Saint Joseph School

Malcolm quickly adjusted the webcam sitting on top of his laptop. He had quickly learned the device was a little finicky. It also got him weird looks when he had brought it on campus, considering he was by himself down here in the basement of the science wing. It's not like it was his fault...

The window on the screen finally came up, and Mal could see a somewhat blurry image of himself in it. Guess THAT was working. He checked the time...seven thirty. Nearly simultaneously, the computer chimed, indicating that someone was trying to initiate a video chat with him. It took him darn near five minutes, but Mal finally was able to connect with the person on the other end.

The years had been kind to Rona##!*& Eades (known to pretty much everyone on Earth as "Ronnie"). Her teal skin and platinum hair still had the same youthful sheen that they had had in her twenties, and she still had a figure that made all the guys in Mal's class gape the day she picked him up after school. Not that Mal noticed these kinds of things, of course. He had a hard enough time when they mistook her for his girlfriend.

She smiled as her son's image came into focus. She was sitting on a couch in the living room, dressed far nicer than she usually did around the house. "Good evening, Maalcolm." Her voice was as cheerful as always, always with the alien accent that she never seemed to shake. "Aare you doing well?"

Mal nodded. "Yeah...I'm OK."

"You sound like there is something bothering you."

He sighed. "No...yeah...." The strange change in Alex flashed through his head. Also the fact that Amy hadn't called him in weeks. And Joni and Jacob breaking up, then as good as disappearing. Malcolm was quickly starting to feel like he didn't have any friends. Again.

He didn't tell his mom, of course. No need to worry her about it.

"Well, whaat is it?"

"....nothing I can't figure out on my own."

"If you saay so, Maalcolm." She smiled again. "I'm sure you're wondering why I went to aall this trouble to set this up." Malcolm nodded silently in response. "Well..." she looked down for a second, "Your faather and I have something we haave to tell you aabout." With this, a second figure sat down on the couch next to Ronnie, a man with pale skin and a short, greying goatee. Mal had to suppress the bile rising in his throat.

Throughout his childhood, Malcolm hadn't seen much of his father, Zachary. As a scientist and researcher who specialized in neutralizing and studying various supervillainous devices, he was rarely at home for more than a month or two at a time. Considering that Malcolm's condition kept him from leaving the house much, his mother was frequently the only human (or Ovig, rather) contact he had.

Of course, this had led Mal to build up a lifetime of resentment toward his dad, never mind the fact that he had just about personally developed Mal's exosuit.

"Son..." his father began, "...I'm sorry we've kept this from you for this long, but we've finally decided to go through with it..."

Figured this day was coming, Mal thought gloomily. They're finally splitting up.

Zachary looked at Ronnie, and she smiled.

"We're moving to Paragon."

"You're what?"

"We've been talking about this since your mother visited you a couple of months ago," his father said, breathing in deeply. "I've accepted a position at PCU, and my research will be far more concentrated there."

"In other words," Ronnie chimed in, grinning wildly. "He'll be aat home faar more often."

Mal sat in silence for a few seconds before she continued.

"Aalso, I'm going to be starting work aagain."

"Singing?" Malcolm asked dumbly.

She shook her head. "My other job. The one..." She looked at Zachary. "...the one we never told you aabout."

Malcolm stared blankly into the webcam. His mother looked to him for some kind of response, but when none came she elaborated.

"You see, Maalcolm...your faather aand I..."

"We were crimefighters in Atlanta before you were born," Zachary finished.

"You were WHAT?" Malcolm burst forth. "You were superheroes?"

Ronnie nodded. Zachary shook his head.

"Is it really so surprising, Maalcolm? After all, I'm stronger than a human and can take a lot of damaage, aand your father is a genius. I waas caalled the Evening Staar..."

"...and I called myself 'Professor Pulsar'," Zachary said, embarrassed. "I developed a pair of gauntlets that could absorb and release energy in some...interesting ways..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Atlanta was lacking in any metahuman assistance, you see, and Nemesis was still a huge threat in the city. It was really only us and three other people..."

Mal just continued to stare into the camera, silently absorbing this weird new truth, seeing his parents in a light that he had never seen them in before.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"No need," his mother answered, trying to smile. "We haad left thaat line of work because it waasn't worth putting you in haarm's way....but thaat doesn't reaally maatter now, with you doing so well in Paaragon...

"But baack to the point, Maalcolm, I'm going to work for Longbow when we move to Paaragon."

"Isn't that....really dangerous?" Mal asked quietly. His mother nodded in response.

"I've haad extensive experience, though. I'll be entering as a saargeant, and I could be a Waarden by the end of the yeaar. I'll haave to do one two-month tour in the Rogue Isles, but I caan choose when I haave to do thaat, aand aafter thaat I won't haave to go baack."

"Malcolm," his father chimed in, "we can really deal with all this once we move up there next month. The important thing is," he took Ronnie's hand. "We're going to be a family again. The three of us. We've already got a house selected, and we've already made plans to have the equipment you need to live there. You'll be able to live there instead of that basement, Malcolm." He grasped his wife's hand tighter. "I know I haven't been the father I should have been to you...but I'm willing to try to fix the mistakes I've made in the past."

Malcolm could only quietly nod, still trying to absorb all the information that has just gotten dumped into his head in the past few minutes.

"When..."

"We're set to fly up in a month."

Malcolm nodded again. "I guess we can talk more later. T-this...this has been a lot to adjust to in a short amount of time." He felt stupid after that last line. He hadn't stuttered in months.

"I know, my son.", Ronnie said quietly. "We'll let you sleep on it."

She looked down for a second, then smiled. "But now maatter whaat, Maalcolm, we will aalways love you." Zachary silently nodded once. Malcolm mimiced the gesture, as silent as his father.

He closed the connection, spun around to regard his dank, still room.

To think.

And to worry.

A friendly but somewhat skittish police officer had pointed Malcolm in the direction of the apparently abandoned warehouse (how many of these things were in the city, anyway? Malcolm wondered). He had mentioned that the building was a secret Nemesis hideout, and that they were using it as a base to commit all sorts of nastiness. Malcolm, dutiful "hero" that he was, felt obliged to investigate. It wasn't like he had anything more pressing to do, in any case.

The warehouse was predictably abandoned, as could be expected. Mal wandered around in the building a few minutes, kicking cobwebs and musing on the fact that he could only see his own footprints, a sure sign that this very probably wasn't a Nemesis base. He had just finished poking around in the room most distant from the exit when he heard a very distinctive clanking, accompanied by the occasional hydraulic hisses of steam that always accompanied the arrival of Nemesis Jaegars. He looked to the door, tensing himself for the inevitable attack. He wasn't disappointed.

Five Jaegers appeared around the door of the room. The one in the middle, closest to Mal, rotated its single camera eye towards him and shrieked out in a tinny, staccato voice something to the tune of "AN INTRUDER! WE-MUST-EX-TER-MI-NATE-HIM-FOR-LORD-NEMESIS!" All Mal really understood was the "exterminate" part, because the other Jaegars all started squawking "Exterminate!" along with the leader as they charged in, their internal machine guns blazing.

If Mal hadn't spent a lot of time dealing with stuff like this, murderous one-eyed robots would probably have really intimidated him. Considering he had spent a lot of time dealing with this kind of stuff, he simply gestured his hand towards them (why did he feel the need to gesture?, he sometimes wondered) and intensified the local gravity around the robots. Immediately, they started straining against the weight of their own bodies, and within seconds their chassis had buckled under the stress. They twitched, and were still. Mal wasn't so crazy as to breath a sigh of relief or some other predictable post-battle ritual. If this really
was a Nemesis base, well...

...yep, more shots were fired as three more Jaegers charged into the room, continuing their "Exterminate" mantra from before. This time, Mal went the opposite direction and negated their weight, leaving their legs flailing like they were on the slickest ice imaginable. Mal then suddenly ramped up their weight to an obnoxiously damaging degree, causing them to suddenly crash to the floor, the results much the same as when he had done it to the first wave.

As the last of the robots stopped moving, Malcolm stepped around their broken hulls to see if there were any other robots he had missed, or to possibly find their operator. Tracing the "footprints" of the spider-like robots wasn't really that hard in the dust, except that they seemed to lead right back to the exit. Malcolm sighed. He wasn't so stupid that he didn't know an ambush when he saw one.

Strangely enough, that seemed to be the extent of the attack. Satisfied that he had resolved the issue to the best of his ability, Mal made his way to the exit...but stopped short as he rounded the last corner before the exit.

