#+ his face is way to short to be a normal alligator or crocodile

[st4rguy]

i have randomly decided right now that quakemaster is an alligator snaping turtle

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Still Clean

CW: Referenced noncon and incredibly fucky attitudes/beliefs around spice and his own body from an abuse and assault survivor still very much normalizing it, minor attempting to initiate spice with adult due to trauma (adult reacts with a Big No), trauma response

 TIMELINE: Chris’s first few days in the shelter, before he picks his name. I would say this is actually shortly after the first time he speaks to Jake.

The first shower is… different. 

Baldur has taken showers before, of course. At Sir's, although mostly he had baths, soaking in the big old claw foot rub with Sir's fingers gently circling his scalp to lather up shampoo he'd ordered to bring Baldur's hair to a high shine, make it soft to touch.

H had showers in the big room at training, frantically scrubbing cheap soap into his scalp and skin, hoping if he moved fast enough he wouldn’t catch anyone’s eye. He's showered with other trainees who kept their gaze down, just like him, or handlers who would stare.

If you were lucky, all they did was stare.

223499 was pretty, they all said so. Too pretty. He knew what that meant. So he got clean as fast as he could, and it didn’t really matter, because nobody ever stays clean in training.

This, though, this is different.

For the first time in his whole memory, he’s going to take a shower alone.

The boy makes his careful way out from underneath the bed while everyone else is downstairs. He listens, at the doorway to the room he is in, head tilted. The sound of silverware scraping on plates, people talking over each other but not angrily, just… talking. Someone laughs, and then everyone laughs. 

The boy swallows against a sharpness, like a bit of glass has lodged just over his heart. He would have liked to do that, he thinks. He would have liked to belong to someone who laughs, not at him, like Sir, but because something is funny without hurting anyone.

His neck is itching - they cut his collar off, and he feels naked without it, even in the big shirt they've given him to wear over the tight, soft black pants the woman who found him helped him put on in her car, in the rain. He hasn't taken them off yet. They feel like his trainee shorts. They feel like home.

While they are downstairs, he tiptoes out into the hall, wincing at the slightest little creaks of old wood beneath bare feet. His stomach gnaws on itself, empty and aching for something, but he won't leave the safety of the space behind the bed, not yet. Have to wait. 

Wait for what?

He doesn't know.

Still, he knows that he smells - like sweat, a pungent sharp odor that he is sure must bother the other one who sleeps in the room, although the other one never says it. He knows.

He's only been dirty like this once, in memories he is almost too terrified to hold onto. Locked in the white room alone - alone and alone and alone- until he was screaming for someone to come in and help him, talk to him, touch him, do whatever they wanted if he could just stop being alone-

The boy's fingers slip up under the hem of his shirt as he creeps along, finding the warmth of his abdomen, twisting his fingers and tapping them. The soft soothe of controlled sensation calms the way his heart wants to race.

No more white rooms. The woman said that, to him - no more white rooms.

His eyes dart back and forth. The pills have worn off, and it's been so long since he could see with all his thoughts that he sees everything now, in a rush of detail he can't quite grasp onto.

He can see the pattern of the woodgrain in the floor and the way the old walls are painted with a heavy matte paint and photos hung there of the woman and the younger man and some people the boy hasn't seen. He is aware of a room that he passes and all the detail of the two beds inside - where the two girls sleep, the ones who he has only seen once in a brief glimpse. He knows their voices, though. They're laughing downstairs. 

Another room, where the man, the one who might own him now, sleeps at night. Messy, a room that looks comfortable. It smells like the cologne the man wears. Baldur likes his cologne, a little too strong but it smells, to him, like something good. He sees the little hook to pull down a ladder to where the owner of everyone here sleeps in the attic and he sees the bathroom door has peeling paint over older, darker paint and he sees the towels are worn but fluffy hanging inside and-

And he is in the bathroom. 

In training there were no baths, only showers. At Sir's, the shower was on one side of the bathroom and the old clawfoot tub on the other. Here, the bathtub and shower are the same, set into a notch in the wall. The shower curtain has dinosaurs on it and the boy hums, letting his fingertips reach out to slowly run down the silky plastic. 

Tyrannosaurus rex. Stegosaurus. Triceratops…

He knows which is which, the knowledge dances around inside him, but he doesn't know why he knows it. He had a favorite dinosaur, once. He thinks.

He can almost see bookshelves full of dinosaur things, little plastic figurines that he could run his fingers over and feel the rough texture of their scales and skin built into the plastic. Tiny white-pain teeth there felt sharp if he pushed his little fingers into them, pretended the dinosaur would bite him.

Line them up by height, from tall long-necked to tiny little runners.

Dinosaurs are birds, now. But crocodiles… crocodiles and alligators haven't changed in millions of years, because they're already perfect, a voice murmurs, somewhere inside. Flush with excitement. A man's voice, maybe. Do you see? They didn't evolve more because they're absolutely perfect. We just don't get them, so we think they’re ugly, but we don’t know what ugly is, do we?

He winces, at the headache that rocks through him on the heels of the man's voice. It slips beneath the surface and the buzz of other thoughts takes over. 

The boy doesn’t remember bookshelves anymore - or anything at all.

False memories are a common result of proprietary training procedures and should be ignored. That voice he knows, and there isn't any headache with that thought. Handler Petrus can live in his head without it hurting - it is the other voices that hurt. 

The boy carefully closes the door to the bathroom, and with a thrill of fear at doing something so absolutely not allowed… he locks the door.

Baldur, darlin', are you allowed to-

No more locked doors, the woman said that, too, but she didn't say he couldn't lock them himself. 

He pulls the shirt off over his head, steps out of the pants, peeling them away from his legs. He looks at the hamper, then puts the pants into the trash can instead.

The knobs are old and look like glass but feel like plastic, and water thunders from the faucet in a tremendous rush, ice cold when he puts his fingers underneath to feel it. He shivers in the chilly bathroom, and stares at it, listening and listening. It sounds like something. He can't remember what. 

He's humming again, low throaty noises, settling his nerves. Not an allowed sound. His hands twitch in a memory of the black baton used to teach him to stop, and he goes silent.

Silence is better than stammering. Easy, just repeat, again and again, until the other thoughts are gone. But with the medicine gone from his system there are so many other thoughts, his mind running on so many tracks, that he can't drown it all out. 

The water starts, slowly, to warm to the touch. The boy rocks, just a little - just the teeniest bit, no one is watching him, no one will know - as he enjoys the way it grows from cold to cool to warm to hot.

Then he turns the big knob in the center, and the shower kicks on, sending a cascade of hot water with a soft sssssssssssss to the tub. 

The boy's hair hangs in greasy hanks over his forehead, and as he steps in, his eyes scan immediately for shampoo. 

He finds something - he can't read the bottle but it is short and squat, a clear lime green. The liquid inside smells like mint and something else he can't name, and he breathes it in, eyes closing, before he rubs his palms together to lather and then moves his hands to his hair. 

The air smells so good, around him, and when he catches himself humming again, he tries to keep it soft, rather than stop. 

No one is in here. It’s just him, all by himself, and he smiles into the water, letting the shower beat directly onto his face, the water pressure gentle and low, falling like warm rain. 

Days of oil and dust from under the bed wash out of his hair and down his skin, and he scrubs and scrubs the last remaining hints of Sir's hands and mouth with the bar of white soap that sits in a little dish attached to the tiled wall. There is a small matte green bottle, too, and it smells like the shampoo but it is thick and heavy and he thinks this must be the conditioner - so he uses that, too. 

The smell-

He wants-... 

On impulse, he rubs the conditioner over his entire body, all at once, determined to make every inch of himself clean. His back, right at the small of it, his stomach below his navel, his collarbone and neck, ears, even dipping between his legs with a thrill of the forbidden things he isn’t allowed to do right down his spine…

He would be in so much trouble in training, if they saw. And worse with Sir - there would be a game, to teach him never ever to break a rule again. 

He isn't going to get in trouble, here - no one is in this room but him.

He isn’t trying to do things he’s not allowed to do, exactly. He just wants it all - all of him, every inch of him - to smell like the mint, chase away the memory of the things he is made for and doesn’t want, to wipe away all the remaining sense he has of the places his Sir liked to touch him most.

No Sir, here. Just him. Just himself, and the things on his hands that can make him feel almost… almost clean. 

He is in there so long that the water turns back to lukewarm and finally to cold, and the boy is shivering as he steps back out onto a shaggy bath mat, which he realizes matches the curtain - it has a T. Rex on it, and he grins at that, rocking side to side, water running in rivulets down his body. Flash of teeth - oh he should brush his teeth, they’re fuzzy and gross like, like back in training when he would be locked in his room for days and days and days-

Baldur pads silently up to the sink, frowning, tapping on the porcelain before he pulls open a drawer, finds an unopened toothbrush, and forces it open.

Sir used toothpaste that tasted like cinnamon, and Baldur hates cinnamon but it didn’t matter what he hates, not to Sir.

But this… this toothpaste just tastes like mint and mint alone. He closes his eyes, rinsing his mouth, running his tongue over his teeth again and again as he feels them - solid, strong, and smoothly clean now.

He looks, he thinks, like a whole different person. Baldur stares in the mirror, blinking, at his own green eyes, the narrow chin and high cheekbones, eyebrows so light they seem to fade into the paleness of his skin. Smattering of freckles, he presses at those with his fingertips, hesitantly, gently. Clean, wet hair right now the color of an old penny and when dry, the same as a brand new one, flopped over his forehead, curling just a little under his ears. 

Clean.

Clean, with no hands on him, no mouth. Just clean.

For now.

He will have to be good for the man, or the woman, whenever they get tired of his hiding. He knows that. There will be a new collar, sooner or later. But for this moment in the bathroom, he feels clean. 

Like a real kid, like the ones he saw coming on field trips, who laughed and shoved each other and shouted and walked with awkwardness but with an understanding that their bodies didn’t come with a price tag.

Then he realizes he doesn't have any clean clothes to change into. Breath hisses out of him as he towel dries his hair and then wraps a fresh towel around his waist, but it's fine. There are clothes for him on the bed. 

He just.

Just has to get back to his bedroom, and then hide under the bed. Right back where it's safe, where it's dark. 

He twists open the door - the knob is a little slippery under his fingers, he hears the soft click of it automatically unlocking - and as the door swings open, he comes face to face with the man who might own him now. 

Or rather, face to collarbone. He has to raise his chin to look the man in the eyes. 

"Oh. Uh. Hi," The man says, in a deep voice. "Hey. I didn't know-... I figured you'd already-"

Baldur shivers, the chilly winter air in the house suddenly cooling every bit of damp still on his skin. 

It had been nice, to be clean, for a few minutes anyway.

He looks up at the man - blond hair and nice jaw and soft blue eyes, this won’t be so bad, he doesn’t look mean like a handler or cruel like Sir - and Baldur lowers his hand down to where his towel is tucked over itself just above his hips, lips parted slightly. Into training, he knows this, it's what he's made for. It’s easy.

Tilt the head just so much, to let his hair fall over his eyes the right way, give a slight little smile-

The man’s eyebrows raise, and he puts up both hands, and the boy wonders what part of him the man will want to touch first. "Oh, uh, no, you don't-"

Bite his bottom lip, just a slight press of teeth into soft skin-

The man steps forward, and the boy’s breath hitches in. He can do this. He can, he’s trained for this, and if he screams inside his head and not out loud no one will ever know to punish him. H

is fingers hesitate, pressed into the soft cotton towel. He tells himself to let it all slide away, to slip beneath the white light and let his training take over. If he just goes away inside his head, it will be over, soon enough.

"Hey, little man, we definitely don't need-"

The boy drops the towel to the floor, wondering how long it will take to not smell like mint anymore, and says in a low, husky voice - his shoulders are tense, it had taken days to get his voice just right, days and days of saying it over and over again until he never stopped screaming in pain, “I want this. I want you.”

