I stepped onto the balcony while gently rubbing off feathers from my coat. This was due to my running into a flock of birds. Thankfully, I hadn't killed any on my flight over here. The last thing that I wanted was to have dead birds randomly knock people out.
The place had been cleaned up very fast, something that Stark's wealth plus a bit of help from Thor and I guaranteed. Most of the damage had been to this building, which combined with Brainiac's interest in taking the city intact kept the casualties and clean-up small overall. Though there was some clean-up on the streets, wrecked cars, and shattered glass, nothing that some small businesses with a city contract couldn't handle themselves.
Though, government agents went and gathered the Brainiac tech from the broken drones and robots the mad man had sent. I melted them down personally, and what I didn't Thor smashed even further. Together we'd made the case for as little Brainiac technology outside of the half of the ship we had as possible.
"Lugh," I was greeted by the Gamma Mutate as I entered the building proper. Banner was the first person to greet me, he and Betty Ross had taken up brief residence in the Tower. So this didn't surprise me at all. He was wearing a light blue shirt with a pair of jeans, and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, and his hair seemed to gain light grey streaks visible only to someone with my level of vision.
Made him seem more like Mr.Fantastic than Bruce Banner, but still.
"Banner," I returned, before noticing something unusual given the last visits the two were attached to the hip. "Where's the second half?" I asked, looking around for the man's girlfriend. Using my powers I couldn't find the woman anywhere in the building. Bruce grimaced at the question.
"She's out having lunch with her father."
"What? Really?"
That was a weird thing to think about. The last time I checked up on the General he was discharged and facing potential trials for crimes by the civilian courts. The Military side of things just shoved him out for misconduct but some of the soldiers' families that died under his rogue command were suing him. Not sure that's how the law worked, to be honest, but apparently it's a free country to be sued but there's a chance the case will be thrown out.
Going to be interesting to follow if nothing else.
"Yeah, well he is still her father," Banner shrugged. "She's not too scared of him trying anything right now given how Stark and all of New York is backing us. Have you heard about the statue they want to be made of us? We're the biggest heroes since Cap now."
"Yeah, the Bulletin's done a piece on the rumors of us getting a statue, but the talks about that haven't gone beyond rumors right now. No one in Office is giving in to that public demand yet. Probably wondering if we will screw up in the future and then it'd be a waste of money."
Banner took a sip from his glass of water before frowning.
"Back on 'General' Ross though," Banner said, refocusing on the original topic with some measure of annoyance. "Apparently, him and Elison are old friends. He's told Betty that he's being considered for bringing on as a consultant. Or even giving him a proper position come next election."
I raised a finger, the information going through my mind, but no thought of mine could make any sense of that statement.
"Ross… illegal arrests, illegal human experimentation, and uncovered black ops more solid death guy… is being considered to be brought onto the President of the United States of America's staff?"
"I know, some guys just get all the luck. I think Ross would get off if we saw him torturing Puppies on film."
"Yeah, well, I know who I won't be voting for come next election."
"... Pat, even discounting that you're an Alien. You've got Irish Citizenship, not American."
"Oh, that's not too hard to fix," Stark stated, walking into the room with the same cocky stride I'd come to expect from the man. Behind him was his friend, Colonel Rhodes. This would be our first meeting and the man had this expression on his face that screamed annoyance. Common when dealing with Tony Stark for longer than a few seconds. "I'm sure just due to popularity you could open that door for you. If Arnie could become Governor of California, then you can vote before three years are up."
"Sure, when you've got the money and connections, citizenship is easy," Colonel Rhodes interceded with some measure of annoyance. "For the typical Illegal Alien getting citizenship is a bit harder."
Banner had decided to open the fridge on the left side of the room, the smell of freshly cut cheddar wafting into my nostrils. So I quickly reached past Banner, grabbed the square of cheddar then consumed it all in a single go. Sadly, it was only mild cheddar and not the fully mature kind that I preferred.
Also… god, this was a weird-tasting cheese. I think there's something off about American Cheddar in general, at least to my palette. Perhaps this was a Kryptonian thing?
The doctor blinked as he glanced at the fridge, noticing that the cheese had disappeared before his eyes. I couldn't help but chuckle lightly, something that Stark noticed. He stepped towards Banner and patted him on the shoulder.
"What's bugging you, Bruce?"
"I swear there was a block of cheese sitting right there."