Malcolm had fought several of the decoy Nemesis robots during his time in Paragon City. They were always tough nuts to crack, and had sent him scrambling for his medbadge more than a few times, so when Mal saw one
standing in between himself and the way out, he had to cringe internally. He got his concentration back, and tried his usual tricks: make the robot heavier, make the robot lighter. It didn't flinch. He yanked onto the gravitational field of an especially heavy desk and directed it towards the robot. The desk bounced off its head, a light green field shimmering around the robot when it struck. Mal took a couple of deep breaths to collect his thoughts, and realized a couple of things.

First of all, this robot didn't quite sound like a Nemesis decoy. Nemesis decoys were noisy contraptions, constantly hissing steam and pumping pistons. This one lacked any sort of internal noises like that. The second thing he noticed was what the thing was doing. Fake Nemeses had a very specific pattern when they encountered a hero. One, they would shout something robotic and stilted about proving itself to Lord Nemesis; and two, they would try to embed their staff into the hero's skull. This Nemesis had done neither. For the most part, it seemed pretty lax, with one fist resting on its hip and the other holding the staff in a relaxed position.

"Have you quite finished?"

Malcolm jumped. Now he knew something was up. That wasn't the voice of a decoy automaton. Either this was a really advanced Fake Nemesis, or....

...couldn't be.

The stale air felt about as heavy as lead around Mal as he considered his options. He stole a glance around him, his mind quickly trying to formulate an escape plan. After all, fighting had just ceased to be a viable option. Unfortunately, Nemesis had chosen the site of this confrontation well: there were no windows on the floor bigger than Mal's head, and there was only the one door that Nemesis was....

"Honestly, boy. Calm down. What makes you think that I'm here to eliminate you?"

Malcolm nearly jumped out of his suit. He was so focused on escaping that he had forgotten the person he was escaping from. Mal shuffled his feet to roughly face Nemesis. He rummaged around his head for the right words to say. What do you say to someone like this, after all?

"Are you...really Lord Nemesis?"

The armored figure cocked its head. "I might be. I might not be. Do you have any way of discerning?"

Mal considered for a second and looked him over. "Um...no?"

"I thought as much. In any case, do you know the reason why I've gone to the trouble of meeting you here today?"

"Um....you wanna kill me?"

A sound came from deep inside the villain's armor that sounded sort of like a bark. It took a second for Mal to realize that Nemesis had actually laughed.

"Kill you, my boy? Why on earth would I want to do that?"

Mal was silent for a second. He could sense Nemesis waiting for an answer, glaring at him (which was quite weird considering he didn't really have any eyes). Finally, Mal stuttered something.

"...cause..cause I'm a hero?"

Another bark. "What a foolish notion! Why, may I ask, would I want to kill the heroes of this city, when there are thousands of different ways I can utilize them for my own purposes. Understand this, Malcolm: the superpowered population of Paragon is a massive, untapped resource, just waiting for the right person to come along and forge it into something that he can use."

Mal didn't really have any way to respond to this aside, so he stood there staring rather dumbly at the armored man. He had a feeling that Nemesis wasn't lying about not planning to kill him, but then again, Nemesis was definitely blocking Malcolm's exit.

"Well...what do you want?"

Nemesis was silent for another minute. Malcolm was getting seriously nervous at this point and wondered, if he tried to make a break for it, how hard Nemesis would break him in half.

"Put simply, boy, I'm here to offer you a job."

"A what?"

"Employment, Mr. Eades. I've been watching you, and I want you for the Nemesis Army."

"WhatnoIcouldn't....!"

Another deep, hollow chuckle. "I expected such a quick refusal. You didn't even let me describe the...perks."

"I don't..."

"This isn't your country's military, Malcolm. For your service to the Nemesis Army you will be very well compensated. More than that, you would, even at the lowest levels, have access to the absolute best food, medical care, living facilities, concubines..."

"Concubines?" Mal had no idea what that meant.

"Yes, somewhat coarse, I realize, but some soldiers need that extra motivation. I presume you don't. You are a hero, after all. From what my intel has gathered on you, you feel the need to compensate for your disability by..."

Mal cut in, a metaphorical weak point hit. "I'm not disabled! I'm..."

"...trying to assist others. You've said you want to help other individuals with disabilities when you finish your education, correct?"

Mal mumbled something affirmative under his breath. He had told very few people about his plans for the future, and the fact that Nemesis knew such private information was quite troubling.

"Excellent. A noble cause, young man. To offer your talents to those whom would lead marginalized lives without them. However, I'm offering you so much more, Mr. Eades. I dream of a world where noone has to suffer like you do, like some of your peers do. I want to see a world where the powerful are celebrated and acknowledged for their superiority, not suppressed and taught that they are wrong for having abilities beyond that of a normal person."

Mal quietly fumbled for the two teleportation devices he had on his person: the Pocket D pass, and the Ouroboros time dilation portal. Both were silent. Malcolm felt kind of stupid for trying; of course this guy would have taken some kind of measures to prevent him from escaping like that.

"That is why I don't think that Saint Joseph's School is a proper environment for you, Mal, for many of the young people there. You should be trained to be the upper echelon of humanity, not to blend in with the plebeians."

Nemesis took a couple of steps forward. "I know you realize what I am talking about, young man. That's why I deigned to meet you in person. You are being trained to be normal, and you are realizing that can never happen. Tell me, what is your central goal in life right now?"

Mal shuffled his feet. He didn't particularly feel obligated to answer questions from a person like this.

"Feline has your voice, eh? Well, I know. There is little I don't." A heavy hand came down Mal's shoulder. He tried to leap away, to wring himself from the armored grasp, but he was held fast. Strangely, though, the hand almost seemed like it was trying to support him instead of hold him.

"This suit, Mr. Eades. You want to be rid of it. You want to walk around like a normal person, not like a 'Tin Can', not like the gifted individual you are." He lifted the hand, and Mal immediately stumbled a few steps back before tripping and falling on his rear.

"That suit does not mark you as an outsider. It marks you as a superior. Every normal human in Paragon lays eyes on it and recognizes that it means you are better than them in some way...just as they look at mine and also acknowledge my greatness. But..."

Nemesis walked up to the fallen Mal, and offered him a hand up. "...you truly want to be rid of the suit? Do you want to truly hold hands with Miss Carnegie in public instead of cloistered in your living space?" Mal flinched a little. He knew that Nemesis likely knew of Trixie, but he wasn't expecting him to bring her up like that. He stumbled to his feet, declining the hand up.

"Malcolm, all you have to do is join me, and I swear on my honor that I will do everything in my power to free you of the suit, if that is what you desire. Or if you desire something else...the safety of your peers, the prosperity of your family, any personal gratification you could conceive...it could be yours as long as you stand with us."

Malcolm squinted for a second. Something suddenly didn't sit right with him at all. "Why the heck are you asking me? I'm really...really not that powerful. Or useful. You could ask about a thousand other people in Paragon to join you..." Mal shook his head. "You could even ask a lot of people at my..."

"Potential, Malcolm." Mal flinched as soon as he heard that. He had heard this story before, from some of his instructors, his mother, even a couple of other students at the school. "You seem to fail to realize that you could, in fact, be extraordinarily powerful in the right hands. In the hands of someone that can recognize, and properly forge that power. You'll find there's few people in this world save for myself as capable of doing so."

"Yeah, but you..." Mal mumbled, "...why did you personally show up for this? Couldn't you send any of your fakes? Or just one of your officers?"

"I might be a Fake, for all you know, Malcolm. Or I may not. But our profile of you indicates that you tend to disregard praise unless it comes from a very authoritative source. Very few have more authority than me, Mister Eades."

There was silence for a minute, as Mal tried to decide whether or not he should be insulted by that or not. Finally, he was able to respond, choosing his words carefully.

"If I joined you...you realize..." He looked down for a second. "....if I joined you, none of my friends would ever talk to me. My mom and dad..."

"How do you know they won't come around to seeing things our way eventually?"

Mal let out a small laugh. "You've had over a hundred years to do that, y'know?"

"Oho. How droll. Sacrifices must be made, young man. If they don't want what's best for you, then they don't truly care for you. And truly, how many do? How many tolerate you only out of pity, or worse, because they can compare themselves to you to make their own lives seem more fulfilling? I am offering you a chance to show the world that Malcolm Eades is a worthwhile individual, that he is a force to be reckoned with. That he is a not a Dwarf Planet!"

"Don't call me that!" Mal suddenly snapped. He immediately covered his mouth, acting like he had accidentally said a dirty word in front of a nun. The air hung heavy again, until Nemesis stooped down to look Malcolm in the "eye".

"I do not expect a response immediately, Malcolm." He produced a small business card out of nowhere, and laid it on the floor in front of Malcolm. "On this card there is printed an untraceable e-mail address. All you need to do to contact me is send a message to it, with 'yes' in the subject line. Within an hour, my men will meet you, wherever you are, to bring you to me. Think about it, Mr. Eades. Think about whether you want to be normal, or if you want to be great."

