(January 9th, 2030)

  Nate had been living homeless in one of the many slums of Neo York for nearly two decades now. It all started when his prepubescent daughter came down with a lethal heart condition. Fortunately, Nate’s job had been able to pay for the medicine, if just barely. However, his wife fell into alcoholism from the grief of the situation.

  With his wife stuck in a bottle, Nate had to spend much more time at home, calling out from work regularly to ensure his daughter was cared for. In turn, despite his desperate situation, Nate’s job let him go.

  Quickly, Nate went through all his savings to pay for his daughter’s medicine while fruitlessly job hunting. Shortly after the money ran dry, so did his daughter’s life. After she’d passed away, Nate’s wife blamed him for everything that happened and left him.

  As far as Nate currently knew, his ex-wife had died in a gutter a few years back.

  Having lost everything he ever loved, Nate gave up on life. He didn’t have the will or desire to end himself, but he no longer had the will for anything but a bum’s life.

  To Nate’s credit, he still did whatever he could to help any homeless kids who came through the back alley he’d made into his home. He even helped one young boy get to the C.P.S.

  Currently, it was a typical smoggy day above the interlinked cardboard tent that served as Nate’s home. He and the other lost souls around him had spent the past week in a drunken stupor, and he was planning to keep that going today. However, this was interrupted when a powerful gust of wind knocked his cardboard fort over.

  When Nate climbed out of his collapsed home, he questioned if he’d gone colorblind from drinking. Towering over him was a tall woman in a runner’s uniform with gray skin and white hair. However, the green of her clothes and the red in her eyes dashed Nate’s colorblind theory. He would have honestly thought she was pretty if not for the countless stitches across her body and the youthful confusion in her eyes.

  Just as Nate was about to ask the woman if she needed directions to a hospital, she grabbed him by his arms and raced off with him so quickly that he passed out from the whiplash.

  |X|

  Cindy was having the worst time of her life. About a month ago, her mother had come down with a terrible sickness that Cindy’s frazzled mind couldn’t be bothered to remember the name of.

  Her father had run out on them when she was four, and her mom didn’t have health insurance or any real savings to speak of, so saving her mother’s life fell on this poor kid’s shoulders.

  She’d tried dropping out of high school to get a job at Taco Guitar, but was fired for tardiness after two weeks, and all Cindy had to show for it was the funds for enough medicine for a week.

  However, Cindy had recently gotten a glimmer of hope. She’d heard how Miracle City’s Super Mask, the Shining Darkness, had some sort of healing powers. So, utterly desperate, Cindy had grabbed a kitchen knife and a ski mask and found a nice streetside alley to hide in. The five-foot-two girl’s plan, if one could call it that, was to mug as many people as she could in one day and use the money to pay for plane tickets to Miracle City.

  Just as Cindy got settled behind a dumpster and started searching for her first mark, she heard the metal clatter of the manhole cover behind her being opened up. When she turned around, knife drawn, she was completely horrified by what she saw. It was some sort of amphibious monster with lithe but powerful muscles in a pair of diver pants. It had red, alien eyes and a smile full of huge, black-gray razor-sharp teeth. The only somewhat disarming thing about the creature was that it was the same height as her.

  Before Cindy even thought to scream, she went to stab the creature, only for it to move like a blur and bite her knife in half. Then, just as the will to scream rose in Cindy, the sewer monster grabbed her by her mouth and torso, its webbed hands muffling her, and pulled her below the city with it.

  |X|

  Into the second day of their occupation, Chaos and Anarchy had converted the drug factory into a ramshackle lab, but only after Chaos had whipped up a healing formula to repair Doug’s body, of course.

  That prior night, while Chaos readied Doug’s healing stimulant, he and Issac had read through all the emails on Ben’s computer from Mr. Ravage. Although Chaos was disappointed by the lack of sex tapes or the like to disturb Issac with, he was far more pleased when he learned what Mr. Ravage was: America's top crime lord. And if he held that position, he was likely either part of or tied to the people who framed Shining Darkness for creating King Chaos, and King Chaos as working for Shining Darkness.

  Unfortunately for Mr. Ravage, this made him Chaos’ next top target.

  Presently, the efforts to refurnish the factory into a lab were helped by Chaos using Ben’s passwords to hack his bank account. The delivery of technology and chemicals had arrived last night, so Doug was forced to squeeze back into a hazmat suit alongside Chaos to receive the supplies without raising questions.