"Nonsense," I say, sitting down on a long couch nearest to the balcony. "Cheese can't exist within a mile's radius of me."
I resisted the urge to grin, holding a perfectly neutral face as the three men stared at me.
"I'm sorry… what?" Rhoades couldn't help but gape. "Cheese can't exist around you?"
"It's a curse."
There was always something amusing about messing with someone over such a mundane thing like this. It was at that moment the speakers set around the room decided to intercede before I could make this situation fun. That or I had gone insane at some point.
"You know, I was wondering with you being an alien and all," Banner said, opening the alien origin branch of his conversation wheel. "Patrick Doyle isn't your real name, right?"
"Of course, it is," I chuckled easily. "It's on my birth cert."
"You mean the totally faked Birthcert?" Stark interjected with a smile.
"Some of the information on it sure," I shrugged. "But the actual cert is official. You can just walk into an office and have one done for you. You don't actually need to prove you were born in Ireland just that you live in Ireland. The people genuinely just trust you on the details."
"That… sounds like a security hole," Rhodes chimed in. "But it really doesn't answer the question of what your real name is?"
"That's because you don't want my real name," I replied, finally a little chidingly. With some amount of heat that I hadn't realized I'd felt. There was something strange about the question, like… I'd forgotten something. "You want my birth name. I've gone by Pat for longer than I've gone by any other name."
"Okay, but what is it?" Stark asked, not caring about whatever misplaced anger I had at the moment, more curious about the answer than ever before. Banner appeared to have backed off, but Stark knew no fear apparently.
So I decided to answer him.
"I… " Well, I tried to answer. What I got next was a rather stark realization that I didn't remember my real name. "... I just can't remember it. I remember my father's face, I remember he had this scar on his left chin, he never told me how he got," I chortled this time, amused by a memory of a long dead man. "But he had six or seven stories about it. One of them was getting cut in a bar fight. There was one about saving a man's life on a factory floor. Really that's the most I can remember."
…
There was this beat of silence in the room, not something the rest of the city shared I could assure you. But for this one moment, there was nothing, not even the sound of a clock. Though that was more down to Stark not having anything but digital devices in his building.
"Did you ever learn how he got that scar?" Banner asked me in a soft tone of voice. It was something I was used to hearing from him. But not something I'd ever heard addressed to me from the man. I was taken in by it for a moment.
"Yeah, it turns out that father just tripped. Broke the glass he had on his chin, the scarring was just from cheap stitching. Always about works, not just what looks good."
I felt like… I felt my head churning around ideas, stories, people together into a melt. Like my hold on the room was slipping, was shifting. Like I was being chipped away by something… or was Patrick Doyle consum-
Before the thought could form into a solid state, before I could make sense of that sense. Two noises broke out.
The first was Tony Stark trying to break the tension in the room.
"Anyway-"
But I ignored Stark as I overheard the sirens nearby. They were ambulance ones, mixed police ones. I didn't even wait for a moment, instead, I exploded out of the room, through the open door, and quickly disrobed into my super suit. Given the difference in material, I'd gotten rid of my cape.
It just didn't suit the rest of the outfit.
So I was stuck with the suit Stark had outfitted with me. It was fine, just made me feel like Smallville Clark from Season 9 or ten. Whenever he got that red jacket with the House of El emblem.
So I zoomed across New York till I came upon the sight of trouble. It was a straight and-out bank robbery going on. They had the proper masks, they were fully kitted out with body armor and assault rifles. It was the perfect distraction.
I arrived without making a sonic boom, it was all about slipping through the air. I couldn't explain the science properly, humans didn't have terms for the kind of physical reaction needed for that kind of movement. Which probably proved just how comic book-y the underlying science was.
Everyone was surprised at my arrival. I'd made plenty of appearances to stop car attacks and small robberies to stores but never have I arrived for something this… small yet impactful? Like I said, I'd shown up for small stuff and I'd shown up for alien invasions and portals ripping the fabric of reality apart. This was a bank robbery.
The insurance alone would cover the damages, it would recover the money. As long as the robbers didn't get scared and kill folks things would be fine.
"What's the situation?" I asked the closest man to me. He was a police captain, Donald Pleasant. I knew this because it said so on his badge and ID in his pocket. "Captain?"
Pleasant blinked, before huffing up.
"Well, we're not sure how many of them are inside, but their demands are for a bus and a jet ready at the airport for them."