With that, Nemesis stood, and as if by some silent command he disappeared. Mal immediately recognized the effect with some surprise as something the Rikti used.

Now alone, Mal sat on the floor for almost twenty minutes, thinking about what had just happened to him. Finally, he made his decision, and stood up. He picked the card up, stared at for a second, then ripped it up, scattering the pieces on the floor behind him as he walked out.

****

Somewhere else...

The wall of monitors stood almost twenty feet high, and something on the order of fifty feet wide. In front of each of them, spaced five feet apart, a row of Nemesis soldiers sat, keeping a keen eye on the monitors assigned to him.

On a one of these monitors, a soldier watched Mal destroy the card Nemesis had left, and raised his hand to call attention to himself as Malcolm finished. Soon after, a looming, robotic presence stood over him.

"Dwarf Planet destroyed the card, sir."

Silence for a second.

A deep, metallic, resonating chuckle.

"Excellent."

It was a little surprising, always, to hear someone come to your door at eleven at night. Malcolm had nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the knocking. His father was working late (as usual), so he was in the apartment alone (as usual). Very little, though, had prepared him for who was out there.

Mal opened the door to a tall, smiling woman with white hair, teal skin, and a Longbow uniform. He nearly fell back flat on his back. He hadn't seen his mother in almost three months, since Longbow had assigned her to a six month tour to keep order in the Rogue Isles (Mal had been the Isles once or twice, and he knew what a joke the term "keep order" was there). Recovering from his brief shock, he fell instead into her waiting arms.

"How...what are you doing here, Mom?" He was nearly crying now, like the dumb little momma's boy he was.

"You got my laast e-mail, right?" Mal nodded. She had distinguished herself in the Isles as a platoon commander, and had been selected to be promoted to Warden in the next month. "I waas able to pull a few strings with Vaanguard to use the White Plains Portal for a little....commute."

"That's...really weird," Mal muttered. Vanguard only let Vanguard members use the portal, and they certainly didn't allow any Isle-Paragon transits through it. "It's nothing you really need to concern yourself with, Maal. I can only be here for six hours, so we'd better make the most of the time. Haave you eaten?"

Mal had, but he certainly felt as if he could eat a lot more now.

*****

It had been slightly difficult to find a pizza place open at midnight, but Mal had forgotten that Bruno's stayed open until two on a Saturday night, and they delivered to Founders'. It had been a happy night for the two of them, swapping stories about either mundane superheroics in Paragon, or crazy battles with supervillains and Arachnos thugs in the Isles. After they finished with the pizza, they migrated to the balcony overlooking the skyline of the Falls. Mal sat with his head in his mother's lap, still a kid after all these years.

"So, how's school?"

"Well...OK...I guess..."

"You sound hesistaant about something."

Mal shifted uncomfortably. "...made a 79 on my calculus test."

"Well, I'm certaain you'll make it up later."

"Aand how is Miss Trixie?"

This was a happier subject for him. "She made the cheerleading squad, it turned out. And she's been doing a lot better at school."

"Thaanks to you, no doubt."

Mal shook his head. "No, it's all her these days."

Ronnie nodded. "How aare your other classes doing?"

"Same as always?"

"Yeah...but..."

"But?"

"I'm not...."

"...not what?"

"Making any progress. With the suit. And my powers. And...." He sighed long. "You'd think after a year...."

There was a silence for about a minute. Ronnie responded with a sigh of her own.

"How haard have you been trying?"

"Real hard! I mean! Every day! For at least an hour!"

A troubled look crossed his mother's face. Silence dropped for another minute.

Silence that was broken by a long, choked sob from Ronnie.

"I'm sorry son....I'm so...so sorry..."

"For what? It's nothing you did, Mom, you don't have to..."

"I didn't tell you! I should haave told you to begin with! I should haave..." She covered her face with one of her hands. "You caan't..."

"I can't what?"

Ronnie took a second to compose herself. "Maal, I haad aalways told you thaat your...disaability...was caused by you being haalf-human, correct?"

Mal felt a stinging, shooting feeling in his gut. He had the feeling that this wasn't going to turn out well. "Yeah..."

"Thaat's...what your faather and I originaally thought, aalso, but...I never even told *him*...." She took a deep breath. "I haad seen symptoms like yours before. My brother, baack home...it's..." She finally spat it out. "It's a neurological disease, Maal."

Mal stared at his mother for a few seconds. "...what?"

"Ovig, like me, aall have the...*instinctive* aability to change their maass...to...aadjust to different levels of graavity...our homeworld is unstable, you must understaand...."

Mal sat up as felt the anger surge. "Mom! Get to the point!"

"Yes...Oh, Maal...your uncle haad the same disease, it's genetic....aand keeps an Ovig from using that aability...just like you. It's incuraable. The only way our doctors tell us to deal with it is to either wear a suit like you, or live in a low graavity environment like this."

Mal sat in stunned silence before clenching his fists. "Why didn't...WHY DIDN't YOU TELL ME?" The final words came out as a shout, more than likely the first time in his life Malcolm had raised his voice in anger.

"Becaause, I thought, after you staarted to use your powers in different ways, like when you do your whole superhero aact..."

Now Malcolm was standing. "An hour...two hours a day for over a year now....w-what was it for? There's no way...no cure?" Tears were flowing, though Malcolm wasn't sure when they had started. "You've been lying to me..." Unbelievable. His mother had never lied to him. His father? All the time, a long string of broken promises led back since Malcolm was a baby. But his mother? Never.

"I'm so sorry, Maalcolm, I aam. I just...caan't watch you suffer anymore."

"I'm suffering NOW because of this!" Malcolm clenched his teeth, the tears now streaming down his neck. "And you say there's no way? No way at all? I'll have to live with that stupid, DAMNED suit for the rest of my life?" Mal almost felt sorry for using the curse in front of his mother, even in this situation.

Ronnie silently nodded.

Malcolm stared off the end of the balcony. For the briefest of seconds, he considered jumping off, before quickly burying that thought in the back of his head. If he ever started down that road, thinking those thoughts, he might never be able to go back.

Instead, he stormed into the apartment towards his room. Behind him he could hear his mother call to him.

"I only have aaround two hours..."

"Why don't you leave now? See if I care!" He slammed the door, and collapsed on his bed. He tried to sleep in silence, but sleep never came.

****

It was morning before Malcolm left his room. True to her word, Ronnie had left, cleaning up the kitchen before she did. There was no sign of his father, either.

Malcolm stepped out in the small space connecting their apartment and the hallway. Here, he could change into his suit and alter the local gravity to Earth-normal before he left. He stood, staring at the suit. Emotions boiled deep in his gut. Anger. Fear. Betrayal. He lifted his right hand, spread towards the suit.

So easy.....crush it. Just like all of those robots...Clockwork...Council...Nemesis....

He clenched his fist and lowered his hand.

Too easy....been a wuss all my life...gave up when the going got tough....I KNOW I've been making progress....

He began to suit up.

I don't care what she says, what ANYONE says. I'll do it. I'll beat this stupid thing. I'll win.

Finding inspiration could be difficult for Mal.

Do, or do not. There is no try.

Cliched.

You're the best! Around! Nothing's gonna keep ya down!

You've got the touch! You've got the power!

Malcolm was a born a little too late to be a child of the Eighties.

Do the impossible! See the invisible! Row Row! Fight the Power!

Not bad.

The rooftop in Eastgate was dusty and unused, like most of the buildings since the catastrophe that led to the area being redubbed "The Hollows". Mal had been coming here for the past week, partially for the solitude, partially for the quiet, and partially out of some rather obnoxious thoughts in the back of the head to the tune of "Hollow just like I am inside!" He had been trying to meditate, find some kind of motivation or inspiration that could get him in the proper mindset to practice moving without the suit. He had shifted from training an hour to day to three or sometimes four, trying to convince his brain to use the gravity-manipulating powers that came easy for him moving everything else to move his arms, legs, and the rest of his body.

So far, he'd been able to make a fist. He'd been making fists since May, and it was October now.

He sat crosslegged on the roof, breathing slowly and thinking. It was almost dark, the faint glow of the war walls in the distance giving the whole area an unearthly tinge of green. There was a mildly loud crash in the distance, and Mal opened his left eye to see if he could find its source. Unbidden, a dusty, mostly forgotten memory flowed back into his head.

One eye. Just like granddad. Stupid he should remember that now. But still...