There’s a breath of silence, the man staring at him - at his face, the boy realizes, and no one’s ever just looked at his face before. Then he says, in a strangled voice, “Absolutely not.”

The boy swallows. Is he-... is he supposed to-

“Sir?”

“I’m not sir. And absolutely the fuck not could you possibly want-... no. No.” The man steps back, and back again. The blood rises in the boy’s face, he feels the heat there burning with something like embarrassment, or shame, except he’s not supposed to have shame anymore.

But he does.

“I-I want-”

“No you don’t. No, you-... you don’t. No. We’re not going to do that, here. You will never-... Jesus Christ, I just-. Shit. What worked with Kauri? I just-”

The boy stares, slowly comprehending that he has… he’s done it wrong, somehow, and the man doesn’t want him to. He doesn’t want to. The boy breathes in, and out, and it’s with worry and relief. “I-I, I don’t… know… how to, to clean,” He says slowly, worriedly. “Or to do-... anything. I-I’m only, only good for-”

“No, you’re not, you’re just-”

But they said-

The boy’s breaths are coming faster, close to panting, now, his heart pounding against his chest. His face still burns red, and his eyes flicker away, away from the look on the man’s face that he can’t read. He has to be, to be still, and be good, but he doesn’t want him to be good…

He can see the door to the room they put him in.

The boy’s eyes flicker back to the man’s, then to the door of his room. He moves, carefully, to crouch back down and pick the towel back up. The man doesn’t stop him, only watches as the boy wraps the towel back around his waist with shaking hands. He’s going to be in trouble. Somehow he messed this up, and he’s not sure how, and… and…

“I, I, I-I like your sh, shower curtain,” The boy blurts out, and then flees down the hall back to the room, throwing himself inside and slamming the door shut, scrambling across to the bed and grabbing a pair of pajama pants that were there on the blankets. He drops to his knees and crawls underneath to the little nest he’s made along the wall of blankets and pillows, curling up naked but for the towel, under a blanket, shivering, staring from under the bed at the door.

He hears, dimly, the man say, how the fuck do I keep screwing this up? and then the sound of stomping feet down the stairs. The boy rocks, under the bed, rocks and rocks where he is safe to rock and no one will stop him or hurt him, tapping on his own skin, just to feel a little calmer. 

At some point, he falls asleep.

He’s good at falling asleep whenever and wherever, now. Nothing could be worse than trying to sleep curled up on the cold tile floor with the bright white light. Here in a warm soft circle of blankets, it’s almost impossible for him to be awake for long.

When he opens his eyes again, it’s night - the other man here, the soft quiet one, is already asleep, breathing deeply in the other bed across the room. There’s a small night light plugged into a wall, throwing a dim, warm, gentle yellow glow in a small circle around itself.

Folded and laid carefully just on the floor, an arm’s length away from the boy, is a t-shirt. He has to squint to see it, but his eyes widen as he realizes the front of it has the outline of a T. Rex holding a mug of coffee. There are words, but the boy carefully doesn’t see them as he grabs at the fabric - soft, ancient and washed a hundred times, it feels almost like skin - and pulls it to himself.

He pulls it on over his head, and then pulls the pajama pants on up over his legs. Soft, soft, soft. He runs his fingers back and forth over the slight change in texture from the design, just a little rougher than the soft cotton around it. Pulls the neckline of the shirt up over his nose, breathes in. It smells a little like the man’s cologne, mixed with laundry soap.

Is it his shirt? Did he give the boy his shirt, even after he wasn’t good the right way?

He pulls it back down and some of his hair falls over his eyes.

He smells mint.

Still clean. 

---

Tagging: @burtlederp​, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump​, @whumpfigure​, @slaintetowhump​, @astrobly​, @newandfiguringitout​, @doveotions​, @pretty-face-breaker​, @boxboysandotherwhump​, @oops-its-whump​ @moose-teeth, @cubeswhump

[miracalicethebookgirl]

The Phony and the Famous Pt. 3

AO3 

Pt 1. Pt 2. 

Summary: Lila spreads lies about being famous with worldwide connections to increase her local popularity. She’s confident that Marinette will never be able to prove otherwise. What she, and even Marinette herself, don’t realize is that Marinette won’t have to do any of that to come out on top. - A story in which everything Lila lies about, Marinette turns into reality for herself, usually unknowingly (our girl is quite the lucky one, after all).

“Yes, I suffer from tinnitus, a constant ringing in my left ear. I've had it ever since the sound of an airplane engine burst my eardrum on the runway when I was saving Jagged Stone's lost kitten.”

Season 3, “Chameleon”

... 

Fang was a simple creature.

He was hatched straight into the hands of the human he now called his owner and raised among those who often cowered from him. Very rarely did a human try to test Fang’s temper, so he grew up rather tame. His owner fed him well and presented him with many interesting gifts, most of which were quickly chewed through within days, if not hours. When Fang was not feeding or playing (or taking delightful baths), he would walk with and rest near and carefully watch his owner, for Jagged was a human worth Fang’s avid attention.

He could see when his owner was happy and content. It happened most when Jagged’s frequent companion—that human with the clipboard in her hands and the phone to hear ear, “Penny” she was called—would smile at him. It was even easier to tell when his owner was irritated and upset. Such moments were less frequent but still happened once or twice a week. Fang was now very accustomed to emitting a loud hiss on sight of the annoying man with the sunglasses and clanky jewelry.

And so Fang had his routine. Eat, play with his owner, sleep, growl happily at Jagged and his friends, hiss at the rabble, lounge in the bath, repeat (some steps more often than others).

Sure, Fang was unusual for a crocodile, but he was still a simple creature.

…

There was one girl who Fang recently began to see often. She was one of the few he was happy to ask for pets from, considering his owner always shouted happily when he saw her.

His owner called the girl “Marinette” or something of the like, but Fang thought her name should be Treats because she typically brought a box of cookies with her on her visits. Normally Fang wouldn’t care for human foods, but ever since the girl began bringing a variety of meaty snacks for Fang along with the cookies, the crocodile learned to become just as excited by her presence as his owner.

She was also very kind to Fang. Sure, she was reluctant to approach him at first as most humans do, but Fang understood that was how humans protected themselves. It proved she was a cautious one, yet also a brave and understanding one when Fang noticed that over time she became more comfortable with him, allowing him to nuzzle against her legs and growl in joy before climbing atop some furniture to beg for treats.

So one day, it was with little fuss that Fang allowed himself to be led out of the usual hotel by Treats. As a crocodile, he understood just enough that he would be in her care for the day.

Together, they walked down the streets of Paris. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and nearby humans consistently gave them a wide berth on the sidewalk with horror on their faces. Just how Fang liked it.

He prided himself on being able to keep the massive crowds away from his owner when they traveled around the world. Under Fang’s watch, not once did a “rabid fan” lay their hands on even the hair from his owner’s head.

Well…except for that one time one of those “fans” managed to zap Fang with a bright light, thus sending the crocodile to some empty white place.

But that was neither here nor there.

Treats was watching Fang for the day, yes, but that also meant Fang would watch out for her.

“Wow, Marinette! You weren’t kidding when you said you were pet-sitting a crocodile today!”

And there it was. The first test.

As soon as the two of them entered a park through its gated entrance, a tall boy came running at them, followed by a few others. Fang was quick to intercept as he maneuvered himself in front of Treats and snapped his jaw in the air once. The boy instantly recoiled.

“Whoa!”

“Sorry, Kim! Fang doesn’t like it when strangers come too close.”

“Unsurprising. Crocodiles tend to get aggressive when their space is invaded and considering their large size, that space can span a couple meters radius from their body. I can’t quite tell if Fang is of the freshwater or saltwater variety, but I can tell you that 95% of attacks on humans are caused by provocation no matter what species the crocodile is.”

“That’s a pretty good explanation. Thank you, Max,” Treats said as she bent down to pat Fang’s head. “Fang is just really protective of his owner and it extends to other people he likes. It takes some time for him to know a person so best to keep your distance for today.”

The first boy slumped. “Aw, man.”

Fang turned his snout away. That was the human’s problem. No way was Fang going to let his guard down just from some pitiful look.

By then, more young humans had gathered around but stayed far away, much to Fang’s satisfaction. They seemed to be friends with Treats, judging by her easy smile as she conversed with them, so he figured he’d keep his hissing to a minimum.

The afternoon passed peacefully in the park. Treats’ friends came and went without bothering Fang much as he lounged in a sunpatch.

He kept a watchful eye on one boy, though, who seemed a little too familiar with the girl. When the boy placed a hand on her shoulder, Fang let out a quiet warning hiss only to be met by a short hiss from the boy himself. It was oddly high for a human and the others didn’t seem to hear. Fang retaliated by crawling over and draping himself over Treats’ lap.

She let out an indignant squawk but Fang ignored it, reptilian eyes focused on the boy who had smartly moved away when Fang had approached. All the boy could do then was narrow his eyes at the crocodile momentarily before his face smoothed over and he went back to smiling at Treats.

If his cold-blooded body had allowed it, Fang would have scoffed.

Crocodiles may be simple creatures. But cats were even more so.

…

At some point, Fang became hungry.

He plodded a circle around Treats, who by then had moved to sitting on a bench as she struck up conversation with more friends. He rumbled and groaned for attention, which she was quick to give, and he delicately snapped his jaws at her to indicate his hunger.

“Oh, no! That alligator is about to eat Marinette!” came a shrieking from the distance.

Fang’s jaws clamped shut as he was quick to look for said alligator so he could fight it. Maybe he could make a meal out of it because such a scuffle would take a lot of him.

He was ignorant to the random screaming that erupted from all around the park while Treats’ friends spread out to try and calm people. Fang huffed.

Seriously, how was he supposed to find the alligator with all the chaos?

He turned back to Treats to see her glaring at another human girl. Ah, this must be another test. Perhaps the girl cried alligator as a ruse to distract Fang.

“No, really!” the girl continued. “I’ve seen rabid reptiles before and this one just isn’t safe! They latch onto one prey and they’ll keep on chasing no matter what you do! We have to get Marinette away from that alligator!”

Humans around the park hadn’t stopped running every which way while Treats’ friends looked on uncertainly. It confused Fang, because he still did not know what alligator the girl was screaming about. So he simply plodded closer to Treats and nuzzled her leg, hoping she would clear things up for him.

She must’ve understood crocodile language because thankfully her next words cleared things up for everyone.

“Lila!” Treats shouted reproachfully. “You need to be quiet for five seconds so I can explain to you and everyone else in this park that it’s all a misunderstanding. I am absolutely safe right where I am!” Her expression reminded Fang of when Penny would stand up eerily straight with a glare and somehow tower over his owner despite being much shorter. Needless to say, the posture and tone got the girl to shut up just as quick as Jagged would.

Treats marched over to this “Lila” and Fang was quick to follow. At least until Treats turned back to him and kindly motioned him to stay. Fang was a good crocodile so he did as he was told. The friends kept their distance.

“Now listen here, Lila,” she started off quietly once she stood just a meter away from the girl. “I need you to remain calm because panic from you and panic from everyone else is not going to solve anything. Fang is a completely tame crocodile and though he might look threatening, he knows better than to attack anyone. In fact he’s lived with humans his entire life.”

Fang nodded in satisfaction. He understood now that the girl thought he was the alligator. How silly. But an unfortunately common mistake.

The other humans seemed to share the same sentiment. Many of them nodded and smiled in relief. The Lila girl however, notably did not look reassured. If anything, she looked about ready to burst into tears.

“But Marinette! I thought you knew that I’m deathly afraid of crocodiles. I was traumatized as a child when I had to save baby flamingos from a herd of them in Africa!” And then she covered her eyes with her hands and actually started to cry. “How could you ignore that and do this to me!” she wailed.

Okay, Fang felt kind of bad at this point. He was sure Treats would never purposefully scare someone but he didn’t want to stick around any longer if a human was so terrified of him.