I glanced in the building.
"There are twelve guys," I started to inform the Captain in charge, looking inside as if there weren't concrete and steel barring my vision. I notified the man about the state of their arms, I told him the locations in the building. I even told him that they had left the underground parking unguarded but they did have a man in the security room to watch on cameras. It was then I noticed the final oddity as I shifted through spectrums.
Their bodies were hotter than usual. Hotter than I'd expect from living people. It was like they were living bonfires. This was especially obvious when their final member was in front of the vault, sticking their hand through the metal like it was a lightsaber.
Besides them, there were over fifty people trapped inside with them. All and all, not a good situation here.
"Ok, seems that those are not normal men," I told the Captain, who was simply baffled by all of this. "Call some more firetrucks down here. They've got fire powers, so expect that to spread if we're not careful about this. Enhanced durability as well, so I hope your snipers are equipped with the heavy ammunition."
"Wha- what, this is insane. You're saying that they're some sort of Super Bank Robbers? We're not the military," He harumphed. "We don't carry that sort-" The man's radio then called, saying that they were in position and… were in fact, carrying that sort of amno. "Fine, I didn't even know we carried that sort of shit. It's heavy warzone anti-material grade shit."
That… was a bit more than I expected. Something that I recall would not be safe in a city. It would go right through not just the human targets, but the walls behind them. It could kill dozens of people if the worse comes to worst.
I wasn't sure what to do in this situation? Maybe I should've snuck in here, offered to follow the Robbers when they got what they wanted then capture them once they've let the hostages go. That might have been the smarter move. This current setup was rather problematic.
It was then Captain Pleasant's phone rang. It wasn't his standard phone, it was instead the ones that Bank Robbers were using to contact him. I knew it was them before the phone even rang. I could see them use their own phones.
"We will release some hostages… if you send in Lugh."
The Captain turned to me, his eyes tightening.
"We're not in the business of exchanging hostages," The Captain responded in a light tone, but it still carried a strength the man hadn't prior to the phone call. This was probably a result of having some training, in knowing the rulebook he was dealing with. Gods, Superhumans, aliens, those sort of things were still new to this world. It would be a while before this man takes them in his stride. "But if you're willing to release at least one of them, we could put the man on the phone."
"... If he promises to come we will release twenty hostages."
The line went dead, I could see the man on the inside hand off to someone. I could feel the Captain's eyes turn to me, so I turned around back to look him straight in the eye.
"What do you think?" I asked him. Trusting this stranger for the moment. Since this was his job. "It's not like they could hurt me."
"That's something you're willing to risk?" He countered smoothly. "Especially with innocent lives on the line?"
It was a good point to hear, something that would've concerned someone weaker than me. But even if they did let off bullets. I could simply catch them all, no problem. Sure, they have fire powers, but Ice Breath countered that easily.
"Nah, I think I've got this. I won't make any moves. Let them leave, let them focus all their terror on me. You can deal with the situation as you usually would, just knowing that they've got an invincible hostage."
Captain Pleasant stared at me, before simply nodding. As I approached the building slowly, I could see that on the inside they were doing as they promised. They were freeing twenty hostages. So I walked into the main hall with the sort of confident strut anyone would have when all their enemy had were super soakers while you were in a tank.
"Stand in the center, eyes down, hands where we can see them!" The leader, his voice I recognized from the phone. Even if I hadn't tracked him through the walls easily, his voice was distinctive enough alone.
But I did what he said, looking at all the remaining hostages with my enhanced visions, through all the spectrums to ensure they were ok. When the man came up to me and struck out against me with the strongest blow he could. It didn't hurt me, but I let him think it had and fell to the ground.
It was then… only then that suddenly every single person in this room heated up like they were fires.
"The Mandarin sends his regards, Lugh," The lead Bank Robber gloated, throwing his weapon to the ground with a clatter. His arms lit up in flames, their sheer heat catching his clothing on fire. The entire room roared as their bodies reached high enough temperatures to melt through steel. They were melting the very floor as a few dozen of them charged me. "Now burn!"
I'd taken a deep breath as the groups neared me so letting that out was an easy decision. The entire crowd of Superhumans on my left were caught up by my powerful, cooling breath. None of them froze solid, but they all stopped moving. So that was good enough for me.