  It wasn’t enough for everything they’d need, but it got their operations stable.

  Since being free to work, Chaos had rewired Mega-Jaw and Patchwork’s brains. With its stronger healing factor, Chaos tested his methods on Mega-Jaw first. Things hadn’t gone as planned, though. Once Mega-Jaw’s skull had been re-sealed, instead of a fully intelligent lackey, Chaos had made him equivalent to a loyal dog with himself as the master. However, that was still a marked improvement over the meat automaton the beast had been previously.

  His methods had improved measurably when he went on to Patchwork. While she still wasn’t at the mental level he would’ve liked, Patchwork now had the mind of a young child who adored Chaos as a father figure.

  Chaos had sent the two out on a shopping mission this day while he and Doug worked to rebuild the Anarchy armor.

  Meanwhile, Dissolve, who stood as a motionless sentinel in the corner of the lab, proved harder to improve than his comrades. With his mind spread throughout the cells of his liquid body, Chaos couldn’t just cut open and rewire Dissolve’s brain. Instead, he was working on a chemical compound that, if he was right, would completely alter Dissolve’s personality. At the moment, the concoction was in the auto-mixer and would be ready in a few hours.

  At the work station, Chaos grabbed a spool of thin red wiring for the Anarchy armor’s internal operations before Doug tapped his shoulder.

  “Hmm? What’s up, Tiny?” Chaos asked as he turned around.

  In his meaty hands, Doug held thicker black wires as he asked, “You think these black thingies’ll be better for the suit’s strength than the red thingies?”

  “Anarchy, that’s-,” Chaos started until he looked at the wires Doug had and compared them to his. After brief but careful consideration, Chaos looked proudly astonished and remarked, “Hey, you’re right. Those BX-V1s would make the suit stronger than the RQ-J2s we used last time.” Tossing the red wires into a pile of other discarded parts, Chaos finished, “We’ll have to make the suit an inch or two taller to accommodate their size, but that’s a good find, Anarchy. Nice work.”

  “Uuuh… Yeah,” Doug replied with dull pride, the technical language clearly lost on him, but his brother’s praise came through as clear as day.

  At the moment, Issac was in the middle of his equivalent to a nap, so Chaos didn’t have to deal with his comments. However, that did nothing to lessen Chaos’ pride in his little brother’s savant engineering.

  While Doug laid the wires down in front of the framework that would now need to be remodeled, Chaos walked over to some sort of machine that vaguely resembled a smithing forge crossed with a coffee pot. He then loaded some slabs of steel into the port on top of the device, which got to work melting it down while he worked some dials on its side.

  “Alright. If I’m right on this, and I know I am, the Omni-Metal should be twice as tough as last time," Chaos muttered to himself while reflexively waiting for the sleeping Issac’s response.

  Oh, right. Fuck, didn’t think I’d miss the little rat’s chittering. Chaos thought as his forge produced dozens of large plates of dark-gray metal onto a conveyor belt.

  Without a permanent conversation partner, Chaos became hyper-focused as he lifted his pointer finger, condensed a massive amount of electricity into a plasma cutter, and got to work shaping the pieces for Doug’s armor.

  About half an hour later, Patchwork entered the lab through a back entrance while Mega-Jaw happily rushed in from the sewer entrance the Council of Chaos had made yesterday.

  As Patchwork tossed a groaning old man next to a wall with no exits, Mega-Jaw threw a still struggling teenage girl next to the man. The girl attempted to get up and run, only for Mega-Jaw to intercept and push her back in her place. This repeated four times before she gave up.

  Setting some still red-hot interlocks down, Chaos chuckled as he approached his minions and remarked, “You two grabbed quite a range of age there. Good work.”

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  “I do… good?” Patchwork questioned innocently.

  “Very good,” Chaos replied as he formed an electrical step, flew to give the illusion he walked on it, and patted Patchwork’s head.

  Mega-Jaw then sat like a dog and looked up at Chaos with a pleading whine.

  Scratching along the frill going down his back, Chaos told his beast, “You too, Jaws.”

  Once Chaos finished praising his minions, the girl must have realized he was in charge and yelled at him, “Who the fuck are you?! Whatever cult bullshit this is, I don’t got time for it!”

  Earnestly confused, Chaos looked at the girl and asked, “Who am I? Haven’t you seen the news?”