A few of Treats’ friends rushed over to the crying girl and tried to comfort her but they also defended Treats.

“I’m sure Marinette didn’t mean any harm!”

“Yeah, she didn’t even know most of us would be at the park today.”

“Come on, Lila, maybe we should get you home?”

Treats herself took a step back to let the others surround Lila. She held a frown on her face but said, “If Lila needs some time to calm down then Fang and I will head out first. Better to take away the cause of her trauma immediately, right? Besides, it’s about time we get him back to Jagged anyway.”

Some heads perked up at that.

The cat-boy from earlier, who stood apart from the crowd (and noticeably much closer to Treats) had a little glint in his eye. “That’s right! Fang is Jagged Stone’s beloved pet crocodile. Pretty neat that you were the first person he thought of to pet-sit for him. He must trust you a lot.”

Lila had been taken to sit at a far off bench by then, but Fang’s crocodile senses allowed him to hear that her sobbing had stopped and surprisingly a low growl had replaced it. One glance at her and he could spot the fury and shock in her eyes, unseen by anyone else.

If Fang had eyebrows he’d have raised them so high up. He settled for a confused hiss.

He really wished humans were simpler creatures.

Most of Treats’ friends wandered back to them after seeing that Lila had calmed down considerably and they excitedly began to ask Treats questions about Fang’s owner.

She just raised her hands up placatingly and shook her head, insisting that she get Fang back to the hotel to avoid any other mishaps. It made Fang a little sad to go back indoors so soon, but he didn’t put up a fuss. He just waited patiently as Treats finally turned around to walk over to him.

However, as soon as she looked in Fang’s direction, Treats’ eyes widened and she screamed his name. Almost too fast for his eyes to follow, she sprinted towards him before scooping his entire body into her arms and lifting him above her head.

Nobody moved for several seconds as a large runaway food cart went speeding through the exact spot Fang had been in.

The cart crashed into a nearby tree and a man—probably the owner—rushed by in distress, a constant stream of apologies spilling out of his mouth.

Fang felt himself being lowered to the ground. When he turned to look at Treats, he saw that everyone looked as gobsmacked as he felt, even the heroic girl herself.

“Holy kwami,” Fang barely heard cat-boy say under his breath. The sound of his whisper seemed to break the group out of their trance.

“DC, that was insane!” shouted the tall boy from before. “You just deadlifted a massive beast! Max, how heavy was that?!”

“U-uh, let’s see. Based on Fang’s size, he could be anywhere from 80 to 85 kg (approx. 175-188 lbs).”

“She reacted so fast I didn’t even see her move!”

“My girl’s always been on another level. Guess I didn’t realize how much until now.”

“Marinette saved Fang’s life! Ooh, we’ve got to post this!”

While her friends continued to chatter in amazement among themselves, Treats didn’t even notice them. She merely stared at Fang in relief before she patted him on the head. He looked up at her in question.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” she sighed and slumped forward. “That was way too close.”

Fang was sure he could have handled it just fine, but was thankful nonetheless. He showed his gratitude by giving a low grumble and nuzzling her hand.

Soon the other humans finally calmed down, allowing Treats and Fang to leave the park. Treats herself seemed paranoid on the walk back, looking every which way to make sure danger didn’t come flying at them again. Meanwhile Fang made sure she didn’t accidentally walk into a busy road or run into objects.

They met with Jagged and Penny back in the hotel suite and were immediately brought into a group hug by the man.

“Marinette, your rock n’ roll heroic deed went viral and it’s all anyone’s been talking about for the past hour. I may have written a song about Ladybug and Chat Noir but I think I’m gonna dedicate it to everyday heroes like you, next time I perform it!”

The girl stuttered out some response while his owner kept shouting happily about this and that. Fang ignored it and ambled over to the couch to take a nap, something he felt he earned after such an exciting day.

He was a simple creature after all.

[lu-undy]

Chapter 6 - SBT

Here is chapter 6! Let me know what you guys think so far! ;)

Mundy drove to a quiet spot in the middle of the desert. He needed some peace and quiet to think. 

"Roight, what do I know…?"

The Australian was lying on his van's rooftop, his eyes on the night sky and yet not seeing the stars. 

"They did it in two times. What's that supposed to mean…?"

He liked the desert. It was a place of solace, a place of calm and paradoxically enough, despite its impressive size, the desert was where the tall man felt the most intimacy. The dust there knew him better than anyone. 

Really? He wondered. 

Yeah, actually. 

The dust knew him better than anyone. The cacti would hear him think and the boulders would answer in the echo of his own voice.

He shook his head to shoo away the thought and not fall in the trap of dwelling on it too much. 

"Roight, the 'gators, the bloody 'gators. Why would they get the job done in two times? They had more than enough cars to get them all in one go… They'd all have fitted!" 

He sighed as he realised what his comeback in the business meant. 

"Bloody hell…" 

He thought he had torn that page of his existence and burnt it away. 

"Bloody hell…"

He had sworn to himself that he wouldn't take it back again. It was insane. Insane and unreasonable. Insane, unreasonable and madly dangerous. It had cost him too much by the past, way too much. 

"No."

No. He wouldn't take the job. He would call Johnson first thing in the morning and he would refuse. 

No! It was bloody crazy! He had lost too much and for what? For animals? Animals? 

He had been clawed, bit, punched, kicked and shot. All for animals, some of them no one even cared about…! No one, but him. 

Crazed gunman. 

His father was right. He had become exactly that… 

Mundy sighed and opened another beer. 

So that was it, eh? He would abandon those alligators to basically die…? Hm, and why not? No one had saved him when he had needed it, when he was at the bottom of the pit, no one, no man or animal came to help. So why on Earth should he help rich-as-all-hell Johnson and his bloody crocodiles?!

No one had helped the solitary Australian man in a van. Like a sad ice cream truck, he would drive her around without any music on, dragging her around with him. She was more than a home on wheels, she was his home, and his best friend. She was all he had left. At least, she had been there. 

He would sleep in the safety of her arms, he would talk to her, and she was by far his most helpful companion. She knew how to listen to him when he needed an ear and was there when he had moments of happiness, to celebrate with him. Although… Now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember any such moment since… Well, since a long time now that didn't seem that long. The past years seemed to all mash together to an inconsistent soup of non-events through which one thing had persisted. His solitude.  

That was his second best friend, after the van. At first he had hated her and couldn't stand her. She had invited herself in his life flinging the door to his heart wide open and without knocking. She had erupted in the most brutal fashion.

Then she made him like her. He didn't want anything to do with her but she cleverly managed to get him to do exactly what she wanted. Ha, some people say that a man only sees reason when he meets a woman. Those are lucky bastards who haven't met Solitude first. He hated that she controlled him, he hated that she had cut all his ties with his friends and any human contact that remained, she killed as easily as his kukri sliced a juicy melon.

Mundy was her prisoner. The only way to break free from her, was to embrace his condition and see it not like a constraint, but like a normal life. And so he did. He let her have her way without resisting anymore and had grown to like it. She had brought him peace and more free time that he ever thought was possible to have.

For what? Well, for the last thing he had, namely, himself. 

No one cared about him, so he had grown to care about no one but himself. Hidden behind the safety of his tinted glasses and under his brown hat, he felt as comfortable as a snail in his shell. He was sheltered, safe and protected in a zone where things were familiar and usual, and where he was the only one in charge. His best companion, Solitude, controlled everything so nothing went wrong and nothing surprised him in a regrettable way. 

That's how he had chosen to live for almost a decade now. Some would say it was sad, others would argue there was no point in living if it is to go through the days like that. Maybe they were right and he was just organically decaying, withering one day after the next, growing older and waiting for his conclusion to bow goodbye to no one but his van…? 

Maybe. 

Yet something had planted the seed of doubt in his heart. Something was tickling the back of his mind and almost his conscience. 

Yes no one cared about those alligators and in all honesty, now, neither did Mundy. But… When he had entered the enclosure, when he smelt those familiar scents of wilderness, when his hands touched the wood of the log, the blood on the wall, the dust of the tracks left by the trucks… When he started seeing the scene in his head, those men shooting the alligators, dragging them out and driving off… 

He had felt something that Solitude had taken away from him and jealously kept away.  He could barely recall what she was called, that other one. The one that made him see the orange of the desert, the blue of the sky, the green of the cacti. The one who made him smell the warmth and not the bitterness of his coffee, the one who made him taste the sweetness of the apples that he now had gotten used to crushing between his teeth not to enjoy them, but because crushing something outside of him was much better than inside. 

What was left to crush in his little empty self now anyway? Pff, nothing! Solitude, like the very efficient poison that she was, had done one hell of a spring cleaning and had got rid of anything that would make him feel any shred of life in his body. 

Life! That was her name! That's what she was called! That's the one that Solitude had taken away from him! His life!

He had felt alive again in that enclosure, for a fleeting moment, yes, but he had felt it! His heart pumping, his eyes excitedly looking for clues, his mind eagerly trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Mind you, he hadn't felt that in years!

So now he was faced with a choice. 

Either stay with Solitude and repeat his days like the verses of a song he knew too well, comfortably nested in rituals that she had laid for him; or risk it and take his life back, let himself work again, let himself feel whatever life would throw at him. Make the bet that he could find those alligators and get them to safety, for them, for himself and for his life. Screw Johnson long and large, he couldn't care less about the man. There was something about rich people that he couldn't stand. Their arrogance in thinking that they were owed everything because they had enough paper notes and metal coins to get it. He hated that. 

Besides, what was left to lose now, hm?

Mundy's eyes darted left and right as if he was looking in his own head, trying to find something that he would regret if he came to lose it. But nothing came to his mind… Absolutely nothing.

Solitude or Life?

Live his days like photocopies of each other or risk it all and feel again?

His mind was set and he slept on his decision. Solitude would be upset and would no doubt try and catch him back, but Mundy was ready to fight. He had survived long enough, time to live. Life was extending a helpful hand to him. Why not accept it when he had nothing left to lose?

The next morning, the Australian was driving to find somewhere to get his breakfast from. He looked for a place he hadn't been in a long time as the perspective of being recognised and dragged in small talk by anyone made him gag in his head. 

Ah but no… Not anymore… He had set his mind to cheat on Solitude and take risks. 

And it seemed to him that the van drove him as opposed to the other way around. She parked in that same place he had had a coffee the day before. 

"Roight…" Mundy took a deep breath and took a seat at the same table he had the day before, on the terrace. He looked around him. The city was waking up and people were commuting either to work, or parents with their children to school. The sun shone beautifully and not too brightly. All in all it seemed like a good day.

“Look who came back…!” It was the same waitress. He raised his eyes to her. 

“Oh, hey there.”

“Good to see you again. You liked my coffee, eh?”

Mundy smiled. 

“Well, was good enough for me to come back apparently.”

“Yeah, apparently.”

They exchanged a short chuckle.

“Should I get you the same?”

“Yeah. Uhm, actually, could I get a muffin with that?”

“Sure, which one? We’ve got chocolate with chocolate chips, classic with chocolate chips and classic with berries.”

“Uhm, classic with berries would be nice, yeah.”

“Alright…” She scribbled everything on her small notepad. “Anything else with that?”

“Nah, that’ll be more than fine.”

“Alright, I’ll be right back.”

“Thanks.” 

“You’re welcome, beautiful smile you have.”

And on that note, she turned her heels and went away, leaving the Aussie surprised and confused. 

Beautiful smile you have.

He didn’t know what he looked like when he smiled anymore but she had found it beautiful. Mundy looked at his reflection on the metal sugar bowl. It was distorted given the shape of it but that was the only thing he could see himself on now. He tried smiling again and stared. Was that beautiful? He stopped smiling and looked away, pushing the sugar bowl further from him. 

No, he didn’t look anything like that, if anything, he looked strange when he smiled, he almost pitied himself…

“There we are…!”

The waitress stopped him right before he fell in a dangerous abyss.