Seven-year-old Malcolm could be a handful at times for one woman to take care of sometimes. Fortunately, Zachary and Ronnie Eades had chosen to live close to Zach's family, where there was always a babysitter available at nearly all time. Namely, his father, Samuel Eades, a retired widower with far too much time on his hands those days. He also claimed the low gravity that the half-alien child needed did wonders for his aching back. Mal was always happy to see Grandaddy E, thanks to the old man's long list of weird stories and bagful of candy. Also, even at this age Mal realized that he was handicapped in some way that made him different than other kids, and the fact that Granddaddy wore an eyepatch made him feel a bit of kinship with him.

Then, one day, Mal decided to ask him why he wore the eyepatch.

Grandaddy looked conflicted for a second. "Cause I don't got an eye."

"Oh," Mal responded. "What happened to it?"

Another conflicted look, then a sad smile. The old man pulled his grandson up to his lap, like he always did when he wanted to tell Mal a story.

"I actually lost it a long time ago. Back in the nineteen-forties."

"What happened then?"

"Well, me and some of my buddies, we were told by our bosses that we needed to climb up this mountain on an island. We was kinda scared, cause there were some other guys on that mountain already, and their bosses had told them to shoot at anyone that tried to climb that mountain."

"Why'd they'd tell them to do something mean like that?"

"Cause they didn't want anyone to have it, I guess. Anyway, me and my buddies try to climb this mountain, and it's really steep, and really rocky, and the guys that are already there are shootin' at us. But we didn't want our bosses to get mad at us, so we climbed up it anyway."

"What does this have to do with your eye?"

"Well, about halfway up the mountain, one of the guys on the mountain tossed a bomb in the middle of me and my buddies. I didn't get hurt that bad, but a piece of the bomb..." He pointed at the eyepatch. "...got up in here. Really hurt."

"Ewww!" Mal squirmed in childish disgust.

"Yeah, that's what my buddy said."

"What did ya do?"

"Got up and kept going, of course."

"What? You did? Didn't that hurt a lot?"

"Yup. I just said it didn't, didn't I?"

Mal nodded.

"Still, I was a man, so I had a job t' do. So I stood up. And I kept goin'." The old man fell silent for a moment, thinking, looking at his grandson. "That's what I always done, son. That's what I done, that's what your dad did, that's what you gotta do." He lifted the boy from his lap into an embrace. "I ain't gonna be around forever, son, so if you don't remember nothin' 'bout me, remember that. There's gonna be a time in yer life when things don't look so good for ya, and those are the times when ya gotta stand up like I did when I got my eye blew out. Stand up, keep goin'..."

The boy never noticed the tear in his grandfather's eye.

The tears only came to Mal now, nine years later. Mal usually didn't spend a lot of time remembering Granddaddy E, the retired Marine who lost an eye at Iwo Jima, married a Japanese woman after the war ended, and died of leukemia not long after he had told Mal the story of how he lost his eye. He had been told several months earlier that he had very little time to live, and only now did Mal realize that he had been trying to spend as much time as he could with his only grandchild before that time was up.

A loud crackle of static interrupted Mal's reminiscing. His comm had been turned off, and those things auto-activated for one reason.

"This is a Vanguard General Warning Alert. Rikti forces have been detected in the vincinity of Atlas Park. Non-combatants are advised to seek cover for the duration of the attack."

Malcolm opened eyes to see the war walls flickering like they always did during a Rikti assault. He debated with himself for a few seconds, trying to decide if he wanted to help drive back the invaders for yet another day.

That was about the time he heard a very familiar, very unwelcome humming behind him.

Mal slowly turned around, already getting ready to run.

There it was, not twenty yards in front of him.

Oh God oh God it can't be it couldn't be those things don't come to EASTGATE!

The Rikti drop ship armed its plasma cannons, and fired.

It was safe to say a lot of things scared Malcolm. Tests that he had only studied a week instead of two weeks for. Dar and/or Luke when they were in a bad mood. Alex when she was mad. Trixie when she mad. Talking to Aura. Talking to Joni. Talking to Jessiy.

There were very few things, however, that could inspire raw terror in Mal like being in the sights of a Rikti Drop Ship.

He had good reason, of course. Back when he first started acting like a superhero he had gone with some of his friends to fend off a Rikti assault in Steel Canyon. It had been a rather mundane affair much like the rest of the sieges, until a small contingent of the aliens split off. Mal's group broke off, deciding to chase the stragglers down. They had neglected to fill Mal in on this fact and by the time he realized this they were almost out of sight. He tried to catch up with them by using his normal low-density "super jump" (as Mal liked to call it to compensate for the fact that he was basically making himself weigh about a gram and tossing himself recklessly across the city). This turned out to be a huge mistake, for as soon as he reached a certain elevation, he realized that he was looking at one of the Rikti's flying machines right in the eye. The pilot of the craft didn't hesitate, and Mal took a plasma blast right in the chest.

Mal didn't even realize how lucky he had been that day. The suit had taken the brunt of the blast, but the impact threw him back and bounced him off two skyscrapers before he hit the pavement.

It was about then that Mal realized he had inherited more of his mother's toughness than he had realized.

In any case, he had broken two ribs, necessitating an embarassing incident where it seemed like half the school saw him in his underwear and he left a large, cracked dent in the infirmary's floor that still hadn't been repaired. The embarassment, combined with the pain, combined with the shock of the whole incident had formed something resembling a phobia in Mal's psyche. He could participate in repelling Rikti raids only when at least three of his friends were helping, and he cringed and shied away if the shadow of a drop ship passed over.

To say that the situation Malcolm found himself in now terrified him would be a vast understatement.

The drop ship fired its plasma cannons at near point blank range. Nearly a year of experience dodging thugs and robots had given Mal pretty good reflexes, so when combined with the adrenaline rush his fear was giving him, he was able to make a near instant and distant jump away from the Eastgate building. The blast sheared off the top of the building, causing the rest of the already partially wrecked building to crumble down into the abandoned streets. Mal landed on a nearby building, nearly identical to the one he had been standing on before. The drop ship's weapons made a quick adjustment, and fired again. Mal jumped again, and the blast had a similar effect on the second building as it had on the first.

There are hundreds of superheroes in this city, and none of them are coming to help me! Mal thought frantically. Why are the stinking Rikti singling me out anyway? They aren't like Nemesis, making some stupid convoluted plan! Must be some random soldiers who thought they take a few easy shots at someone they thought was a hero off by himself... Mal decided that staying in one place at this point would be almost certain to get him killed, so he started to make a hasty retreat, jumping away as fast as his super-lightened body would carry him. As he did, two more blasts flashed around him, this time hitting one of the more rugged areas of Eastgate. About this time Mal realized that in his panic, he had retreated to the most dangerous place for a hero to retreat to in the area: Grendel's Gulch.

Mal sailed down into a water filled ravine, splashing down as he turned the microgravity field "off" around him. The low rumbling hum drew closer, and suddenly a deep explosion rumbled around Malcolm, causing the ravine he had landed to tremble, and stones to fall down around him. There was another explosion, and another. A bombing run, Mal realized, curling up into a ball in the wet dirt, hoping to whoever would listen (the nuns would say God, always God) that he wouldn't either get found by the Rikti or buried alive by the bombing.

The explosions continued for a few more minute. The ravine, for the most part, held up better than Mal had hoped. Finally, a voice crackled over the comm, causing Mal to instantly curse himself for not using it to call for help.

"This is a Vanguard General Bulletin. The Rikti forces in Atlas Park are retreating, repeat, the Rikti forces in Atlas Park are retreating."

Malcolm breathed a slow sigh of relief as the explosions ceased, as he started to climb up out of the ravine. The explosions had fortunately caused enough rocks to fall out of the cliffs to make handholds for Mal to use to get out. He had climbed nearly halfway out when a very unwelcome shadow fell over him again.

Stupid Vanguards had lied.

There was a bright flash of light, and a deafening explosion. The force of it caused Mal to fall back into the ravine, boulders falling all around him as he hit the bottom. A yellow haze seemed to tinge Mal's vision as he lay face up in the muddy water, watching the Rikti ship move off. It seemed satisfied that it had done enough damage or...

...wait.

Mal squinted.

Was he really losing his mind?

There were a few loosened panels on the bottom of the ship, knocked free by their proximity to the last explosion. And on the other side of those panels...

...brass. Pistons. Steam-powered pumps, working in timed unison.

Rikti don't use technology like that.

That was the last thing that went through Mal's mind before he lost consciousness for the next several hours.

The ceiling in his father's office always seemed high to Malcolm. He never knew if that was just a figment of his imagination. He never came in here after all. His father had adjusted the gravity negation device in their apartment so he could have normal gravity while he worked. Mal would be damned if he was going to be in the suit in his own home, especially to talk to a man that he had never liked.

