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03

By Ed Ainsworth

 

Buddy rolls over onto his side and looks at his wife. Her beauty was one of the many, many things that had attracted him all those years ago.

He kissed her forehead gently and moved out of bed, moving over to the windowsill and looking out onto the dark outside world.

It was a quarter past 2 in the morning. He could see everything outside. Didn't matter that it was dark, there were still connections. Illuminations of everything from birds to insects to grass to soil; Buddy had seen the potential and need for everything. He'd also spent a great deal of time trying to train his eyes. If he concentrated hard enough he could move down the scales of organic life. He suspected this had something to do with Metamorpho.

The current theory he was working with is that he was drawing visual characteristics of other people's powers. He could see the connections between things because of Lady Quark's unique wavelength powers, and now he could visualize and see the connections and potential for the organic components of the world. He couldn't see the tree outside in the yard, but he could see the Carbon molecules and the Oxygen and Hydrogen molecules moving within its form.

He left his bedroom and walked down the hall, pushing his Son's door open gently. He looked inside at the heavy metal posters and pictures of semi-naked women hanging from his walls. He also noticed something that he'd obviously missed during his time away. African masks.

Buddy paused for a moment; they were just loose on his desk, a number of them, spread out as if he was looking at them before he went to bed. There was something strange about them, the way he could focus on them as though he could see their entirety rather than the loose outline he normally saw. He paused with a sigh and closed the door, moving across the hall to his Daughter Maxine.

"Little Wing." He whispered gently, leaning in the doorway of his daughter's room. He remembers that she found him when he was trapped as a butterfly. She trusted and looked after him, she made sure he came back, even if it was in a Chimera form, part bird, part Mammal part everything. She headed up a religion formed on the belief, trust and respect of nature. She was an exceptional girl, and so young as well. She'd always be his little angel. Oddly, the one thing that terrifies him most is the fact that one day she'll be someone else's little angel. Someone else will hold her and look after her, someone she loves and wants to spend her life with.

It strikes Buddy as almost perverse in a way. He walked back down the landing towards his bedroom; Ellen was sat up in bed waiting for him.

"Doing the Rounds, Warden?" she asked quietly as he closed the door.

"All's safe in the Baker residence, Boss." He climbs into bed and smiles, stroking her hand gently.

"Come here, my super hero." She places a hand on his cheek and kisses him gently.

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James McMillan rolled over in bed. He touched his fingertips to his mouth and smiled at the long locks of blonde hair touching his pillow. Last night he'd met a woman, a beautiful woman. He'd got drunk and confident enough to invite her back to his house. They'd shared a night of passion, and he got up, running over the events of the night again as he walked around to look at her face.

He noticed on the sheets, makeup. Nothing out of the ordinary, but what appeared to be more than the usual amount of blusher. MUCH more than the usual amount.

He narrowed his eyes as he slide around to her side of the bed, something was weird about this. She had been cold all night.

"James."

"Uhh...Yeah?"

"What's the matter?" She asked, with hushed tones.

"Nothing, just wanted to see your face."

"I could have rolled over, James. I am awake."

"I know, but I didn't want to disturb you and all that."

"Looks like your makeup came off during the night."

The Blonde haired woman sits up, and looks directly into his eyes.

"So it did. James, do you remember what you told me last night?"

"That you had a beautiful behind?"

"No, about your special skills."

"You mean that I can turn into a giant bacterium?"

"Yes. Well, I just interfaced with the biggest biological database on the planet, James. I know everything there is to know about Bacteria now, including Slime Molds."

"You did.What.are you still drunk?"

A silver fist collided with James's face, dropping him on to his bedroom floor like a sack of potatoes.

"I am not drunk, James. Nor have I been for the entire time we've spent together. Incidentally, your flagellum is insufficient."

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"Rita?"

Rita Farr was currently the head to toe in protective gear, swimming through Cytoplasm. Her Elasti-girl persona had gone through a number of changes the last year, with the problems of the world and her husband finally taking a toll on her. Her elastic and malleable synapses suffered a number of personality cracks, and she was bed ridden for a month or two.

Now she moved through the realms of the un-explored, adopting to call herself Elasti-Woman, but wear the colours of the Atom. Strangely, she had never asked the atom for permission, but just assumed it would be fine. She slowly grew to normal size, leaping from the operating table and onto the floor below.

"It looks like the Tumor is all cleared up, having investigated a number of cells near and around the previous location of the growth; I can say there appears to be no abnormalities in the cells."

"That's good, but Rita, there's someone who wants to talk to you."

"It's not the Chief again is it? I don't want to be part of Doom Patrol anymore."

"No, it's someone else. Have you heard of Animal Man?"

"Really?"

Rita Farr moved swiftly through the operating theatre and out into the hallway, where Buddy was leaned against a wall, looking around, and fiddling with his goggles, which were in his hands.