  “No. I’ve been fuckin’ busy.”

  With an urging gesture, Chaos explained patiently, “I’m King Chaos. World’s first Super Crook?”

  As his joints audibly popped, the old man got up, stepped between Chaos and the girl, and stated, “Fraid I haven’t heard of you either, kid. We don’t get much news where I’m from.”

  Fishing for an explanation, Chaos looked back at Patchwork with a raised brow.

  “B- Bum,” Patchwork replied pleasingly quickly as she pointed at the old man.

  “Oh,” Chaos stated in illumination. With a judgmental stare, he told the old man, “Should’ve guessed, what with the rags and no hygiene.”

  Instead of the expected rise out of the man, he laughed with a wheeze and replied, “Ya got me there, kid.” Rolling his shoulder, the man went on, “So, I have to parrot the kid and ask where we are.”

  Chaos nodded to this man respectfully as the girl instinctively hid behind him, and answered, “Guess that’s fair.” With a twirling gesture, Chaos said, “This is my lab. Temporary one, at least.” He then pointed to the kidnapped duo and told them, “And you guys are my new test subjects. I just told my friends there to grab some random people, so it’s nothing personal.”

  “Test subjects!?” The girl screeched. “Ya think we’re some fuckin’ rats or some shit!?”

  Amazing Chaos, the old bum raised his fists and stated, “The Hell we are, sweetheart. I don’t really follow what’s going on, but I ain’t gonna let this rat bastard touch you.”

  As he shifted his jaw in intrigue, Chaos approached the man.

  In turn, the elder defiantly swung at him and yelled, “Back off!”

  Although a normal person’s punch was a snail’s pace to Chaos, he decided to take the hit and horrify his victim. He also needed something to help him get over his memories of breaking his fists against the Shining Darkness.

  Once the sensation of broken bone and spilt blood knocked against Chaos’ cheek, a bit of sadistic glee indeed filled the young maniac. However, a bit of that satisfaction was replaced with shocked awe when that old man, undeterred by his busted hand, went for a headbutt.

  Impressed, Chaos stopped the old man by resting his hand over the guy’s mouth and told him, “Wow. You’re a real badass, huh? Well, sorry, but I need you conscious for my test.”

  Locking his grip, Chaos lifted the man by his face as the girl screamed, “Hey! The fuck’re you doing ta him?!”

  As the man struggled in Chaos’ grip, Chaos squinted at him and told the girl, “Quiet. I need to focus.”

  “Don’t tell me t-!”

  “Hey!” Anarchy viscerally snapped at the girl. “He said shut up or get fucked up!”

  At once, the girl fearfully recoiled and huddled against the wall, while Chaos silently focused on the man’s face.

  After five minutes of being suspended, the old man lost the strength to struggle. After ten minutes, he started groaning in discomfort. Finally, after a half hour, Chaos’ eyes lit up as the man started twitching. The twitches quickly escalated to violent convulsions, until foam went through Chaos’ fingers. Finally, the old man stopped moving as he suffered brain death.

  “Shit. That took way longer than I’d hoped,” Chaos complained before dropping the corpse and zapping his hand dry.

  I was able to manipulate his body’s electrons, but it took way too long. Chaos thought with analytic frustration. He then looked at the terrified girl, smiled a saint’s smile, and went on. Well, that’s why I asked for two dummies. Practice makes perfect.

  “Jaws, Patch, hold that kid still,” Chaos instructed cordially as the girl winced and stepped away.

  She would’ve tried to run if she’d had the time, but was grabbed by her arms by the King’s minions in a blur.

  Like wet origami, the girl wept and was folded to her knees as Chaos walked toward her. However, he stopped partway as his face turned mildly contemplative.

  “Maybe… Let’s try it at a distance,” Chaos muttered as he pointed his palm at the girl. As Chaos’ palm sparked, the girl yelled desperate profanities mixed with pleas for mercy. All of her yelling visibly irked and unfocused the King as his eyes twitched.

  Anarchy, who’d still been working on his suit, noticed his brother struggling, set down his cinching bar, and suggested, “Hey, Chaos… Why don’t you try singin’ somethin’ to shut her out?”

  Immediately, Chaos was grateful Issac wasn’t awake as he quickly excused himself, “That’s… gonna take too much focus. I’ll just try humming.” With his best effort, Chaos tried to hum Comfortably Numb. However, even if he hadn’t been working, he knew he could’ve hardly kept the tune.