The walls were lined with either books, or strange unidentifiable artifacts behind glass, relics of his father's previous adventures or studies. Visible were a deactivated Clockwork minion with some strange attachments (colored blue, strangely enough), a gun belonging to the defunct Fifth Column, and some strange mass of metal with Arachnos symbols stamped all over it. Mal was reminded of another reason why he never came in here as he glanced at all the sinister looking contraptions.

On the opposite side of the room, Zachary Eades sat, hunched over. His fingers were clasped in front of him near level with his mouth, the nearest finger to it slowly rubbing his mustache and goatee. As Mal approached, he tilted his mirrored glasses down to look at his son.

"You wanted to talk to me, Malcolm?"

Mal nodded.

"And what exactly is so important that you had to interrupt my work?"

Mal had to avoid sneering at him. Other than a computer turned on nearby and some random bits of circuit board and wires on the desk, there was no indication that he had actually been doing any work. This wasn't any time to be a smart aleck.

"I've...got a...some problems."

"Are you ill?"

Mal shook his head.

"Have you impregnated a female and now wish for me to provide for the child's care?"

Mal's composure broke. "No! Geez Dad! What makes you think..."

His father unclasped his hands to rub his temples. "I apologize. In my line of work, I'm frequently called on to expect and predict a worst case scenario. Take this, for example." He lifted one of the pieces of twisted metal on his desk. "This is the only material myself and my colleagues have of a Sky Raider bomb being developed. I have to..."

"Dad, that's interesting, but..."

"Of course. Your 'problem'. Please, go on."

"I was talking to Mom a few weeks ago..."

"Strange, I thought that Longbow had recently cut off e-mail access to the Isles. Something related to operational security."

"No, she was here, Dad. In Paragon. She got Vanguard to use the White Plains teleporter to bring her over for a few hours."

"Vanguard doesn't...." He rubbed his temples again. "Continue."

Malcolm told him about the conversation he'd had with his mother, about the disease, and the near impossibility of learning to live without his suit. As he finished, his father continued to rub his temples. He spun in his chair, pushed a few keys on his computer keyboard, then turned to Mal again.

"Indeed."

"That's all you have to say? Are you saying you knew all along too?"

"That is not what I am saying. This is the first I have heard of it."

"So she kept from you too..."

His father squinted. "Your mother does not keep secrets like that, Malcolm. Not from you, not from me. Something rings very false to me about this situation. Unexpected appearance...Vanguard breaking protocol...Evening Star keeping secrets..." He drummed his fingers on the desk. "Is there any more information you can give me?"

"Well...I guess there is...I've..had a couple of run-ins with the Nemesis Army."

Zachary rose to his feet as soon as he heard the name.

"Malcolm! What happened? Tell me!"

Mal shrunk back at the outburst, but quickly and quietly recounted his encounters with both Nemesis and the unusual drop ship. Zachary turned to look out the window as he listened. As Mal finished, he lifted his fingers to clasp them in front of his mouth again.

"This is a most unfortunate turn of events. I hadn't expected him to target you specifically."

"What are...what do you mean 'me specifically'?"

"Malcolm, when we were...active superheroes, your mother and I's main base of operations was Atlanta, as you should recall. Whom do you think our main dealings were with? Atlanta has been a hotspot of Nemesis Army activity since the Civil War. I couldn't tell you..well...I suppose I could...how many of the Army's plots the two of us stopped with our allies. It's one of the reasons we retired, we didn't want them targeting you."

Mal didn't respond as his father turned to face him.

"And there's more. I didn't want you to find out about this, but the situation has necessitated it. It's about your suit, Malcolm. I didn't invent it in a vacuum. I partially used..." He hesistated. "...salvaged Nemesis technology. I collected it from a deactivated superweapon called the Nega-Gravitron, which they had hoped to use to take control over Earth's gravimetric field, and use that power to blackmail the world's governments to..."

Mal wasn't listening. He felt a chill pass over him. He broke into a sweat as he took a few steps back, his hands raising to press against the chest of his suit. He had always had his suspicions about it, but now he was certain. This thing was evil.

"Now that he's decided to co-opt you for one of his schemes-and make no doubt about that, Malcolm, there is always a scheme- we have to take measures to protect you. Leave this room as soon as you can and remove the suit. Do not put it on again until I allow it."

"But...how am I supposed to go to school?

"That is unimportant, Malcolm! Nemesis is using you, probably for some nefarious purpose that neither of us can fathom. Also, another thing. You are forbidden, for as long as you are under this roof, from engaging in any acts that might be considered 'superheroic'."

"What, I guess I can't...once you fix the suit..."

"No, Malcolm. Even after the suit has been cleared for active use, you are forbidden from risking yourself like that and possibly exposing the Nemesis Army or other interested parties from further access to the suit. I've worked too long and hard to keep things like that away from them and their ilk."

"You can't do that!"

"I am your father, Malcolm. I have every authority to."

"You...you can't just go around acting like you're my father and you know what's best for me now when you've been avoiding it your entire life!"

Zachary squinted. "Malcolm..."

"Sure you're concerned now, when it's part of your job..." Malcolm took a few deep breaths. "...keeping from my friends, what I enj..." Mal cut himself off, not able to make the words come out, as he saw his father shaking his head.

"You never enjoyed it, did you Malcolm? The whole superheroic business...I know I never did."

"But someone has to..."

"That's what I thought for a long time also. I eventually found a way around it, to use my skills to stop that kind of unpleasantness without risking my life, or the life of the woman I loved, every day." He sat down, and lifted the piece of the bomb again, staring at it. "I hated it. Do you?"

Malcolm took a few breaths through his teeth. He didn't want to admit his father was right.

"Take the suit off, Malcolm. I'll explain the situation to the faculty at your school, and arrange for you to continue your studies from home."

"Dad..."

"And I will also investigate this 'disease' that your mother claims you have. I shall most assuredly be speaking to her about this matter when the situation allows. Now, I need some time to think. Please leave me in peace."

Malcolm bowed his head, and headed for the door. He had to get this suit off as quickly as he could, and then he had an exile of unknown length to prepare for.

((Thanks to Alex for help and permission on this chapter. YES, I did get permission from her for this, so don't ask if I did or not. ))


Two weeks, three days, nineteen hours....well, Malcolm really shouldn't be keeping track of how long it had been since he had left the apartment. It only made it feel smaller and more constrictive. The entire stay had been a long bout of stress for him, and that's not even counting the fact that he hadn't heard from anyone. Not a single person had tried to call him since he had been stuck here by his dad.

He spent the time either watching TV, studying, or staring at the walls. Occassionally, he tried turning up the gravity to train, but really, he was starting to lose faith in the possibility that he'd be able to accomplish his goal. It was just too hard, or maybe he just wasn't good enough. Smart enough. Strong enough. It could any of them, or all of them, really.

It had reminded Mal of the last time when his mother has visited when a knock came on his door. Like before, his father was out, called away on university buisness, so he said. When Mal answered the door, he was shocked, surprised, and delighted to see that it was the person probably closest to being his best friend, even if he wasn't hers: Alexandra Dutchman.

When he saw the look on her face after opening the door, though, the delighted part quickly faded.

She was scowling like he had never seen her scowl before. Her arms were crossed, her eyes narrowed. They stood in the door, staring at each other for a second or two. They then both spoke at the same time.

"Why haven't you tried to..."

Mal laughed. Alex didn't. He quickly stopped.

"Two weeks, Mal. We haven't heard from you in over two weeks. What the hell are you doing here?"

"Well..."

Alex stepped inside, past Mal, not even looking at him.

"How can you treat us like that? We were worried sick about you, thought you had gotten seriously hurt or something. The teachers wouldn't give us any details! It was really a horrible thing for you to do, Mal."

Malcolm stared at his feet, trying to think of something to say, some way of proving it wasn't his fault. He was under strict orders from his father not to discuss the Nemesis buisness with anyone, but something about her anger was confusing him.

"I DID try to call! Something...ugh! I don't know what's wrong! Noone answered, and when I left a message noone called back!" Mal rubbed his forehead and hair. "I don't know what happened! But I wasn't blowing you guys off, honest!"

Alex stood with her back to Mal. "OK, whatever. Do you mind closing the door?" Malcolm did, as the two walked into the main living area of the apartment. Malcolm sat down. Alex didn't.

"So, why haven't you been coming to school?"

"Well...the suit...it's kind of....malfunctioned."

Alex nodded, then looked thoughtful for a second. "I can look at it, if you want." Several months ago, Alex had helped her dad refurbish the suit to make it less bulky on Mal, and as such she was one of the best qualified people to look it over.

"No!" Malcolm said quickly. "It's..."

Alex was gone by the time Mal had said anything, dragging the pieces of the suit into the room from the foyer that Mal changed into it in. Mal's dad had wanted to take it from the apartment completely, but they had finally decided against it, in case there was an emergency and Mal had to leave.

