The whole room shook and when it finally stopped, Larry Trainor found himself on the floor.
“What the hell…?” He muttered, sitting up. He peered down at the floor then up at his bed. “Can’t I just get an alarm clock like everyone else…?”
He stood and shivered. Going to the window of his apartment he watched the snow falling on Danny the street.
“Snow…?” He muttered, closing the window and slipping into his red and white uniform “Where are we…?”
Down on the street, Larry, his breath coming out in wisps of vapor, rubbed his hands and noticed that the other assorted inhabitants of the sentient, wayward street were as ill prepared for winter as he was. He noticed the clothing store across the street (Had that been there yesterday?) was sporting a sign in the window that read ‘Winter Wear special!”
He shrugged and jogged over to check it out. Minutes later, wearing a heavy blue parka he made his way down the street towards the coffee shop.
Kate, the streets’ transgender, super powered barista generally knew what was going on and the coffee was really good.
Along the way Larry directed other residents towards the clothing store or advised them to get indoors.
The crowd was bigger than usual at ‘Caffeine Deim’.
Larry pushed back the hood of the coat and looked around for Kate, or any members of the street’s resident super team, the Doom Patrol.
He spotted Kate, surrounded by the crowd and struggling to get everyone coffee. He then caught a glimpse of Papercut.
The ex-super-villain wasn’t really a member of the Patrol, more like someone’s annoying kid brother that followed them around.
The crowd closest to the door noticed Larry’s arrival and he was soon swarmed by anxious street dwellers.
“Look, I don’t…we’ll do what we can…I’m trying to…!” Larry stammered, feeling himself being pushed back against the door, as he tried to answer a dozen questions at once.
Anxious and frustrated, Larry released the Negative Man. The ebony form flew around the room, zooming through the crowd at nearly the speed of light before returning to its’ host.
“Okay!” Larry shouted. “Now that I’ve got your attention: I don’t know where we are or why we’re here! I do know it’s really damn cold and we need to make sure everyone is off the street and warm. Can I get some volunteers to help with that while I get the Patrol together, so we investigate what’s happening? Papercut, you wanna give me a hand?”
The skinny villain with the all white costume and spiky hair looked around nervously, then shrugged and pushed his way through the crowd, he was closely followed by Kate.
“So, what now?” she asked, handing Larry a cup of coffee.
“Papercut uses his little birds to search Danny, make sure we’ve got everyone out of the cold,” Larry explained, between sips. “I’ll get Rita…and probably Mallah and we’ll try and figure out why Danny brought us here…”
“He wasn’t supposed to,” Kate said frowning. “We were headed for a musical festival in Montreal.”
“How do you know that?” Larry asked, confused.
“I checked the community bulletin board,” Kate frowned, gesturing towards the far wall. “You’ve been here over two weeks! How is it you don’t know how anything works besides where to get your coffee?”
“Okay, I…uh… can see you’re busy with this crowd,” Larry said, reaching behind him for the door. “I’ll go ‘on patrol’ and see what I can do.”
He hurried away from the angry barista and trudged through the ankle deep snow towards the end of the street.
“Trainor!” A voice growled and a gorilla wearing a bandolier leapt from the rooftop of a record store, landing by Negative Man.
“Morning, Mallah,” Larry muttered, trudging along. “And before you ask; no, I don’t know where we are or why we’re…here. Apparently, Danny was heading for Canada.”
“It would seem we over shot,” The gorilla said, looking about at the blizzard.
“You think we’re in the Arctic?” Larry asked.
“You don’t?” Mallah replied, scornfully, as he brushed snow from his fur.
“I don’t know what to think,” Larry replied.
“You boys arguing again?”
Rita Farr, Elastic Girl, stepped over the candy store and then shrunk down to six feet tall.
Larry and Mallah were both polite and didn’t mention that one of her arms was longer than the other.
Rita wore a red bodysuit that covered her from neck to feet, with white gloves, belt and boots. Larry smiled noticing that her hair was perfect and she was wearing a bit of lipstick.
“Aren’t you freezing?” He asked.
“No, the suit is insulated.” Rita smiled back, striking a pose with her hands on her hips. “Danny found boxes of uniforms in a storage space. I like your coat.”