“Black coffee and muffin with berries for the handsome man with the van…!”

She placed the coffee mug and the pastry on the table in front of him.

“Thanks.”

“Oh, what’s wrong? Did I get your order wrong?” The waitress got her notepad and flipped the pages quickly.

“No, nah, it’s fine.”

“You’re a very bad liar…”

She took a seat opposite him.

“Tell me.”

“Tell you what?” He asked, trying to earn some time and come up with an excuse.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Bah… It’s work stuff…”

“What is it that you do in your job?”

“I’m a hunter.”

“Ooh… What kind of animals d’you hunt?”

“The ones no one else can.”

Her eyes lit up at the mere thought of the level of danger that it involved.

“You got me interested there! Tell me more…!”

“Well, I don’t know... “ Mundy removed his hat and scratched his head.

“Oh, c���mon!” She insisted.

“That’s no sheila’s talk, y’know…”

“Who cares, imagine I’m a bloke and tell me, please…?”

Mundy sighed.

“I uh… I go after poachers.”

“You hunt poachers?”

“In a way, yeah.”

“D’you kill them?”

“No! Nah, never… I just give them a good fright and make them understand that they have to stop.”

“Hm, you make them understand, eh?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I think it’s the best way to put it.”

“So what’s it like?” She asked.

“What?”

“How does it work? Go on, give me an example!” 

Mundy was at a loss. She seemed to enjoy talking to him and asking him about his job. Of course he was mildly sugarcoating it. No sheila needed to hear the exact way that he dissuaded the poachers to ever take a job again. But maybe that was his chance. Maybe that waitress was a first point of contact with a fellow human being. 

“Well, there was this time where uh, you know the kangaroo and emu reserve?”

“The one outside of town?”

He bit in his muffin and nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah I see where it is.”

“Well, they had some problems cause they kept on losing the kangaroos. Thing is, those big ones don’t really have natural predators and certainly not around that reserve so they called me in. I took a bit of time to work out that it was a group of poachers who’d slip in at night and steal a few every so often. I waited for them to strike again and caught them red-handed.”

“Is it dangerous?”

Mundy bobbed his head left and right as he continued eating his muffin.

“Depends. For a few ‘roos, nah. People don’t want the kangaroos for their fur or anything. It’s just for their meat, which is a bit more expensive than beef, yeah, but not that ridiculous. It’s when they go for more rare or more pricey animals that it usually gets a bit more difficult.”

“Why?”

He gulped down and took another bite before answering.

“Cause usually if you want your hand on say some snake’s skin or some crocs’, you’re ready to make a fortune and you’re ready to pay whatever it costs to get it. You know that after you sell it, you’re gonna be filthy rich, that’s why…”

“Oh, I see… Do you ever get hurt and stuff?”

Mundy frowned as he wiped his hands on a paper towel.

“Oh yeah, countless times. It’s not an easy job on the body and on the mind but eh, gets the gas paid for the van and it’s honest work so can’t complain.”

Mundy had finished his muffin and was sipping on his coffee.

“Must be intense at times, yeah?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Although most of the time, nothing happens really.”

“Which I guess is quite nice, you got some free time, eh?” She answered.

He looked her in the eye.

“Yeah, yeah it isn’t that bad.”

Mundy finished his coffee and leaned back on his chair. He let the silence settle before he tilted his head on the side and asked.

“What about you?”

The waitress opened wide eyes and her cheeks turned pink.

“Well, I’m a waitress here.”

“Can see that, yeah.” 

They both chuckled. 

“You like it here?”

“Yeah, job’s easy and pays the bills and rent…”

“But..?” He anticipated.

“But I wish I could do something more… y’know… better.”

“What would that be?” He asked.

“I don’t know. Something with plants. I’ve always liked gardening but eh, bills aren’t gonna pay themselves.”

“It’s not too late to look for somethin’ in that area. Plenty of parks and stuff here.” He answered.

“Yeah but I don’t know anythin’ about it. Used to garden with my Granny when I was a little girl. She had a massive garden, always green no matter the season. We used to take care of it together.”

“You could try and learn. I’m sure there are places that could teach you or somethin’.”

“Yeah, I suppose I could…” She sighed.

“What’s stoppin’ you?” He asked. 

“I don’t really have the time with this job.”

“Got kids to take care of at home?” Mundy asked innocently but only realised that she didn’t after he saw a flash in her eyes.

“Nah, nah I’m alone.”

“Well then you could try and find sort of uh, night classes, or something that suits you for the hours, to still work here at the same time, I s’ppose.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

She smiled.

“What’s your name?”

“M.”

“Just M?”

He nodded.

“In that case, I’m E.”

She extended her hand to him. He stared at it for an awkward second. It seemed like he had been parachuted in the human race and didn’t know the customs of it… But he eventually shook her hand.

“Nice to meet you M.”

“Same.”

She stood up and took her tray. 

“Right, better get back to it before I get shouted at.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll walk to the counter with you, I need to go.”

He took his hat off the table and followed her in. She went behind the counter and he paid for what he had.

“Uhm, M?”

“Hm?” He answered as he put his change back in his wallet.

“Come back tonight, at about 8.”

He raised his head to her and his eyebrows twitched for an instant.

“I should be done with my shift by then.” 

Mundy’s eyes widened.

“Okay, alright…”

He turned his back and walked to the door.

“Don’t forget!”

His grip hardened on the door handle. He turned to her and nodded.

“I won’t.” 

[thecomicsnexus]

SHAZAM!: THE MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL #1-4 APRIL - SEPTEMBER 2007 BY JEFF SMITH AND STEVE HAMAKER

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

Billy Batson is a young boy living on the streets of Fawcett City. A grimy street urchin named Lagreen attempts to steal Billy's money, but the young boy flees and takes comfort in the company of an old man named Talky. In the middle of the conversation, Billy sees a man who looks like his father and takes off in hot pursuit.

The shadowy figure leads him down into the city's subway system and onto a shiny red and yellow subway car that takes him to a cave of an aging wizard named Shazam. Shazam informs Billy that he has been chosen to become the new Captain Marvel. After touching the wizard's hand and saying the wizard's name, Billy transforms into Captain Marvel.

Shazam informs Marvel that he has a new host body, and that his time on this mortal plane is up. He tells Marvel how to contact him should his advice be needed, and dies.

Billy returns to his apartment and Marvel protects him from Lagreen. After seeing the way Billy lives, Marvel decides to return to Shazam and attempt to get better lodging for the boy. He carries Billy through time and space to reach the wizard's cave on the Rock of Eternity Once they arrive, Marvel warns Billy that he must never attempt to reach the peak of the mountain. After a short conversation with the wizard, in which Billy almost learns that he has a baby sister, he steps outside to give Marvel and Shazam some privacy- and climbs to the top of the Rock.

After Marvel pulls him down from the peak of the Rock, Billy wakes in his hole. Every alarm in the city is going off because strange alligator men are attacking humans. After transforming into Captain Marvel and fighting several of them off, the alligators show him a grassy field that boasts over-sized giant shoe-prints he recognizes as Billy's. The crocodile-men warn Captain Marvel of the coming of Mr. Mind.

Billy Batson wakes up back in the derelict building after dreaming about her unknown sister, who was revealed to him by The Wizard. Billy turns on his TV and learns about the crop circles shaped as footprints at the park and he realizes that he is responsible for those marks after he walked to the top of the Rock of Eternity. After the news ends, there is an advertisement about a circus and Billy thinks that he could enter that business using his new powers.

Billy decides to go to the circus, but on his way there he witnesses a speech by attorney general Dr. Sivana, in which he tells the people his determination to find the responsible behind the crop circles at the park. Billy then gets distracted by a large row of ants walking towards the same direction when he is taken by surprise by Lagreen and another bully. They want to steal Billy's money and the kid runs towards the circus' tent, where he manages to get inside. Billy sneaks below the seats at the circus and he witnesses a beast tamer being torn apart by reptile-men and how the monsters threatened the audience and snatched the children away from the crowd. Billy notices that one of the kids that is captured is his own sister and he speaks the magic word "SHAZAM!", transforming once again into Captain Marvel. The monsters try to eat the children, but Captain Marvel stops them and saves the kids including his sister. Soon, a tiger joins the fight and helps Captain Marvel against the monsters, but when the monsters retreat, the tiger and Billy's sister also disappear.

Captain Marvel goes outside the circus to warn a police officer about the missing girl, but everybody in the city is in shock after a gigantic monstruosity has appeared in the park at the same spot as the crop marks. The monster speaks and talks directly to Captain Marvel, who decides to approach the thing, who reveals himself as Mister Mind and his ultimate intentions of eliminating mankind and turn them into monsters. Captain Marvel tries to fight Mr. Mind, but it is much too strong and Marvel's attacks have no effect. Before leaving, Mind tells Captain Marvel that he would return with a companion and as Marvel leaves the scene, he is watched closely by Dr. Sivana.

When Mr. Mind leaves, Captain Marvel resumes his search for Billy's sister and when he finds her, he realizes that she has been with the tiger all along. The tiger reveals his identity as Talky Tawny, the homeless man who used to spend time with Billy. Captain Marvel says the magic word and Billy returns and reveals the truth to his sister. Mary in turn tells Billy that she ran away from her foster home to join the circus and she is ashamed to admit it. Billy and Mary soon make a connection and she asks her brother to let her stay with him. The moment Billy agrees to take Mary to his building, Mr. Mind returns with a twin creature and Billy has to change back into Captain Marvel. During his transformation, lightning strikes Mary and pushes her into a vehicle. When Captain Marvel and Talky go to see if Mary is fine, she comes ouf of the wreckage of a vehicle unscathed and transformed into a small version of Captain Marvel. Mary Marvel starts flying around and demonstrating how faster than Captain Marvel she is, despite the fact that she is not as strong as him.

Moments later, Mary Marvel flies away on her own while Captain Marvel goes alone to face Mr. Mind and his clone.

Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel fly towards the two gigantic monsters who are Mister Mind. Mary gets there first and she tells Captain that the giants are not actually living beings, since she can't sense their vibrations. Marvel realizes that Mary has the power of the Godgess Athena and she comes to the conclusion that the giants must be robots and that Mister Mind is in fact inside them. Both Mary and Captain are forced to retreat when some helicopters from the Department of Heartland Security start shooting at them.

Captain Marvel flies off as fast as he can and takes Mary with him to his derelict apartment, where they say the magic word and return to their normal appearances. Once inside, Billy notices that all the cockroaches from his place have vanished and when Mary turns on the TV, they learn that all the bugs from Fawcett City have disappeared as well. Billy then remembers that he saw many ants walking away in the city, but before he could think of what's happening, Mary opens the door after listening some sounds and a couple of agents enter the place and grab the two kids, covering their mouths to prevent them from saying the magic word. Then, Dr. Sivana enters the place along with Lagreen and his bully friend, and he thanks them for letting him know the location of Billy Batson, who they also revealed as Captain Marvel. Sivana interrogates Billy and forces him to write his answers, to prevent him from speaking and Sivana pretends to be worried about Marvel's involvement with the monster. When he learns that the monster might be a robot, Sivana realizes that he could learn more from such technology to incite war and gain profit. Sivana orders his men to take Mary to a secret location, while he takes Billy to the place where the giants are standing.

Once in the park, Sivana approaches the giants along with Billy, Lagreen and the bully. When a weird machine comes out of the giant, Sivana orders Lagreen and his friend to get the strange object, but as they approach it, they are transformed into monsters who attack Sivana and Billy. Before running away, Sivana tries to free Billy, which gives the kid the chance to say "Shazam" right before the monsters reach him. Once transformed into Captain Marvel, more monsters appear and they introduce themselves as The Monster Society of Evil, but they are all defeated by Captain Marvel. When the cries for help of Sivana are heard by the police, they release tear gas in the area, which allows Captain Marvel to escape unnoticed.