Malcolm looked on nervously as Alex sat down and begain picking up the various pieces of the suit, looking at them from various angles.

"Alex, you don't have to..."

Alex quickly cut him off. "How is your training going?"

"What training?"

She picked up the upper arm piece. "To move without this thing."

"Well..um...."

Alex lowered the piece and squinted at him from under her glasses. "That badly?"

"...yes."

Alex threw down the armpiece. "You're pathetic, you know that?" Mal flinched, and drew back. Alex stood up, her eyes cold, her body language indicating she was beyond angry. "How long have I supported you in trying to do this? And you've produced nothing. Not one small bit of return for my support."

"I didn't think the point was to get a..."

"Shut up!" Alex crossed her arms and turned her back on Mal. "I hate you so badly right now. I can't believe I supported you for this long. I must have been out of my mind."

Mal's mind was reeling. He had never seen Alex this angry, especially at him, and especially for such an illogical reason.

"Alex, did something hap..."

"Shut up, I said!" she snapped. "And no, nothing happened, except you embarass me and then drop off the face of the planet!" She took a few steps away from Mal.

"Malcolm, I don't know why you've been gone all this time, but starting now I'm personally going to start helping you train to move without this suit. It's the least I can do after I've left things in your hands for so long."

Mal stared down, feeling profoundly, deeply ashamed of himself. He thought Alex was the one person who wouldn't do something like this, act like towards him. Guess he was wrong.

"...and after we're done...if we ever get done, I don't plan on speaking to you again."

Mal cringed. He had to hold back tears. He didn't want to argue. Make things worse. Lose what little he had left.

"Now, show me what you do so far."

Mal hesistated, but finally relented when he realized that this may be his only shot to patch things up. He lay down on the floor.

"Do you want me to adjust the gravity?"

"Yeah...I usually start about twenty five percent...."

"I doubt you know what's best for you at this point, but whatever. Where are the controls?"

Mal pointed at a dial on the wall near the front door. Alex walked toward it, and hesitated.

"I don't want you to get hurt doing this. Put the suit on."

Mal must have looked like a deer in the headlights.

"I...I...!"

"We may be at this for a while. If there's an emergency, like, I dunno, Rikti, or zombies, I can turn on its power so we can leave."

Malcolm stared at the suit.

What did he fear more, losing his friend, or Nemesis?

That really wasn't a contest.

He slowly started slipping the pieces of the suit on, making sure the power was off so he could actually practice instead of cheating.

As he finished, he lay down on the floor again. Alex nodded as he looked towards her, and started adjusting the dial. The familiar tug of Earth's regular gravity started pulling on his body.

And kept pulling, and pulling, and pulling....

This was way more than twenty-five percent!

Mal tried to yell for Alex, but his jaw was already immobile. Her hand was still on the dial, turning it up more and more. That was about the time her head turned around.

As in, all the way around. A hundred eighty degrees.

The rest of her body turned around to match her head, and she began walking forward in a decidedly non-Alex, decidedly non-human fashion.

Oh my God oh my God oh my GOD!

He had seen these things before, ironically with the real Alex. Robots, built by Nemesis, which were dead ringers for real people. One was in his house right now, and had rendered him helpless. The robot finally reached Mal, and kneeled next to him. It spoke in a voice that sounded fundamentally like Alex's, but stiff and mechanical.

"Pathetic-trusting-fool. Lord-Nemesis-will-be-pleased." It smiled, oddly enough. "The-NegaGravitron-will-soon-be-complete." It raised a hand, as a tube of some sort emerged from the sleeve of its shirt. "But-you-must-sleep-now-before-the-troops-arrive." A gas sprayed out of the tube. Malcolm tried to hold his breath, but it didn't really do him much good.

Blackness claimed him in seconds.

Gears. Pistons. Grinding. Pumping. Over. And over. His head hurt. His vision was cloudy. He shook his head. He wasn't wearing his glasses, where were they? Someone was talking, what were they saying? He hadn't even remembered going to....

Malcolm jerked his head up, banging it against...something. Something that was moving all around him. He tried to move his arm to rub the sore spot, but found it was being restrained. He took a few deep breaths as he squinted to examine his surroundings.

What he saw, combined with the memories of how he had fallen asleep, was enough to make him wish he were still out.

The chamber was large, but not enormous, the ceiling some ten feet over Mal's head, with the floor five feet under his boots. All around him, the pistons and gears he had heard before whirled, steam hissing from every joint. Cables led from deep in the bowels of the machinery, all attached to his suit in various places. The suit, for its part, seemed to be vibrating in some fashion that Mal hadn't felt it do before....and was it glowing?

Throughout the chamber, soldiers stood in red uniforms and brass helmets, holding rifles that looked more in line with the nineteenth century than the twenty-first. Sprinkled among them were several large machines that looked like green bottles with legs and weaponry. Finally, standing in the center of the chamber, an enormous mass of brass armor, viewing what looked to be a holographic viewscreen that seemed slightly at odds with the steampunk technology around it.

"Nem....Nemesis." Mal croaked.

The armored figure turned slowly, theatrically, extending his right arm in some gesture Malcolm couldn't really comprehend. Maybe he just thought it looked impressive.

"Ah, he stirs. Good morning, boy."

Malcolm took a few deep breaths, made a few ragged groans, and puked all over the front of the suit.

"Oh, my. Poor boy. That does happen when you're especially frightened, don't you?" Nemesis pointed at a nearby soldier, who pulled out a hankerchief and climbed up on the machine to wipe off the expelled contents of Mal's digestive tract.

Malcolm groaned again, no less terrified, but now also acutely ashamed for embarassing himself like that. He lifted his head and looked at the tall mass of armor.

"What....what did you do to Alex?"

"Miss Dutchman? I did nothing to her. Did you think that I have to harm someone to duplicate them?" Mal tried to shrug. "It's such an easy task to perform...do you know how many of these duplicates I have at your school? To keep tabs, you see, of the budding superhuman population?"

"Why d-don't you...b...blo..."

"And destroy such a valuable potential resource? I think not. Besides, it is very well defended. Use some logic, boy."

"H...how many?"

"Duplicates? Zero. Why would I want to, after all? Stop thinking you live at the center of the universe." Nemesis tilted his armored head, probably smirking behind his mask. He seemed to be enjoying messing with Mal's head. "Now, on to the topic at hand." He walked up to the machine Malcolm was strapped to, making an adjustment here and there, monitoring a couple of gauges. "Do you know what this machine is?"

"Nega...gravi...."

"NegaGravitron. Please stop mumbling and stuttering like that, I'm trying to be civil here, and your inability to contribute the conversation isn't helpful." He stared at Malcolm for a few seconds. Mal felt like puking again, but held it in this time.

"Can I..." he tried to breath, compose himself. "...ask why you needed me for this?"

"Certainly, boy. I was hoping you would, in fact. You see, the thing is...I don't need you. Not you specifically. I do hope you realize that you aren't special, you're more a victim of circumstance than anything. Fortunately, I am the master of taking advantage of such victims."

Nemesis turned his back on Malcolm, pacing with his arms folded behind him. "I know what you're thinking right now, boy. They all think and say the same thing: 'Is he really going to tell me his whole plan and give me the opportunity to defeat him?'" He chuckled slightly. "How post-modern! Well, boy, do you know why myself and my ilk feel the need to explain our plans to captive heroes?" He turned to Mal, as if expecting an answer. Mal shook his head.

Nemesis surged forward, pointing an accusatory finger up into Malcolm's face, his voice a roar. "Because we spend an untold amount of time, plotting, and resources to formulate these schemes, and we want our victims to damned well appreciate their complexity!" His voice dropped to the former conversational tone. "Now, please, listen carefully.

"The NegaGravitron. Brainstormed by myself around seventeen years ago, a device that would tap into and manipulate the Earth's gravitic field. Make the entire population of Earth too heavy, or too light to function. A very effective blackmail tool, so I thought. There were two problems, though. The first was that during its construction, a group of...superheroes battled my forces, and won. Your mother and father were among them. They were able to disable to the NegaGravitron, and disassemble it for...civilan use. Your suit, for example.

"The second problem was, well, the machine didn't work. Not to the level I wanted. Certainly, it could affect...perhaps the continental United States, but a worldwide level was all I would be satisfied with. So, I allowed the device to be dismantled, fall into the hands of a scientist superhero with a knack for these sorts of devices, and wait for him to solve my problem. With luck, anyway. If not, nothing lost, I can always create something else.

"For those seventeen years, nothing came of the project that I found satisfactory. I am a patient man, though, and I was rewarded a year ago when my expeditionary forces brought me back something...remarkable. A unique power source..." He cocked his head again, and made the sweeping gesture with both arms this time. "...from the Shadow Shard. Have you heard of it?"