“Can we discuss fashion later?” Mallah grumbled, before stalking off.
The trio reached the bench and street sign that marked the end of the sentient, other-dimensional street. The pavement ended at a plain of ice and snow that stretched out to mountains that squatted on the horizon.
“Yeah,” Larry muttered. “Not Canada.”
Rita shot up to twenty feet tall and scanned the snowscape.
“All I see is more snow,” She announced.
“We must be here for a reason…?” Negative Man said, scratching his linen wrapped chin in thought.
“Why?” Mallah asked, grumpily. “Was I not shown the rulebook? We are attributing human thinking to a collection of brick, glass and other dimensional energy. This belief so many of you have that this street has some ‘grand scheme’ for us is misleading, unproven and could be harmful.”
“I don’t think you understand…!” Rita protested.
“No, he may be right,” Larry interrupted, quietly.
“What?’ Rita asked, kneeling down to talk to her teammate. “How can you think that? Danny saved us all!”
“He did,” Larry nodded, thoughtfully. “But he’s been through as much as the rest of us, dealing with…whatever happened to reality and maybe, like the rest of us, Danny is trying to figure out what to do next. He’s barely talking to anyone and Mallah might have a point. I’m not saying Danny doesn’t care about us, but maybe, outside of giving us shelter, he doesn’t have a plan…and is just being drawn to…weird stuff, like Bast.”
“What do we do then?” Rita asked, confused. “We can’t…what… trust Danny?”
“No,” Mallah growled. “But, maybe we should stop treating him like more then shelter and transportation.”
“We need to be responsible for keeping everyone safe,” Larry added. “At least until we understand what’s going on.”
Rita frowned, but she nodded.
“Hey! What’s happening?” Kate asked, as she and Papercut joined them. “Anything?”
“Just…trying to figure things out,” Larry shrugged. “We’re going to go have a look around. Might be all we do is freeze our butts off and see some penguins, but…”
He then shrugged, not even trying to guess what could await them.
Kate nodded.
“We can’t stay here,” Mallah said, gruffly. “Danny seems to listen to you. Talk to him.”
“Papercut will help you while we’re gone,” Larry added.
“What? Oh, come on! I’m part of the team! I should…!” The skinny villain protested.
“Not this again!” Larry snapped. “We’ve known you for five minutes and you think you’re the Chief now? You’re barely Beast boy! Being a super hero means taking care of people! Try doing that instead of hoping if you run around enough you’ll get to meet Wonder Woman or fight Captain Cold, okay?”
“Yeah, fine, whatever,” Papercut muttered before walking off.
Larry exhaled loudly, pulled up his parka hood and stomped of into the snow.
“He just wants to help,” Rita said, catching up to him.
“He just wants to join the JLA without any clue what it means to live this life,” Larry muttered. “If he doesn’t wise up he’s going to get hurt or hurt somebody else.”
“Or,” Rita said. “You’ll end up pushing him back into being a super-villain…”
“Then he and Mallah can form the new Brotherhood of evil.”
“Charming,” Mallah grumbled, walking along behind them. “If you are done insulting your ‘teammates’, maybe we could concentrate on why we are out here. Once we are back and warm, Trainor can sulk to his heart’s content.”
“Fine,” Larry said. “Somebody catch me.”
His body sagged as Negative Man burst free and flew off. Rita grabbed Larry before he hit the snowy ground.
Negative Man was a flash of light, pin balling across the landscape.
“Incredible…!” Mallah breathed.
“Well, when he pushes it, Negative Man can pretty much hit the speed of light,” Rita said, matter of factly.
Within seconds, Negative Man came zooming back, returning to his host.
Larry gasped as he staggered to his feet.
“Gaahh!” He exclaimed, rubbing his chest. “Cut that a little close. There’s a building…bout a mile away…over the second ridge.”
“What kind of building?” Mallah asked.
“Prefab metal dome,” Larry muttered.
Rita placed her over-sized hand on his back to help steady him. She then reached down and scooped up both her teammates and started walking.
“Help direct me,” She said. “And first one that complains, I will drop.”
Fifteen minutes later, Mallah spotted the dome and pointed Rita in the right direction. Starting to feel the cold, she broke into a run. As she skidded to a halt at the bottom of an ice ridge, she shrank down to her normal size and lowered Larry and Mallah to the ground.