Hours later, Billy is sitting alone at the harbor, defeated after searching for his sister across the city when suddenly Talky appears and offers his help to find Mary. Billy comes up with the idea that maybe he could find Mary going to the media and Talky decides to investigate at the park, near to the giants.

Billy goes to the SNN offices and tries to talk with the president, but his efforts are futile. He then decides to turn into Captain Marvel and he is suddenly granted access to talk with Mr. Morris. Marvel informs him about Sivana's evil plan and the missing girl. Morris promises to help him find the girl, but in order to make a case against Sivana, they're going to need proof, so Marvel sets out to find Talky.

In the meantime, Talky is watching the giants from a very close place and he notices that two agents come from inside the robots. When Billy joins him, Talky informs him about the agents and Billy recognizes them as Sivana's men, the ones who took Mary. Talky tries to come up with a plan to break inside the robot, but Billy gets impatient and speaks the magic word without listening to Talky's warnings.

Captain Marvel flies off to rescue Mary. Talky Tawny trails behind him until they come to one of Mister Mind's twin robots. Captain Marvel is too large to enter the structure, and can only gain egress as Billy Batson. Tawny warns him that the rules that prevent him from transforming back and forth at the Rock of Eternity also applies to the giant robots. If Marvel changes into Billy, he won't be able to change back if he gets into trouble. Marvel changes into Billy and begins scouring the dark interior of the robot.

Outside, Sterling Morris and Helen Fidelity maintain radio contact with Billy. Billy tells them that the robots are filled with cockroaches, but he has yet to find Mary. Sterling and Helen can see Doctor Sivana with Mary on the outside of one of the robots. At the top of the robot is a cockpit. Mister Mind communicates with Sivana and tells him to strap Mary into the cockpit. Billy gets to the top of his robot, and discovers that he is inside the wrong one. Desperate to save Mary, Billy ignores Tawky Tawny's warning and speaks the name "Shazam". The mystic lightning interacts with the mystical properties of Mister Mind's robots, transforming Billy into a giant-sized Captain Marvel. The resulting backlash of power creates a quantum singularity in the sky above them. Captain Marvel batters the robots and they are drawn inside the rift. The singularity also siphons away Captain Marvel's power, transforming him back into Billy Batson before closing.

With Mister Mind and the threat of his Monster Society abated, Billy reunites with Tawky Tawny. He jumps on Doctor Sivana and begins beating him up. Mary arrives, revealing that she still maintains the power of Shazam. She was a safe distance from the singularity and didn't lose her powers. She speaks the magic word and bequeathes a portion of her power to Billy. Sterling Morris is so impressed with Billy Batson's heroism that he invites him to become a member of the Morris Company family as an employee of WHIZ Radio.

REVIEW

At the time this story was published, there was a maxi-series called “Trials of Shazam” where Freddy was becoming the new Captain Marvel (as Billy had to take the place of the Wizard). Then this came out to confuse readers a bit more.

This mini is non-canon. Just a mere exercise to see Jeff Smith tackling Captain Marvel. You also have to have in mind that comics were pretty dark and gory in 2007, so something like this was refreshing.

Marv Wolfman was supposed to publish “Man and Superman” through Superman: Confidential around this time (and didn’t see light until 2019). The distance may be good, because this mini also took terrorism and the patriot act as part of one of the plots. Dr Sivana is some kind of Donald Rumsfeld, more interested in making wars than peace (as long as it is profitable). Don’t worry, the story works whether you know this or not.

I like Billy’s reactions, he really looks like a small child, and Mary is even more cuter. The monsters are perhaps Jeff Smith’s best characters. But I am also not convinced about this monster society of evil. I think there was something that got lost in the way of publishing. Because Mr. Mind’s plan could work without them.

The change done to Mr. Mind feels a bit unnecessary (his original, and current, look would work here).

Also at the time of publication, there was a decoder at dccomics.com (i am not sure it can be still be found there). This would help readers translate the titles. The decoder was added to the last issue.

I give this mini a score of 7

[gaybitchloki]

in which loki makes mistakes

In retrospect, the fact that American colleges would have American parties at their American fraternities should not be as surprising as it is, and yet Loki’s already-low expectations are somehow only shattered further when he crosses the beer-spattered threshold into the house of ΣΚΥΛΑ or whatever it was called. The theme is something fittingly asinine — Hawaiian safari, or Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter, or some other hot-weather excuse for the women to wear literal fishnets as wrap dresses and for the men to wear visors and cut-off shorts — and normally, Loki would rather quite literally die than attend something of this calibre, but reclusive international student beggars cannot be choosers, and a party is a party.

However, while Loki may have lost his dignity the very first time he attended a frat party (barely a week ago, practically his first stop upon deplaning at Logan International), he still maintains his pride, and so he has come in disguise: between the face-swallowing dark sunglasses, the pale green satiny vest, and the ambiguously sporty baseball cap on his head, he is entirely unrecognizable. The sunglasses also afford him the luxury of observing freely, one of the many reasons he frequently chooses to adorn himself with a pair even when indoors, and so his expression behind said sunglasses (which cost approximately as much as a half-semester at this university) is one of unadulterated disdain as he beholds the utter hedonism occurring before him.

No wonder Thor would choose such a place to attend. Just the inadvertent thought of his name makes Loki’s lip curl instinctively, but before he can let that blossom into a full-on sneer, he heads for what appears to be the kitchen so as to procure some alcohol.

Yes, Thor is here somewhere. Not here, literally, not at this party, but somewhere on this campus. Presumably, he has friends, paramours, confidantes, and he’s forgotten entirely about Loki, just as Loki wanted. This place is perfect for him; it is loud, obnoxious, a shameless display of brainlessness and wanton pleasure, and while Loki would never decry wanton pleasure, it is the brainlessness with which he takes issue. In the living room, he can see someone being used as a human target for Nerf gun practice, and on the front lawn, there had been a young man wearing a full-body alligator costume, with cut-outs over his nipples. Truly the peak of intellectualism and community organization, or whatever nonsense fraternities attempt to say in self-defense when criticized.

Loki is faced with several options: Mystery Punch (Pink), bagged wine (red), Mystery Punch 2 (orange), and beer (beige). He decides on Mystery Punch 2, thinking all the while that he should really make some connections with the theater community on-campus. They probably have absinthe at their parties. Which reminds Loki that he needs to add himself to the campus occult society’s listhost, and he pulls out his phone to do just that as he sips his Mystery Punch 2 and begins heading out of the kitchen again to see what else there is to do.

He walks into a wall.

The wall smells appallingly, devastatingly familiar and something near Loki’s anterior cruciate ligament trembles. No. Not here, not now, this can’t be happening. He didn’t even tell Thor where he’d applied, let alone where he’d gotten into or was going; he’d instructed Odin and Frigga to do the same, and they’d never questioned him. His intention had been to avoid Thor for the next four years, as impossible as that now seemed, not to run face-first into him while wearing a seafoam-green vest at a frat party.

Thor’s hands, of course they’re Thor’s hands, come up to grip Loki by the shoulders and steady him. Loki can barely even see — he’s pressed quite snugly against Thor’s chest — but he knows it’s him. Only Thor would wear khaki hot pants and a tits-out tank top and make it look haute couture instead of trashy. It’s appalling. Loki, breath stuck in his throat and half his drink spilled down Thor’s front, instinctively pushes Thor’s hands off of him and stumbles backwards. He hasn’t seen him in— fuck, it’s been more than a year at this point, but Thor looks nothing like how he did the last time Loki saw him face-to-face. That tragic, sad-eyed smile and “If that’s what you really want, brother” expression is entirely gone, replaced with drunken good-natured mirth, and Loki feels sick.

“Easy there,” Thor booms, reaching out to touch Loki again. He doesn’t recognize him. Either he’s really spectacularly drunk or Loki’s disguise is just that good; in all honesty, it’s probably both. Loki is so stunned by this realization that he doesn’t push Thor away this time, which only makes the stupid smile on Thor’s awful face spread. “You alright?”

Loki nods, careful to keep his head tilted down just so, not wanting Thor to look at him too closely. This turns out to be a bad move, since Thor leans in to follow him, ducking down to catch his eye.

“Have I seen you before?” Thor asks, something like wonder in his tone, and Loki shakes his head very minutely.

“Don’t think so,” Loki mumbles, American accent convincing enough, especially since Thor’s drunk. “Sorry.”

“Wish I had,” Thor says, which is the most confusing thing Loki’s ever heard, but then Thor’s making everything worse by leaning in closer, something very strange in his smile. Loki’s seen it before, but not directed at him, only ever from a distance, and— “I’m Thor, what’s your name?”

Loki’s brain goes blank. “…Kevin,” he says.

“Kevin,” Thor repeats as though it’s the best thing he’s ever heard. “What a beautiful name.”

Is it? What it is is a difficult name to pronounce with an American accent when one is Norwegian, but it’s too late to take it back. Loki nods faintly again and lifts his drink to his mouth, hoping Thor will leave him alone so Loki can make his escape. This is another bad move, since it reminds Thor that Loki had spilled his drink all over him, but instead of saying something about how now his shirt was ruined, he takes Loki’s cup from him and pushes his way through the kitchen to get Loki a refill. As he goes, girls practically fall over themselves to smile at him and guys clap him on the shoulder or back and Thor greets each one of them with equal effusiveness and equal warmth, but the one he comes back to is Loki, a full cup in hand. “Here,” he says, returning it to him. Loki hadn’t moved a muscle since Thor had turned away, too stunned to do otherwise. Thor is smiling at him like that again, eyes warm, eyelashes downcast, and Loki takes a small sip of his drink (the fucking dumbass had poured him a top-up of Mystery Punch 1, not 2, and the flavor combination is dreadful) for lack of anything better to do.

“Thanks,” Loki says, and tries to leave.

Thor’s faster than him, though, a hitherto unsuspected ability that emerges only when he’s drunk, and catches Loki around the shoulders, leaning in to try and see him closer. “You look very familiar,” he declares, and Loki shakes his head once again, remembering to slip his phone into his pocket before Thor can notice any identifying features about it (such as the 24k gold inlay around the home button and the engraving of the Laufeysen family crest on the back).

Loki shrugs, figuring Kevin is a mousy type that isn’t used to receiving attention from huge godlike fraternity brothers at parties. “Dunno why.”

“You have a very charming speaking voice,” Thor continues, and Loki bites the inside of his cheek in self-reprimand; evidently, his American accent hasn’t passed muster. “Where are you from? California? Illinois? Mis-si-ssi-ppi?” He over-enunciates each syllable, and Loki knows that all he’s doing is showing off how many states he knows, so he pays it no particular attention.

That being said, Thor is expecting an answer, and Loki panics and says, “Minnesota,” yet another word difficult to pronounce sans accent.

“Minnesota,” Thor repeats thoughtfully. His arm is still around Loki’s shoulders, weighing heavily on Loki’s slender frame. “I am from Norway. Du er veldig søt!”

Loki realizes very abruptly what’s going on and chokes on the sip of Mystery Punch Swirl he’d just taken. While he splutters, Thor coos over him and pats him with an impossibly gentle, impossibly huge hand on the back. Thor is flirting with him, with his own adopted brother, long-lost and prodigal and all kinds of wicked, and were Thor to see Kevin with his sunglasses and hat and vest off he’d likely be so disappointed and ashamed, and yet Loki does not unmask himself, does not reveal that he knows exactly what Thor just said, he just stays where he is. “Um, what?” he says, mouth moving before his brain can catch up. Kevin took French in high school, not anything Scandinavian, so there’s no reason for him to speak Norwegian.

“Ah, nothing,” Thor says, that secretive, warm smile taking over his features again. One of his hands starts coming up and heading for Loki’s sunglasses, and Loki shies away very quickly, making Thor make a mournful, questioning noise. “I wish to see you, Kevin! You really do look very familiar.”

“We haven’t met before,” Loki mumbles, taking a quick sip of punch. “And my eyes are, like, super dilated right now, it’s bright as fuhck in here.”