  Both Anarchy and the girl looked at Chaos in confusion until he shook his head, shunted his hand forward, and stated, “Damn it! I think my powers screwed something up. We need to get something to play tunes on… Sorry, just let me focus on this, Anarchy.”

  With a child’s obedience, Doug turned back to his work while Chaos glared at the girl, his amusement in the test ruined.

  After another half hour, despite her more verbose protests, the girl suffered the same fate as the old man. Although the process was no faster, Chaos was still pleased to know he could manipulate a person’s bio electricity with either touch or focus.

  Without any other use for them, Chaos was displeased with the bodies on his floor. “Mega-Jaw, eat them. Dissolve, clean up whatever he leaves on the floor.”

  While Chaos’ monsters did their disposal work, he went back to Anarchy, grabbed some parts, and said cheerfully, “Well, that went worse than I’d hoped.” Smiling half-heartedly at Anarchy, Chaos lit his finger torch and suggested, “Let’s say we finish this up tonight and start hunting tomorrow?”

  “Why so fast?” Doug asked as he sealed the armor for his suit’s left arm. “Can’t we rest a bit more?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Chaos stated bluntly as he got to work welding the left leg. “Ben’s associates will figure out what’s going on sooner than later. Tomorrow’s the last safe day we’ll have here. No reason to stick around for that. Better to stay down low as best we can until we find the Big Bads Shine talked about on that talk show. Don’t want to let them crawl deeper into their holes.”

  While Doug nodded along to Chaos’ reasoning, the King twitched when Issac’s voice came back to his head. Du-Don’t forget. You’re scared of making a scene. If the Darkness finds you again, he’ll tear you all apart again.

  King Chaos made sure to keep his composure and mentally replied while Doug praised his forethought. When’d you wake up, Partner?

  About a minute ago. I’m still kinda groggy. Issac answered, his voice trudging. I got hit with the flood of memories of everything you did while I was out, you sick freak.

  More intrigued than insulted, Chaos got up, handed Doug a tool he needed, and thought. Really?! Is that how that works for us…? Fascinating.

  Only surface-level stuff of what you were looking at. Issac responded, equally interested before his tone changed to mocking bemusement. Can’t believe you can’t even hum. How’s that even work?

  As Chaos finger-welded some more plating, he answered with shameless bluntness. Cuz I can’t carry a tune. Simple as. I'll figure it out.

  Issac went quiet for a moment, evidently annoyed by how well Chaos took his taunt.

  His next words then came out measured and cold. You know… You should also try fixing your hair if you’re pretending to be me.

  Glancing at his reflection in the plating, Chaos was hit with sudden realization. While Issac had always worn his hair combed back and smooth, Chaos’, for some reason, naturally fell in a wild and messy style. He made a quick attempt at fixing it with his fingers, only for it all to revert to the unkempt look.

  I’ll get a comb. It’s fine! Chaos yelled, irritated for the first time in this argument.

  Chaos and Issac went on like this for effectively the rest of the day, with Chaos getting plenty of practice multitasking.

  Finally, near Anarchy’s bedtime, the brain formula for Dissolve had finished, with the auto mixer’s finished chime exciting the whole gang, sans Dissolve.

  While Chaos grabbed the formula and called Dissolve over, Anarchy asked excitedly, “So, if Shane turned inta a dog, and Felicia’s like a little kid, what’ll you make Lee into?”

  Once Dissolve plopped in front of Chaos like a jello puppet, the King answered, “Well, ideally, he’ll still follow orders but regain his critical thinking skills.”

  And you think he’ll still be loyal? With his powers, he’s the most dangerous one, after you.

  Hey, it worked out with the other two. Luck’s on my side for this, obviously. Chaos then poured the formula into Dissolve’s head and finished his thought. Pretty soon, Anarchy and I’ll have a proper team of pals to work with.

  Don’t get Doug killed. Issac warned firmly. At that warning, Chaos stood back from Dissolve and couldn’t tell if it was his own will or Issac’s that turned on his electric aura.

  For a second, Dissolve burbled and undulated, his liquid face contorting in all sorts of inhumanly exaggerated ways. Then, after melting into himself before reforming, Dissolve turned to look at the Council of Chaos, Chaos in particular, before his previously expressionless face smiled widely.