"Rita. Hi. Long time and no speak." He said, smiling.

"Yeah, what's wrong?"

"I need your help."

"I don't do super heroics anymore."

"Costume says otherwise, Rita. Nobody dresses in Spandex, especially not Red and Blue unless they want to be noticed."

"I shrink down very small. Maybe I want to be noticed."

"I know you do, Rita. I know you do. That's why I need you."

"Buddy Please."

"Just hear me out here, Rita. It all started after the big crisis that just occurred."

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"Will you at LEAST TRY and hold it steady?" Buddy yelled at Elasti-Woman, whose gigantic arms were wrapped around a molding tear in the morphogenetic field.

Nature was going ballistic. The grass underneath the tear had turned to blood, which had rapidly grown into giant Worms , spewing pus from their mouths, currently trying to eat and mate with each other. The Birds had fallen from the sky, and were currently writhing about, shooting up and down the evolutionary chain, each part following a different evolutionary part. A beak turned into a fish head, legs transforming into insectoid wings, feathers melting and being replaced with fur, then again with scales.

The twittering of insects had ceased since they made their own super society in the blink of an eye. Ant-hills became folic acid metropoli, with their own super-heroes. Though it quickly came to ruin when they learned how to cultivate insecticide weaponry.

"It's a lot more difficult to hold something with no substance, than it is to try and hit it!" Rita yelled, Whilst Buddy, Quark and Metamorpho converged on the tear.

"What IS that thing?" Rex Mason yelled over the awful din. His body was still rippling from the effects of the tear; it appeared that the Morphogenetic field was beginning to come apart.

"The Morphogenetic field is tearing. After a year without maintenance and it being completely empty, it's just dying off and peeling away. Think of it as the Ozone layer having a Menstrual Cycle."

Lady Quark looked at Buddy for a moment and then to Rex.

"He is a disturbed individual."

"Yeah, He really is. How the hell do we stop this?"

"With my theory." Buddy stepped forwards, reaching out with the Red, and taking a meta-human template of Elasti-Woman. The only problem with these templates is the simple fact that they had no room for improvement, or imagination. They were just templates, and they faded very quickly.

"I can use the Red and Elasti-Woman's powers to change the tear. I can't cure the red completely, and I don't know how often we're going to get tears like this. I think." Buddy pauses for a moment. The Red was speaking to him again.

"I think the Morphogenetic field has become brittle. This.This is why we need Elasti-Woman. Rita, this is why I need you and your powers. The M-Field, the Red. It needs your malleability, it needs to bend and change its shape and size at will, just like you do. It needs to be flexible, not stuck in place. Rita, you're a living breathing example of evolutionary theory. You change your size and to a limited amount your shape to fit into your environments."

As Buddy spoke, the hole Rita was holding slowly sealed itself up, shrinking gradually getting smaller and smaller. The evolutionary disturbances still existed, but only for a few moments as Metamorpho and Lady Quark blasted them from existence, aberrations of nature and the Red.

Buddy moved over to Rita, who had shrunk down to her normal size now.

"Reconsidered my Offer, Rita?"

"You know, Buddy, I think I did Miss Super heroics."

"It's not something you can just give up, Rita. It's something that normally comes from within you. You just weren't doing it with the right people, at the end of the day."

"So that makes you the right people?"

"I guess it does, Rita. Is that a problem?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two Days from Now:

"James." Buddy embraced his friend, the man who had let him know the potential for his powers.

"Buddy! It's been a while." The Doctor sat down at his desk, and looked across at him with Dark eyes.

"I have something to ask of you, James. Since you first told me about the Morphogenetic field, I've been moving through it, investigating it. I need your help here, but you're going to have to trust me."

"Okay.Buddy, you've known me for a long while, but you know you can trust me." James narrowed his eyes a little.

"What's bothering you, Buddy?" James asked getting to his feet.

"The Red died recently, and we're working to recreate it, but there are.I have Metamorpho compiling the Elemental aspects of it. The building blocks of life, and we've got the ozone and me as a connection to the Red. I have all of Platinum's complete data-bases and I've even recruited Elasti-girl. There's a few more that I need to find, James, but I need your biology skills."

"They're yours obviously, but why if you have a machine on your side?"

"Because there are things Platinum cannot download. Such as Surgical skills. James, I need you to make investigations into things, biologically speaking."

"I'm not sure what you're asking of me here, Buddy."

Buddy laid out a thick brown folder on his desk, and smiled at him.

"This is all the information that you need, James. Everything. I've typed it out, directions, structure, even photos and a "to-do" list. James, I need you on board on this. The WORLD needs you onboard for this. Please, just look and agree to it."

"For you Buddy, I don't even need to look."

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Next Issue: What's Platinum Up to? Heck, What's Buddy and his Scientist Friend up to? Also - Rip Hunter! And the New Firestorm!