It works. Thor straightens up once more but makes no move to leave Loki’s side. “What do you study, Kevin?”

Kevin is a maths major, so Loki says, “Maths,” then remembers that Americans don’t pluralize mathematics and quickly continues, “…’s what I’m studying.”

“Fascinating,” Thor says, seeming genuinely fascinated. “Is this your first time here? Shall I give you a tour?”

“Okay,” Loki says before he can stop himself. Maybe he’ll transfer to Harvard and never have to deal with this again; he’ll begin an application tomorrow morning, first thing. For now, he abandons his drink on a kitchen counter and lets Thor tug him along through the sweaty masses of partygoers.

“Have you ever been to Norway?” Thor is asking as they go, somehow managing to make time to smile at everyone who smiles at him as they pass. Loki keeps his head down, eyes fixed on the swell of Thor’s bicep. “It’s such a beautiful place, you’d really love it. I’m from Oslo— well, near Oslo, but it’s near enough that it may as well be.”

American college has rotted Thor’s brain. Prior to coming here, he’d have never associated Bærum with Oslo, and Loki huffs quietly to himself under his breath as he follows after him. “No,” he says, since Thor had asked a question. Kevin isn’t very well-travelled, after all.

“Oh, you simply must go, you’ll love it,” Thor says, drunk enough to repeat himself and flirt with his brother. “This is the living room!”

Loki could see that for himself perfectly well without Thor’s narration. “Oh,” he says.

“Kevin,” Thor says, suddenly altogether too close, his voice dropping lower in both pitch and volume. “Is it so loud in here. Can we go somewhere quieter to talk? You seem to have so many interesting things to say.”

That catches Loki and Kevin both off-guard. He’s seen Thor flirtatious, of course, he’s thought of practically nothing else for the past five or six or ten years, but he’d somehow expected more of him, not the standard douchebag lines. How disappointing. How bland. Thor should be embarrassed, honestly, that his flirting is so weak, so easy to see through, and— “Okay,” Loki’s mouth says before Loki’s brain can run away with this any further, and Thor’s smile lights up his whole body with its force and brilliance as he tugs Loki down the hall to ‘somewhere quieter.’

“This is the media room,” Thor introduces, sounding absurdly proud of a space with whose creation he presumably had nothing to do.

Loki looks around. It’s a decently-sized space with two decently-sized televisions currently being used for a racing game, but Thor isn’t leading him over to play, he’s walking them both to a couch of dubious character and sitting down, sprawling out, thighs spread and leaving Loki barely any room to sit next to him. Loki’s narrow, though, so he makes it work, sliding in by his side and trying to get comfortable. He hasn’t sat this close to Thor in years, if ever, and certainly not ever in this context, Thor so warm and affectionate and undeniably romantically interested.

“What do you think?” Thor asks. Loki’s visceral reaction to the sincerity in his voice isn’t one he can help, but he can disguise it, turning his face away to conceal the way his mouth twists bitterly as if he’s looking around to better see the space.

“It’s cool,” Loki says. His voice sounds less Kevin-esque in the quieter room, so he’ll have to keep talking to a minimum. Somehow, though, he’s starting to get the sense that Thor isn’t all that interested in talking, since Thor is moving closer already, and Loki can feel his eyes on him like a prickle on the back of his neck.

“Kevin,” Thor says, softer, lower still, and Loki turns to look at him. Thor lifts a hand as if to take Loki’s hat off, then thinks better of it and settles his hand on the side of Loki’s neck. A shiver runs down Loki’s spine, unbidden, unexpected. He should stop this. He should tell Thor— he should take off his glasses— or he could just leave, that’d be easier, get up from this couch and go straight out the door and not look back— he can’t move, he’s helpless, he’s wanted this too badly and for too long and finally, finally Thor is talking to him and looking at him like Loki’s always wanted for him to and Loki, selfish, cruel Loki, can’t do anything to stop him. “Jeg vil gjerne kysse deg.”

Loki’s stomach flips over and he almost moves forward to close what little distance remains between them, but he hesitates, remembers that Kevin wouldn’t understand. “What?” he breathes, eyes darting down to Thor’s mouth, his mouth which is so soft, which is so kind, which deserves better than this.

“I want to—”

Before Thor can even finish speaking Loki has straddled his lap and claimed him, arms winding around his broad, strong shoulders, his mouth pressing to Thor’s with all the sharpness and cruelty he is best known for. Thor makes a surprised noise and melts, meets him there, his hands taking Loki by the waist. Even though Thor is drunk, he kisses back hard, not letting Loki take any more ground than he already has; it’s a clash of teeth and tongues, hot gasps of air the only thing between them when Loki turns his head the other way and kisses him deeper.

Care goes out the window, and Loki fumbles to take off his sunglasses and baseball hat so there won’t be anything in the way, nothing at all, nothing disrupting his one and only chance to have Thor in his grasp like this. He is kissing Thor wholly, deeply, licking into his mouth and biting on his lip and dragging his fingers through Thor’s hair, kissing him like he’s dying for it, like he’s been starving for it, and he has. Thor will never know the extent to which he has. For some reason, though, Thor is kissing him back the exact same way, his grip tightening on Loki’s waist to drag him closer in his lap and a strong arm finally winding around his back to keep him there.

Loki knows he needs to stop this, needs to stop himself, but he’s incapable. Nothing remains but Thor’s mouth, the hot slip of his tongue, his golden skin under Loki’s palms, pulse beating hard when Loki presses a thumb under his jaw to keep his head tilted up. When Loki bites at him and pulls back, Thor hisses a low breath and pulls Loki in again, going in practically tongue-first for a kiss that leaves Loki shuddering, reduced to a thing that wants Thor, hungry for the weight of Thor’s body against his own. Thor wants him, too, and the certainty of it is blinding, making Loki gasp against Thor’s mouth. Thor echoes him with a low, throaty noise that’s almost animal, and Loki’s dizzy, losing it completely, and if he doesn’t stop now, he never will, and there’ll be no going back after that.

What can it be but a testament to how deeply Loki loves Thor that he stops himself then? The amount of effort it takes is one that Loki hadn’t known himself capable of producing. He wants, he needs, but he knows Thor wouldn’t want this. If he did, he wouldn’t want it like this. Loki loves him more than he is selfish, and he pushes Thor away, gasping, “I have to go, I’m sorry.”

“Wha— Kevin,” Thor says, breathless and dismayed. Loki shakes his head, hair falling over his face, and slips out of his tight grasp and out of his lap. Thor starts to sit up, starts to reach out for him, but his hand freezes in mid-air and in the split second before Loki turns to go, he sees a hint of recognition on Thor’s face in his darkened blue eyes, above his red wet mouth.

Loki flees. Thor doesn’t go after him, and Loki doesn’t look back over his shoulder. On his way out of the room, Loki bumps shoulders with some square-faced dirty blond guy who looks very confused, but Loki doesn’t have time to do damage control on everyone who might have seen his face; he just needs to get out of there.

Compared to the heavy, humid air inside the frat house, the early September chill comes as a much-needed shock to Loki’s system, and he stands on the lawn for a brief moment to inhale deep lungfuls of it before pulling out his phone and heading down the block, waiting to call an UberBlack until he’s a safe distance away from the house and there’ll be no chance of Thor coming after him.

What has he done? How could he do that? And yet he’s still not sure if he regrets it or not, considering it was his only chance and, more likely than not, Thor will never find out. Even if Thor finds out Loki’s here, he still wouldn’t believe Loki would go to a frat party in disguise and make out with him, since the concept of Loki going to a frat party is utterly alien as it is. Loki saw no one he knew, and his face was hidden to Thor for the entirety of the affair save for the last moment, but Thor will likely attribute the brief glimpse of Loki’s face to something like wishful thinking. Loki will burn this vest, and he left the hat and glasses there with Thor. There will be nothing tying him to this event or this night, and Thor will never have to find out.

Loki cries in the Uber back to his dorm. The driver, an immensely wrinkled old man whom the Uber app had described merely as ‘Stan,’ politely says nothing, but when Loki starts stepping out of the car upon arrival, he says, in his wrinkly old voice, “Chin up, kid. It’ll work itself out. These things usually do.”

Loki sniffs, neither grateful nor ungrateful, closes the door behind himself, and goes up to his cold and impersonal dorm room to collapse into fitful, dreamless sleep. He’ll deal with this never, he decides. Thor will never find out, and Loki will never tell him, and they’ll likely never see each other again, and that’ll be that. Either way, it won’t go anywhere. There’s no chance of them looking for apartments together, or kissing passionately on top of a table in a library study room, and certainly not of them taking all of Thor’s dreadful friends to summer with them back home in Norway. No chance of any of that at all. It ends here.

[thedcdunce]

Killer Croc

“Killer Croc is what they called me! But some day, some day I knew they'd call me king!” - Killer Croc

Real Name: Waylon Jones

Gender: Male

Height: 7′ 5″

Weight: 686 lbs (311 kg)

Eyes: Red

Skin: Green

Powers:

Regressive Atavism

Abilities:

Wrestling

Swimming

Weaknesses:

Diminished Intellect

Base of Operations: Gotham City

Universe: 

Earth-One

New Earth

Marital Status: Single

Citizenship: American

First Appearance: Detective Comics #523 (February, 1983)

Powers

Regressive Atavism: Killer Croc is afflicted with what seems to be some form of regressive atavism, meaning he has inherited some of the traits of ancestral species of the human race. Over time the primal reptilian part of his brain gains more control of his psyche.

Regenerative Healing Factor: He has superhuman regenerative powers, able to heal even lost limbs.

Armored Skin: His skin has hardened to the point where it is invulnerable to most forms of abrasion and even high caliber weapons fired from a distance.

Superhuman Strength: He has grown so physically powerful and quick over the years that Batman has had to resort to planting explosive devices on Croc's chest to knock him unconscious. He has also been able to rip a large bank vault door right off its hinges with ease.

Superhuman Speed

Enhanced Senses

Claws

Fangs

Abilities

Wrestling: Croc has some experience at street fighting and wrestling. Swimming: Croc is an expert swimmer and can hold his breath far longer than normal humans.

Weaknesses

Diminished Intellect: Killer Croc's mind, once possessing above average intelligence, has now lessened greatly due to his advanced mutation level and the specialized virus designed to advance it created by Hush. He is a high school dropout, but has proven to be moderately capable of organizing thugs in small-time racketeering operations. He is usually hired by other villains as muscle or as a hitman, as he is at least intelligent enough to follow instructions.

History

Killer Croc, also known as Waylon Jones, is a high profile criminal and one of Batman's most challenging adversaries. Croc is best known for his reptilian appearance due to his medical condition, which slowly transforms him into an anthropomorphic reptile.

Origin

Waylon Jones was born in a slum in Tampa, Florida. He was born with a medical condition that caused him to grow progressively more like a crocodile, hence his name. His mother died in childbirth, and his father abandoned him. Waylon was raised by his aunt, but her persistent drinking prevented him from growing up in an ideal household.  As a teenager, Croc had no friends, and was the object of ridicule of those who knew him. By the time he reached adulthood, Waylon found work wrestling alligators as part of sideshow carnivals, where he earned the name "Killer Croc". Croc soon realized that there was more money to be made in crime, so he set out to become Gotham's most powerful underground figure. For this purpose, Croc first murdered Squid, an uprising crimelord and then he attempted to seize control of the Tobacconists' Club. His criminal activities made him a target of Gotham's vigilante Batman.

Croc's rise to the top of Gotham's underworld didn't go unnoticed and he made quick enemies of already established criminals. Croc was soon approached by Joker, who arranged a plan for Croc to eliminate Batman, but the madman's plan would also involve a double-cross, where Croc would be eliminated as well. Joker's plan failed and in the last confrontation with Batman, Croc was defeated and his reign of terror was over.

