and Magpie took off her hat and, with a flash, transformed into Rachel DeWitt, his twin sister. Starfleet grinned, then gestured behind herself as Barbara DeWitt, his older sister, came wheeling out from behind the HVAC machine in her electric wheelchair, her eyes glazed over and a cybernetic antenna emerging from the nape of her neck.

"Welcome to the family, son!" Dad said.

He still, of course... had no pants.

TO BE CONTINUED