A capsule broke against my back, and a large volume of foam engulfed me before hardening into a very thick mixture. I could feel the weight of it, could feel how thick it was. I could hear them explode more capsules of the stuff on the outside, making it larger and thicker. It wasn't nearly enough to hold me.
I shook… or rather I vibrated in place till I was like a chisel. I scraped against the hardened foam, I chipped against it. It didn't take me ten seconds to break out of the foam like this, much to the shock of my enemies.
I took a glance at them, once more they were charging against me. I'd need to keep them alive in this fight, not just for any moral reasons but we needed to learn everything we could about them. Especially their organization, the Ten Rings, their goals, their methods, everything we could. Couldn't do that if I put my fist through their hearts.
I moved around the punch of their leader, smacking him in the elbow with my pinky finger as another member screamed and breathed out fire towards me. I didn't need Freeze Breath to deal with that level of heat, so I merely waved my hand fast and the force pushed the fire away from me.
One of the men had a grenade launcher, so they fired at me with it. This I caught and allowed to explode in my hands, it had been harmless to me, though the resulting explosion had thrown my attackers off me. From there I entered a rhythm, disable an enemy, counterattack, disarm, counter their wide-area attacks before I repeated the thing over and over again.
The problem was no matter how many times I put down these guys they were getting right back up. It was probably to do with me not wanting to kill any of them, if they were this durable that my love taps didn't leave any of them winded for more than a few seconds, I needed to pursue other methods.
It was then that I noticed the folk I had cooled down earlier hadn't gotten back on their feet. They were still, just laying there. Their bodies were still cool. It was my wondering on if they were dead that allowed the Ten Rings members to catch me off guard.
Mostly because they exploded. You just don't expect people to randomly explode while they were attempting to punch your face in.
And it wasn't just one or two people that were blown up, it was all of them. They were such large explosions that the place shuttered, the building walls crumbled from the pressure, the support beams melted from the heat. Finally, the roof caved in on me.
Well, I say the roof. It was more accurate to say that with many explosions happening the entire building just collapsed into chunks. Chunks that I happened to be under at the time. This was something I felt, it was heavy, it was like being punched in the ear. I imagine most of my disorientation actually came from hearing the explosions rather than the explosion's pressure or heat. It certainly didn't come from the weight of the building.
I carried a helicarrier, those are heavier than just a few sections of a small bank.
So as to not hurt anyone nearby, I slowly maneuvered myself to a standing position, careful to drill holes through chunks, rather than trying to lift said chunks off me. I felt somewhat lucky that the heat of the explosions vaporized any blood splatter the people would've normally erupted in. It meant that I didn't come out of the rubble looking like I just mass murdered a bunch of folks, instead I just looked like I'd come out of an explosion.
There were black marks along my suit, there were some minor cuts on my sleeves, and my face was covered in grime. Either Stark had designed a suit so tough it rivaled me or my powers were growing to actually protect parts of my clothes closer to me. Either way, I was glad. It would've been a pain to replace suits so often.
Just before I was about to free myself, I heard the laugh of my latest foe blast out with the frequency only I… or a computer designed to pick up sounds… could hear.
"Lugh, your might does nothing for you. It does nothing for the country that you find yourself in. I have just proved that I can take any building, I can destroy any location. And even your direct involvement can't save lives. All those hostages, they're dead. Oh, I know you thought the attacked, thought that there were no more hostages and the rest were my men. That was an illusion I allowed you. I'd recommend… retirement, Lugh."
His gloating annoyed me, but there was something odd, something different about his syntax compared to when he spoke earlier. There was no time to consider this fully as the man continued to talk, revealing something that sent a ripple down my spine.
"Consider this… false god. I now hold in my hand the remainder of your kind. The City of Kandor, small like insects ready to be crushed under my heel. So-"
Whatever he was about to say was ignored as I went against my earlier instincts to not just rush out of the building and exploded into a burst of speed so fast that I was nothing but a blue blur flying out of the rubble.
When I arrived at the Avenger's Compound, there was a massive smoking hole right in Brainiac's ship. Right where the Bottled Cities had been kept. Along with the scientists, along with the security guards.
Along with Louise.
Author's Note: An entire chapter of just Pat's pov. That is what I've brought you this fine day. That is what I'm going to continue to bring you for a bit. Sorry for the long wait for this chapter, I was busy with a personal project that is still not off the ground. But I've done all I can do now.
So I will be able to focus on this from now on. At least till the arc or two is over