"Sort of..." Mal was starting to get his bearings now, calming himself down, trying to think of a way out of here. Nothing was coming, though.

"It was connected to a most remarkable technology, it was a unique form of energy that seemed to...increase, grow more potent, when presented with certain negative human emotions. This energy, this power, I realized, was of sufficent potency, when properly conditioned, to power the NegaGravitron to the levels I desired. And how fortuitous! A power core derived from my technology has just began running around Paragon! Surrounding, I must add, an insecure bundle of teenaged angst....just the perfect source of those negative emotions I needed to harness.

"All it took, boy, was to introduce a set of nanites endowed with this special energy to your suit...the card, Malcolm, the one I gave you that you tore up....and wait for them to collect enough energy to suit my purposes. However, you have been a sore disappointment in that area lately. So, a little encouragement was in order. Fear...betrayal...anger...despair....all of those things were needed in abundance. The automaton forged in the image of your mother was an excellent touch, I must admit."

Malcolm's eyes grew wide. "That...she...."

"Was a fake, yes. One of my automatons. There is no disease, boy, just...well, I don't know what's holding you back. I don't care, either. I knew that the lie would affect you harshly, though. The Dropship was another well crafted incident created to terrify you, helped by a reversed engineered vessel from another operation. And dear Miss Dutchman, whose word you hold in such high regard, turning her back on you. It took observing you for just a week to find your weak points, boy. And now..."

He walked up to Malcolm and tapped the chest of the suit. "The charge-up is complete. The suit is now able to fully power the NegaGravitron." He leaned up to look Malcolm in the face. "Thank you very much, boy. The world just might be mine thanks to your instability." There was a sharp chuckle. "Not that you'll see that, of course. The nanites are charged, the suit is connected and powering the machine at optimum levels...and you, insignificant mote, are no longer a part of the solution." Nemesis turned away again, and raised a finger.

Malcolm heard and felt the clasps of the suit popping detaching. The various pieces slid away from him, and his body quickly slipped out of the suit, and the machine. He fell with an immense crack on the floor of the chamber. By some fortune, he had landed on his side, still able to breathe. He saw a Nemesis solider flinch as he hit, either out of sympathy, or from the concussion Malcolm's twelve ton frame made when he hit the ground.

Behind him, the machine whirled, hummed, hissed. He heard Nemesis talking, making a decision as to which country he would use the machine against first. He seemed to be leaning towards China.

And Malcolm lay helpless, worthless. Like always. For the first time, he wished he really had fallen on his face this time...

"Malcolm!"

Malcolm ignored the masculine voice at first, thinking it was his imagination, until it repeated, louder.

"SON!"

Malcolm tried to articulate the word for "dad?" but couldn't.

"You do not have to respond, son. I am not sure you can, anyway. Nemesis isn't the only individual with microtechnology at his disposal. I'm speaking to you through a comm the size of a dust particle in your ear. I...doubt Nemesis can hear me. We, your mother and I, are on our way, Malcolm. You've been missing for three days, and when I found you missing, I quickly deduced what had happened and tracked you to your current location via the homer in this comm. Your mother's Longbow batallion has been notified, and they're prepared to attack the Nemesis stronghold you're a captive in...but there's one issue.

"It's a fortress floating over the Atlantic, Malcolm. It's too well fortified and isolated for a direct assault, and we don't want to use any of the really heavy weapons against it with you still inside. There is one option though....we can teleport the Longbow batallion directly to your location. The problem with this, however, is that there's a teleport dampening field around the whole fortress, keeping us from making a solid lock on your location.

"It took me a bit to find a solution to this, Malcolm, but listen carefully: your medbadge. You must activate it...it won't get you out of there, but it will create a strong enough distress signal for us to lock onto, overcome the dampening field, and teleport inside."

Mal felt a sinking feeling. His medbadge was on the suit. Helpless as he was, there was no way that he'd be able to reach it. He heard his father's voice again, this time covered by static.

"This comm is almost out of power, Malcolm. If you can't do this, I have to tell you there are several missiles locked onto that fortress. One of them might be nuclear, I do not know.... all I can sa...good lu...coun....you."

Malcolm tried to close his eyes, to think. There had to be some way....a gravity wave, maybe? He did it all the time...with the suit on. He had never been able to use his powers like that with it off. His mind raced, but no solutions came.

Failure. No good worthless failure. Father asked for one thing so they could save the day, and you can even do that because you're too busy lying here like a turtle. He could feel tears well up. Gonna die here, either by missiles or by Nemesis. Betcha noone's even gonna care.

Somewhere in the distance, Malcolm heard Nemesis talking. The only part he was able to recognize was "...been waiting for this since the Second World War..."

That was really the wrong thing for Nemesis to say.

Because that was all Malcolm needed to hear.

Memories of his grandfather came back to him, this time in a much different light.

"I was a man, so I had a job t' do. So I stood up. And I kept goin'."

I am a man, and I have a job to do. I have to stand up. I have to keep going.

"There's gonna be a time in yer life when things don't look so good for ya, and those are the times when ya gotta stand up like I did when I got my eye blew out. Stand up, keep goin'..."

This is at time when things don't look so good for me. This is a time when I have to stand up. Just like Grandfather did when he lost his eye.

I have to stand up.

I have to keep going.

Malcolm took in a deep breath. Concentrated. Concentrated. Concentrated. He blinked. Concentrated.

He remembered how horrible it felt when the robot he thought was his mother told him her "bad news". Then he remembered how all the rest of his life, his real mother had supported him, loved him, done whatever she could for him.

He concentrated.

He remembered the terror he had felt when chased by the Rikti/Nemesis ship. Then he remembered when an elderly woman had personally pulled him aside to thank him after a Rikti attack in Skyway City.

He concentrated.

He remembered his frustration with his father's sensible but restrictive measures, his frustation with his father reaching back to his early childhood...then he remembered that his father was doing whatever he could right at this very moment to save him.

He concentrated.

He remembered feeling stabbed in the gut when the fake Alex snubbed him. Then he remember all the fun times he'd had with her, with Trixie, with Tammy, with Jessiy, with Bryan...

He took another deep breath. He clenched his fist. Another breath. A twitch, all over his body. Another twitch, stronger. A final one, and Mal was on his back.

His head strained, felt like it was going to break off. No, Stand up! His shoulders lifted, his spine slowly rising up off the floor, feeling like it was going to snap into a million pieces. No, Stand up! His arms pushed, lifting him higher, he was sure they were going to collapse. No, stand up! He was sitting upright now.

The soliders were staring at him now, waiting for him to take some kind of threatening action so they could kill him with reason. Nemesis still had his back turned, concentrating on making final calibrations to the machine.

Malcolm's legs folded, feeling like twigs under a cement mixer, Stand up! as they pushed his body up Stand up!, shivering and buckling Stand up!, then stabilizing as he stood upright.

He didn't know how. But he had done it.

Something sharp hit his side. And again and again. It hurt. A lot. Not as much as bullets should, Malcolm thought. The Nemesis soliders were firing at him. Am I tougher than I thought? He slowly craned his head up, looking at the suit embedded into the machine, now opened after it had dumped Mal out. All he had to do was...

Malcolm's plan was interrupted by a blow to his back, a much harder impact than any of the bullets. He saw the floor go sailing under him as he flew through the air, finally hitting the wall next to where the machine protruded out of it.

"I underestimated you, apparently." Nemesis' voice boomed. A loud clanging rang out as the armored madman approached, now holding his distinctive staff. "I honestly should have killed you when I had the opportunity. A weakness I admit, I must have felt some gratitude for..."

Malcolm wasn't listening as he stumbled for the suit. He climbed up a small bit, pawing at it, trying to think of where the medbadge....

Another blow, this one harder, knocking him on his back.

Malcolm rose again, this time nearly effortlessly. He looked at the suit one more time.

Medbadge medbadge medbadge. Medbadge saves you where you're in danger. Medbadge was never calibrated to my vital signs but the vital signs of the....

The enormous Nemesis staff swung again, this time aiming at Mal's head. So Mal did the easiest, most natural thing for him all his life. He fell backwards.

The staff missed by an inch.

And hit the suit.

Sparks flew out of it. A slight puff of smoke. Nemesis grunted, and extracted the staff again.

"Somewhat clever, I will allow you that. The 'trick your foe into destroying his machine' trick was old when those Fifth Column fools were fresh, though. You only had hope that it worked like that. The nanites and core have been extracted by this point, though. This suit is now worthless to me. As are you." An armored foot raised, and planted squarely into Malcolm's chest. "As will be all insects who dare defy me." The pressure was incredible, it would crush even his dense body in less than a second....

...and was gone.

Flashes everywhere. Red and white uniforms. Gunshots, sounds of battle.