Some time later, notorious sociopath Ra's al Ghul engineered a massive breakout of Arkham Asylum, freeing all of the patients, including Killer Croc. In exchange for their freedom, the prisoners agreed to help Ra's with a scheme to confound the Batman. Croc's role in the plan was to break into Wayne Manor and abduct Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred Pennyworth. Croc had no idea what connection Pennyworth had to Batman, but he executed the deed without question, and brought Alfred back to Poison Ivy's Exotica Emporium where four other hostages were being held. Batman soon arrived to rescue the hostages and fought with Croc once again. As time was of the essence, Batman wasted little of it fighting Croc, and quickly subdued him with a gas pellet from his utility belt. Afterwards, Killer Croc was returned to Arkham Asylum.

Like many do, Croc eventually escaped from Arkham and began running criminal operations again. After robbing a shopping store, Croc discovered a secret stairwell that led into an old unfinished subterranean highway. The tunnel had since become a shelter for many of Gotham's homeless. Croc became friends with the homeless people and attempted to make a new life for himself. Croc's newfound lifestyle was short-lived however. Batman investigated the store robbery, and the trail led him right to Killer Croc's shelter. The two began fighting one another, but at midnight, the city flushed the tunnels with water from the river, and Croc was washed away. His friends believed that he had died in the flood.

Knightfall

Croc survived however, and six months later had taken to living out of the Gotham City alleyways. He was tormented by visions of his past, calling to mind hurtful incidents where his peers would routinely comment about his physical features. In combination with his natural, instinctive rage, Croc's emotional state erupted into a wave of violence and he began going berserk throughout the city streets. News crews captured his latest rampage, as he began terrorizing the district known as Eden Park. An aspiring foreign crime lord known as Bane witnessed Croc's rampage, and determined that defeating him would be a stepping stone on his personal path towards destroying Batman. Before Bane could catch up with him though, Croc found himself facing neophyte vigilante Jean-Paul Valley, as well Batman's young sidekick Robin. Bane interrupted the fight and demonstrated his raw power by breaking both of Croc's arms.

Croc was sent back to Arkham Asylum, where he spent a very short period of time because a few weeks later, Bane attacked Arkham and unleashed all the inmates including Croc. Wandering through the sewers of Gotham, the only thought in Croc's mind was getting revenge against Bane. His opportunity came when he discovered Bane had captured Robin and taken him to the sewers. Croc fought Bane and destroyed the venom pumping machine, but Bane broke his arm again. They were dragged by the water to the river outside and Croc was left unconscious after the fight.

Prodigal

Croc soon healed and returned to Gotham in an effort to re-establish himself in the criminal underworld. He went on a brutal murder spree that claimed the lives of several members of the Paretti crime family operating out of Gotham's waterfront district. At this point in time, Bruce Wayne had relinquished the role of Batman to his first ward Dick Grayson. As the new Batman, Dick and Robin fought with Croc at a warehouse. Surviving members of the Paretti gang were present and opened fire on Croc severely wounding him. Croc survived once again however and evaded capture.

Years later, Killer Croc was summoned by some strange paranormal force to break out of Arkham Asylum and make his way to the Louisiana swamps. Batman followed him there only to find that the mysterious force was actually the Swamp Thing, who offered Croc a place in the swampland where he could finally give in to his animal side and live free from human persecution. There he stayed, and Batman returned to Gotham City.

Hush Virus and Mutation 

On a grand scheme to take Batman down, Hush implanted a virus in Croc that caused his body to devolve into a more primal and reptilian state. In this state, Croc was told to kidnap a rich kid and to claim the ransom to treat his condition. However, Hush was using him for other purposes and Croc was captured by Batman. 

Croc was then taken to Arkham Asylum, where Batman questioned him about the money, but Croc managed to escape and Batman allowed it in order to follow the monster. Croc went to see Catwoman, who took the money after he was captured. Batman stopped him from hurting her and when Croc was revealing that the money was to cure him, Amanda Waller and the F.B.I captured Croc and took him into custody.

Croc is then treated by the police and a doctor named Maria Belleza and shortly after, Croc is cured and returned to his "normal" appearance.

During the great gang war of Gotham, Croc was present at the massive criminal meeting at Robinson Park and he was one of the first criminals to attack Batman, biting his cowl and destroying the radio intercom. Croc was preventing Batman from reaching Black Mask until Robin arrived and defeated Croc using his staff. Afterwards, Croc joined Scarecrow and they followed Black Mask to the North End of Gotham.

However, Black Mask kidnapped Croc and with the help form Mad Hatter, they implanted a mind-controlling chip in Croc's brain allowing Black Mask to force Croc to do his biddings. A few days later and during one of Black Mask's bank heists, Croc removed the chip from his brain and slaughtered Black Mask's henchmen. After this, he went looking for Mad Hatter and was about to devour the man when he was stopped by Batman, who explained that Croc had a brain infection that could kill him and that the virus that caused him to mutate so severely has reactivated and his mutation would worsen with time. Batman dosed Croc with an antibiotic to save his life and Croc escaped from the place, with a desire for revenge against Black Mask.

Croc looked for Maria Belleza again and on his way to her he slaughtered more members of the False Face Society. Doctor Maria Belleza was a scientist whose knowledge about Croc's disease allowed her to get closer to Croc than any human has ever before. However, Maria's antidote was short lived and the mutation started again. After long tests, Maria concluded that there was no cure and Croc, losing control over himself, devoured the doctor, following his animal instincts but regretting the action with his human conscience. With vengeance in mind, Croc went looking for who was responsible for his mutation.

Croc was later discovered feeding off the remains of the villain Orca. He was apprehended once again and taken back to Arkham Asylum.

One Year Later

While being transferred from one prison cell to another, Croc wrestled free from his handlers and attacked visiting reporter Jimmy Olsen. Olsen spontaneously generated super-powers and was able to escape unharmed. Killer Croc soon escaped confinement however, and was one of many super-powered villains led by Deathstroke who crashed the wedding of Green Arrow and Black Canary. Fortunately, the wedding party was made up of members of the Justice League, the Justice Society, the Outsiders and the Teen Titans. By the end of the fight, most of the villains, including Croc, were apprehended. The administrators of Checkmate later decided that Croc was too dangerous for them to safely contain him. He, along with many others, were exiled from the Earth via Boom Tubeand taken to the "Salvation" World.

Upon returning to Earth, Croc along with other supervillains like Mr. Freeze, fought to regain control of the city by taking out Intergang. However, Croc was eventually captured and taken to Arkham Asylum.

After the Black Glove's failed plan to destroy Batman, all the inmates from Arkham Asylum were transferred to Blackgate until Arkham was completely decontaminated. On their way back to Arkham, the vehicles that transported the inmates were assaulted by a new Black Mask, who freed the inmates, blew the asylum in front of all of them and forced them to join his army. Croc was among the inmates who joined Black Mask's group and under his instructions, he worked together with Poison Iyv, located the Batmobile and attacked Damian Wayne, who was rescued by the timely arrival of Nightwing. Afterwards, Croc, Ivy and Firefly attacked and destroyed several factions of Penguin's gang, following Black Mask's instructions.

He escaped Black Mask but was captured and imprisoned by the Outsiders.

[1358456]

Gold Version Joy Run

Something that I wanted to do. Just like Yellow version, I will not restrict myself whatsoever. Which means... bring on the shenanigans.

Also, very important for me! This is the VERY FIRST TIME I actually do a full Gold version run with all the glitches at my disposal! So this is a new experience!

Let’s dance.

Right off the bat, a little f*ckery. Hey there, Silver boy. My croc is bigger than yours. ... What? Temporarily named as “Leviathan” since... well, let’s just say that the early Korean version of a certain scripture translated “Leviathan” as an alligator/crocodile. ... Gators don’t breathe flames from the mouth.

Critical Pokemon captured! Huhuhahahaha! Oh, Hoppip gets THREE moves at level 5, and one of them is Splash?! Ohohoho!

Once again, Silver boy, my croc is bigger than yours.

Splash in the third slot, eh?

Sorcery! Huhuhahahaha! Nickname: Apocalypse.

Here’s a little... side-product. ... Now that is a hell of a Rattata. No Rattata in existence can possibly have almost 400 HP at level 100, let alone level 69.

Or have that much Def, Sp. Atk, and Sp. Def. ... Or that low of an Atk. ... Dude. This guy can take hits and nothing else.

Turns out, you don’t even need a Graveler to whip Whitney’s ass. Geodude is fine. “Whits Bane”. As in, “Whitney’s Bane”. ... This was its literally only purpose.

So... this guy here... was a Quilava. Its data got corrupted during the demon magic bullsh*t, and it became an unstable Rattata. Which, when “stabilized”, became a level 1 Jigglypuff with Pokerus. ... Yep. I just force-spawned Pokerus. Because why not.

They are... parasites. Tiny little life forms stuck on the Pokemon. ... That’s nasty, dude.

The sorcery continues! Rock Smash in 3rd slot. Nickname: Leviathan. The true one. Behold the leviathan, monster of the sea! Its strong scales are its pride!

... Apparently this run’s ID gives me Smog and Fire Spin. Because those two moves were on all five Pokemon that I used this glitch to hatch. ... Which means this Lugia here is 2/5.

Nidorino! ... A Normal type Nidorino. ... ?????

“You could never catch a legendary Pokemon anyway.” ... You were literally just whipped by two of them. You blind f*ck.

Turns out, Morty is insanely easy if you... you know. Mewtwo doesn’t get Psychic until level 66, but... it gets Confusion at level 1.

Chuck’s Poliwrath was blasted so hard, its sprite died. RIP. Also proof that this was the result of shenanigans. Not only do I have a Lugia that’s level 24 (when the lowest you can get is 40 in Silver), but... Aeroblast. Aeroblast is only available in Silver version, since Lugia gets it at level 1, and then learns a new move every 11x level (11, 22, 33, 44, etc). So at level 40, it has Aeroblast, Safeguard, Gust, and Recover. In the wild, a level 44 one would’ve erased Aeroblast for Hydro Pump. So in Gold version, the level 70 Lugia does not have Aeroblast. In Crystal, the level... 60? Lugia does not have Aeroblast. And there is no such thing as a move re-learner in GSC. ... Similarly, Gold is the only version where you can get Sacred Fire. ... Which means, poor Crystal version. Doesn’t get sh*t.

Speaking of Sacred Fire... Shenanigans! Whirlpool in the 3rd slot. Nickname: Phoenix. 3/5.

Somehow, this doesn’t feel fair. Lance in the Pokemon League. Getting one-shotted. Hmm...

Well, that’s the Pokemon League down. EASY! But this time, I’m going all the way. Kanto!

Hey, this is the guy that kills your game. Talk to that thing and then open the Coin Case and then your game gets f*cked. Something like that.

Hmm... Kanto, huh? Then I get access to Grimer, and therefore Acid Armor... Hmm...

Huhuhuhahaha! Acid Armor in 3rd slot. Nickname: Doomguard. Apparently you can’t use numbers, so... I couldn’t name it as “135″. Boo. Ehn. It’s not shiny, so... 4/5.

“This Gym is great! Only girls are allowed here!” ... Yeah, maybe that line is better deleted in HGSS. ... The HGSS line makes no damn sense. Just deleting this guy would’ve been better.

... Were you... having a date right in front of someone else’s house? ... What is wrong with you?

Oh you poor, sad little man. Living in a cave, since Cinnabar Island burned down. Volcano eruption. Well, at least in HGSS, you modified the sh*t out of the cave floor in Seafoam Islands. In here, you’re literally just a dude sitting in a cave all by yourself.

Janine. You sad f*ck. What is this? Level 36?! The weakest Kanto leader by far. Even weaker than a Johto leader. That’s just... pitiful.

Oh, I remember this. The trainer house? Oh, I spent a lot of time here back in actual Gold version, trying to get Metronome to get Transform so I could Transform into the Smeargle with Sketch, so that the Mewtwo would get Sacred Fire. And I succeeded... twice, since I accidentally deleted Thunderbolt, so I had to do this glitch again, but for Thunderbolt.

Johto Leaders must be pretty pathetic because I beat them? You f*ck. Here you are, sitting all by yourself in a Gym clearly made of Lego, and you’re calling the Johto Leaders pathetic?

Well, now that I annihilated this f*ck with Mewtwo (for a specific reason), I now have access to Mt. Silver, and thus, my 5th and last addition to my team. Oh, SNEASEL!!!

Final shenanigans. Beat Up in 3rd slot. Nickname: Temporus. 5/5. It ain’t a Dragon, but hey. Time thingy. And so my team is ready. Level 59 Mew, 56 Mewtwo, 55 Lugia, 55 Ho-oh, 55 Celebi. Time to take on Red with his level 70+ team.

Oh yeah. GSC Mt. Silver requires Flash. ... Flash is for sissies?!

... Wow. Can’t see sh*t except for an item that’s... ... How would you even see that?!

So... Flash is necessary. Cool. Adding in a level 5 Togepi with Flash. The team is ready.

Mt. Silver. So... here is a “hidden” path that leads to a cave with literally nothing in it. ... Like, what the f*ck was the point of this?

And another hidden path to another hidden cave with literally nothing in it. ... WHY?! Were there supposed to be some cool hidden sh*t here that got canned at the last moment?!

... So, that’s how pitiful Pikachu is. Level 81, got outrun by a level 59 Mew (base 90 vs. base 100), and one-shotted by Earthquake. ... See, this is why I can the Pikachu as soon as possible in Yellow version for a Mew. Pikachu ain’t my starter. MEW is my starter!

And ANNIHILATED! You poor sap. I have a bunch of Pokemon 20 levels lower, and yet... EASY. Why? Because Legendaries have much higher stats than other Pokemon. And in RGBY GSC, every stat gets “EVed”. ... PKRS also helps out greatly. In short, all my Pokemon are better by far. ... Which is why I restrict myself to non-Legendaries only in other normal runs. It just ain’t fair otherwise.

Now that I finished the game, I guess I’ll go to the one thing I always found super cool and very f*cking meaningless. Edit the time to be Monday, and make a beeline for Mt. Moon!

... F*ck. I forgot about this encounter. Way to ruin it, dude. It’s a huge step down from facing Red to facing you. Boo. ... Also, now you f*cking notice? You weak pathetic f*ck. Dude, you don’t need love to raise Pokemon. You’ve been using violence, and you’ve been mislead that you need love and affection. ... Dude, you need knowledge. Violence can only come properly afterwards. ... This is a reference to the elder’s questions in Crystal and HGSS Dragon’s Den. “What do you need to raise Pokemon? Love, violence, or knowledge?”

The Clefairy dance in Mt. Moon Square! Only on Mondays at night. This is still in HGSS, I think. The Clefairy dance and... leaves you a Moon Stone before running off, which means the Moon Stone is the only evolution stone you can get infinite amount of times. The others, you get like... two. Fire/Water/Leaf/Thunder Stones require you to be in Kanto for some f*cked up reason!

Now then, Gold version joy run is over. Lots of shenanigans happened. And here is my final team:

Caught Snorlax with a duplicated Master Ball, removed the Leftovers, duplicated that 5 times so all 5 of my Pokemon can have one. Constant HP regeneration for Pokemon with PKRS boosted stat experience, and with base HP stats of 100, 100, 106, 106, 106? That’s pretty freaking cheap, man.

Psychic: Level 40, but... who has the time for that? Duplicated TM 29: Psychic 4 times, so... yay. Shadow Ball: TM 30, again duplicated. Earthquake: TM 26, duplicated. Ice Punch, TM 33. Purchased in Goldenrod! Yay for not having to use the duplication glitch!

... And PP maxed for the PP 10 or lower moves using the duplicated PP Ups.

I ain’t waiting for level 66 for Mewtwo to get Psychic. Duplicated TM!

Psychic, Earthquake, and Shadow Ball. ... Just like Mew. And Ho-oh. DUPLICATION! But look. When there’s one...

There’s the other. With a symmetrical moveset.

... Celebi doesn’t learn Psychic by itself. ... TM. Also doesn’t get Giga Drain by itself. ... TM (duplicated). Shadow Ball? Also TM. And since Celebi’s movepool is as shallow as Keldeo’s, I let it keep Leech Seed. And with Leech Seed and Leftovers, Celebi here was able to easily annihilate Red’s Snorlax despite its Amnesia. EASY!

And there you have it! An easy-ass annihilation of Gold version. ... All you have to do f*ck up the game. At one point, the Dex said that I owned 39 Pokemon. But the Dex only showed me the “owned” icons for 19. Which means, I apparently owned 20 Pokemon that I never saw. ... Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Poor game. But at least “POOKYPOOKY” didn’t appear this time.

[ninequestions9]

James, 27, Systems Administrator

What is the biggest frustration you’re facing now?

Things being up in the air. Nothing being nailed down in life. Not really having a clear direction of where to go or what to pursue next. I’m kind of frustrated with that.

2. What trait do you wish you most had?

I wish I was more naturally generous. It doesn’t come naturally to me to give money, especially tithing has always been a problem for me. I tend to cling to “This is my stuff. I’ve earned it.” I don’t hate giving gifts or anything like that. I’ve known people who are naturally generous, giving people. Not just of their money, but of their time or effort. There’s a certain light that comes from being a magnanimous person. Even just random people they meet, they’re constantly willing to give up their time or effort just to help people. That’s what I would like to have more of.

3. What are 3 characteristics you look for in a friend?

A sense of humor to start with is very common. I don’t necessarily look for it in someone. Friendship is a much more natural thing that deliberately pursuing specific things in people. I tend to get along better with people who share my sense of humor or at least understand my sarcasm. If they don’t then they just tend not to like me. Other than that, I don’t know…not scumbags? Also usually some kind of shared activity or shared passion for something. The people that become closer friends are the people you spend more time with. Then probably the ability to think deeply on things or have deeper discussions. If you don’t ever get passed the shallow, superfluous then you don’t actually get to know the person. Can you really say your friends with someone if you only know what their favorite baseball team is? So a mutual willingness to engage in conversation and a commonality in that conversation.

4. What makes you feel brave?

Probably having someone else around to be brave for. Even for myself, when I’m living alone there’s less of a need for that bravery. Even killing bugs. I don’t like killing bugs by myself, but if there’s people around to kill bugs for then you have to be brave. You have to go in and just kill the spider. So yeah, having someone else around to be brave for.

5. What makes you feel vulnerable?

Any kind of deeper relationship or any kind of deep personal discussion like that. In order to have any kind of conversation that matters, you have to be honest about who you are as a person and anytime you do that, when you put yourself out there, there’s that element of vulnerability because you don’t know how somebody else will respond to that. Everybody has a certain level of facade that they put up. Not necessarily fake, but who they are to everybody else…like you don’t always engage in the most personal discussions with everybody. So any kind of deep conversation with a friend or a romantic partner.  

6. What was your proudest moment?

I’ll tell this story because it’s the first one that pops into my head. Back in junior year of high school, I was in physics and we were learning about the kinematic equation, so properties of motion and how to calculate for different things. The challenge from our physics teacher for this lab was to get a marble into a cup. So basically, you’d set up a ramp at the end of a lab table and send a marble down it and you would set up a desk right underneath so it only had a short distance to fall. We had a speed gate at the bottom of the ramp that would tell up how fast the marble was going when it came off the ramp. So you would record where it landed on the desk and measure that from the end of the ramp. The teacher pulled the desk away and said “Ok now set up this cup where you think the marble is going to land,” which we had to figure out with these equations we were using. Immediately I was like “Oh, I know what to do.” I just went off to the side and started going through all the equations while the rest of the class was still puzzling through everything. So I figured it out and I told my team “Guys, we need to put the cup here. This is where the marble is gunna land.” None of them had really contributed anything to it so they just went off my word. We sent the marble down and it landed right in the cup. I still remember the look on the teacher’s face! He was so surprised that we got that. Nobody else in the class got it in the cup. So that was the proudest moment of my high school physics career.

    The answer I thought of after that was actually finishing student teaching. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and I wanted to quit most of the time. That was probably more influential on my life in the long run, like actually sticking with it instead of getting a marble in a cup using equations I don’t even remember anymore.

7. Who is your role model / hero and why?

Growing up it was always Steve Irwin. I loved animals when I was a kid….I don’t hate them now haha! I thought I was going to be a vet for a while when I was a kid….I mean I did take up hunting later on in life so I did kind of go in another direction….so now I love to eat animals….this is completely off topic! I loved watching his show, Crocodile Hunter was great! I always thought working at a zoo would be awesome and wrestling alligators. Actually as I’ve grown older and just gotten to know more of who he was as a person, it’s still a valid answer. He was such a genuine guy. You can see the legacy of who he was even in his kids today. Both of them seem like really great people. You know that person was a good dad. Both his kids want to follow in his steps. Both of them love and cherish their memories of him. Just a good genuine dude. I would still pick him as a role model today even though he’s dead.

    Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights as well. He’s so much of who I want to be as a man. His relationship with his wife, as portrayed in the show, is….they deal with a lot of difficult stuff and the way they always approach it with communication, being up front, and working through problems is like such a realistic portrayal in such a good way that you don’t usually see in TV. Normally the dad is such a douche. They make him intentionally a moron for funsies. He’s the coach of the high school football team so he doesn’t compromise on things that he knows to be wrong. He’s very strong with what he believes in and trying to maintain and do the right thing despite pressure from the town or from his players. He’s always willing to go above and beyond for his players. He’s the one they come to if they get into a tight spot. Even if they know he doesn’t approve of what they did, he’s always also the one they go to first because they know he’ll be the one to help them out. Someone like that is who I would like to be as a man, as a father, and wherever God brings me in the church, discipling people. That’s who I would like to be.

8. What is one life lesson you’d like to pass down to future generations?

I always feel like you can’t pass down life lessons. My parents, especially my dad, went through a lot growing up, so there was a lot of things my dad dealt with growing up that he never wanted his kids to have to deal with. In those ways, he was stricter on certain things or would try to direct us in certain things like “Hey you shouldn’t be doing this.” One of the frustrations he’s expressed a lot is how most of his kids didn’t really listen to him. He said “I was trying to save you these heartaches here because I know I went through that.” On some level, people have to learn for themselves. Parents or role models can impart specific lessons or wisdom, but at the end of the day I find the most valuable lessons we learn in life are those we have to learn ourselves and experience through our own choices. That was one of the reasons I felt I had to move out of my parent’s. In order to have those life experiences and learn those lessons. My parents got married early, had a kid, had no money, they bought a crappy run down house and struggled for years and years. I’m sure they would love to save me from that. I definitely don’t have that experience now, but even moving out and taking steps that are more risky and forcing myself into situations like that.

    Something more broad, just go out and do things that challenge you. Especially things that scare you. Those are the things you should be going for and trying to do. At the end of the day, the only way you’re going to grow is by being challenged or by doing something that you were afraid of. So go out and experience those life lessons and learn your own.

9. What is your opinion of Jesus?

I don’t know how much of it is opinion based versus fact based. My opinion of who Jesus is ultimately shouldn’t matter. What matters is who he actually is. I feel like my opinion gets in the way a lot of the time. I feel like we tend to create a more palatable version of God. We like to pick and choose character traits or aspects of who he is. We make him smaller than he is and more manageable. When ultimately, who he is is who he is. My relationship with him is based entirely off of him. This is who he is and he loves me. I’m just in a position of being constantly blow away like, who am I? I’m nobody. Why would the God of everything love me? He’s my savior. He’s my friend. Those are facts, they’re not opinions. Ultimately, he should be everything. He should be number one in my life, but a lot of times he’s not. I put other things first and always end up regretting it. That’s who he is. Someone who’s constantly patient, constantly loving, even though I don’t deserve it.