Malcolm really wasn't paying attention anymore. He was too busy passing out from the stress.

It was far more comfortable when Malcolm regained consciousness, apparently in a soft bed in a clean smelling room. He opened his eyes.

A hospital room. Right.

His mother sat next to him on one side. She immediately grinned widely as she saw her son open his eyes.

"Aah, you're awaake! Deaar!" She called out into the hall. "Maalcolm is awaake!"

Zachary Eades immediately hustled into the room, leaning over his son.

"Malcolm! Are you in pain? How are you feeling right now?"

Malcolm drew back at his father's proximity. "Um...hungry."

Zach nodded. "You've been out for twelve hours. Not too surprising."

Ronnie laughed behind him. "Haaven't even stopped to change, haave we?"
It was about this time that Malcolm realized what his mother and father were wearing: Ronnie was wearing a skin-tight white suit that he really wouldn't want his male friends at school to see her in, considering how much bare flesh it showed. Zach was wearing an armored jumpsuit, darkened goggles, and a pair of high-tech looking gauntlets.

"You guys...dressed up in your old suits?"

Ronnie nodded, then smiled guilty. "We, well, didn't get aactuaal permission from my commaander for this mission, aas we figured it would take too long. Since it was my son on the line, I decided to work outside my duties aas a Waarden, aand my troops were gracious enough to help. He haad to use that stuff, of course." She tilted her head to Zach. "He'd be helpless otherwise."

Mal's father grunted. "He hasn't even acknowledged it yet."

"Acknowledged what?" Mal asked.

"Malcolm..." Zach took a step back from Mal, picking up a glass of water from the surface beside the bed. Malcolm sat up, leaned forward and took it. Ronnie immediately clapped her hands and laughed happily.

"He did it! He reaally did it!" She laughed, and then said something in her native language that Malcolm had been led to understand had some religious connotations.

"Malcolm," his father said, "you're moving in normal gravity. Without the suit."

Malcolm blinked. He looked down.

And then fell back on the bed, breathing quickly and deeply.

"Do not get too excited, son. I still haven't figured out how or why this happened. We still don't know everything about the way your body works, since you're still the only human/Ovig hybrid we're aware of." He started pacing. "The nearest I can deduce is that many mutants' powers are activated in adolesence due to some extreme stress. Perhaps that was the case here...or perhaps..." He shook his head. "...this is part of Nemesis' plot."

"What..." Malcolm sat up again, feeling more natural now. "...happened after I passed out?"

"Nemesis got away." Ronnie said darkly. "But...I got a few blows in..."

"We arrested most of his troops and shut the NegaGravitron down...again...and we made sure you were safe. That is what's important. Still, we want to keep you here for a couple of days, to make sure there isn't any malign side effects from your new...condition." Mal nodded quietly in response.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to finish my after action report on the NegaGravitron. I'll leave you with your mother, Malcolm." With that, Zach left the hospital room.

As he did, Ronnie sat down next to Malcolm, and took his hand warmly.

"What your faather didn't waant to say..what he doesn't waant to aadmit...is thaat this waas aa...aa miraacle, Maalcolm. Just like you aare for me aand him, every day." Her eyes watered. "They saaid we'd never be able haave children, you know. Yet here you aare. Aand I'm so proud of you, my son. Aand even if he won't say it, your faather is, too."

****

The next few days were boring, but cheerful. After a battery of tests, Zachary couldn't find any negative side effects to Mal's new condition. Most of his friends (including the REAL Alex this time, who was a lot more forgiving and happy to see him than the robot had been) came to see him. His mother's commanding officer, Lt. Dietrich, had came by briefly to commend him on his bravery in a stressful situation. He had even gotten a letter from Miss Liberty (Mal had the feeling that it had been typed up by a press secretary, but at least the Vindicators' letterhead was cool).

On the night before he got out, though, he got a somewhat unique pair of visitors.

The first was a short black woman, somewhat overweight, carrying a clipboard that she was studying as she entered the room. As she looked up at Mal, she smiled somewhat fakely.

"Mr. Eades! Good evening! How are you doing?"

"Um...who are you?"

"Oh, I'm Janice Stern from ELITE." She approached the foot of his hospital bed, flashing an ELITE ID badge, trying to look as official as possible. "I'll cut to the point, Malcolm. This is about your registration in ELITE as a liscenced hero."

"...what about it?"

"We have down your...abilities as gravimetric manipulation. Now, from what I understand, you no longer have that kind of...use for your abilities."

"Huh?"

"It was all clear in your father's report. Your powers of that nature are now being used to maintain your own gravity field solely. You aren't able to use them like you could before."

"Oh. Right. I can't." He'd tried a couple of times since he had been here, with no luck.

"As such, we are unable to keep your record on file as a gravimetric controller. We'll be forced to either close your file, or..."

"Or?"

The woman gestured for someone standing in the hall, as a man walked in wearing an...interesting outfit. Colorful, formfitting, with a cowl covering most of his face and a long cape. He was pretty much the modern model of a Paragonian superhero.

"Hi there, Dwarf Planet, was it?" He said, smiling. Mal cringed.

"'Mal' will do."

"Right, I tend to forget, I don't tell my real name to anyone after all! It's a secret! You can call me the Sterling Inferno."

"And..what's this about?"

Stern spoke up. "Mr. Inferno is on loan from us from GIFT. We read the report, as we said, and we think that we may need to reclassify your powers."

"Right." Inferno said. He produced a block of some strange matter out of his belt, and handed to Malcolm. "Could you try to lift this?"

Malcolm took it, and shook it a few times. Both adults looked mildly surprised.

"What's the big deal?" Malcolm leaned over to rest the block on the nightstand, and was shocked when it crashed through the nightstand and cracked into the floor.

Sterling Inferno smiled. "That block weighs a thousand pounds, Malcolm. I'm superstrong too, so I can pick it up, too."

Stern nodded, jotting something down on the clipboard. "Yesss, we will be reclassifying you. You'll have to have a new security level, though, and we'll have to assign you a new code name. Do you have a preference?"

Mal blinked. This was even better than he had figured. The suit was gone, and he got to choose a different name from the "Dwarf Planet" title he hated?

Then again, like his father said a few weeks ago, Malcolm hated doing dangerous things like superheroing.

Sometimes.

Then again, that was the old Malcolm, the one in the suit, not the new one...

He'd have to think about this one.

******

Somewhere else...

It could have been in Paragon City. It could have been the Rogue Isles. It could have been in Atlanta. It might have even been in Prussia.

One of them was a man, or once was a man. It was difficult to tell with the armor. He was known by many names, and would be known by many names in the future. "Lord Nemesis" was the one he went by currently.

The other was a robot, a duplicate designed to imitate the original. Telling the two apart would require closer examination than most people were capable of. The common term for what he was was "Fake Nemesis". This one was far more advanced than others of his ilk, many who were even intimiately familiar with the regular Fakes would mistake him for the real thing.

The duplicate handed a small electronic pad to the original.

"After action report on the Shadow Shard nanite testing, my lord."

The original took it, and scanned over the displayed information.

"Interesting...very interesting. These results are very promising."

"Thank you, my lord."

"Yes...distributing the nanites in a high school....or jail...or some other bastion of negative emotions could be very productive for my Army and Empire."

A few seconds passed as the original scanned over the results in detail.

"You also deserve the highest of praises for creating the testing conditions. The aspect of it where you acted as if you were reactivating one of our former failed weapons was inspired. Not only did it conceal our true objective, it made it look like I had created a plan spanning over twenty years, when it was truly two completely seperate operations."

"Again, I thank you."

"Have the appropriate measures been taken?"

"Yes, my lord. The apprehended soliders will escape in the next Zigursky jailbreak. Our operatives in Arachnos will see to that. There are no traces of the nanites left in the ruins of the machine..."

"What about the boy?"

"What boy?"

"The one that was wearing the supplemental power source."

"Ah, him. What about him?"

"Is there any chance that he could have been affected by the nanites?"

"Data is inconclusive. We haven't seen any effect of the nanites on organic material yet."

"Yet. I despise that word."

The original folded his hands behind him.

"Without this data, I don't think this project can be closed. Not only that..." He looked up. "We don't yet know how positive emotions affect the nanites, either."

"Do you think either of those factors will be important in the future?"

Silence for a second.

"Probably not. In any case the boy ultimately knows too much about the project and has too much attention on him now for him to be an appropriate test subject. He was always an insignificant part of this operation, and losing him will not affect it in any way. Cease all operations concerning him, we won't be needing him for the time being."

"As you wish, sir."

The original nodded a final time, and the two turned to go their seperate ways.

Being the self-proclaimed saviors of the world was always such a demanding job.



-fin-