The metal dome was roughly the size of a ranch house. It was plain and functional. There was some kind of viechle parked next to it, covered by a heavy tarp.
“So, what should we do?” Larry asked as they approached.
“I’m freezing, so let’s not over think this,” Rita said, walking up and knocking on the door.
There was a muffled exclamation, followed by footsteps.
The door was eased open and a middle-aged man with a beard peered out at them.
“Who…?” He began tentatively and then his eyes went wide. “Rita Farr!”
He flung the door open, peered in puzzlement at her companions and then steered them inside. “Come on. What are you doing out there?”
“Cal…? Cal Carson?” Rita exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?”
“Waitaminute!” Larry interrupted. “You’re lost at the North Pole and bump into somebody you know? What is that: your super power?!”
“Cal was a consultant on one of my films,” Rita shrugged. “Slaves of the mole men’, I think…?”
“Professor Calvin Carson,” He said, offering a gloved hand.
Mechanically, Larry took it and shook.
“Wait…? Cave Carson…!” Larry exclaimed. “Something is going on here.”
“You show up at the north pole with a gorilla in a gun belt and my team being here is the weird part…?”
Cave wore a red jacket and boots with black insulated pants. Clustered around the interior of the dome were four other people in similar outfits. They seemed content to let the older man take the lead, though one of them, a younger blonde man always seemed to have his hand resting on or near his gun belt.
“Well, okay,” Rita said, feeling the need to play diplomat or hostess, but unsure how to proceed. “You know I quit being an acting to become a super hero…”
“And died, I thought” Cave said.
“Why does everyone focus on that part?” Larry muttered.
“Anyway,” Rita continued. “We are investigating…well, we aren’t sure what…?”
“Why is your team here?” Mallah asked.
“Holy crap!” The youngest of the team, a woman in her early twenties exclaimed. “The gorilla can talk!”
“You’ll have to excuse my daughter,” Cave said, after giving her a stern look. “Just recently started traveling with us…”
“We’re here because a recent ice density survey by S.T.A.R. Labs turned up some anomalies,” The older woman in the group explained.
“Weird stuff underground is our job,” The good-looking blonde man added.
“What’d you find?” Larry asked, worriedly.
“Nothing yet,” Cave explained. “This storm kicked in and we haven’t been able to do any drilling.”
“Can you show us the area?” Mallah asked, glancing over at Cave’s daughter in either amusement or annoyance at her constant surprise when he spoke.
“We might as well have a look,” Rita nodded.
“Sooner we figure this out, the sooner we can get out of here,” Larry said, crossing his arms and shivering.
“I’ll take you out there,” Cave said. “We’re due to see if conditions had gotten any more tolerable.”
He turned to his crew.
“Bull, you and Marlene check the probes. Johnny, prep the Mole, just in case. Chloe, grab your coat, you’re with me.”
“Um…yeah, okay,” His daughter frowned.
Soon, the five of them were trudging through knee-deep snow, heads down. The wind had died down to a frigid breeze.
After five minutes of walking, they reached a vague clearing, where the snow had been scraped off. It was a large circle of ice with a light dusting of snow on it. It was marked by a set of four metal, waist-high poles, each topped with a plastic sphere.
Cave gestured for his daughter to check out the markers.
Rita grew to ten feet tall and scuffed away some of the snow with her boot. She could make out a dark shape beneath the ice, a dark, indistinct mass.
“I’ve seen this movie,” Larry muttered. “whatever’s under there will try and kill us.”
Mallah shrugged, he appeared skeptical, but still drew one of his guns and made sure it was loaded.
“Any idea what it is, Cal?” Rita called across to the bearded geologist.
“Cal? How well did you two know each other?” Chloe muttered.
“Not really,” Cave replied, ignoring his daughter. “It registers as organic, but there are also huge amounts of trace chemicals, most of which don’t occur in nature.”
“So, what?” Larry asked. “Lexcorp dumping toxic waste here or should we be looking for the remains of a UFO?”
“I’m thinking there’s most likely an earthly explanation,” Cave replied. “But, we won’t know till we get a sample.”
“Couldn’t you just send Negative Man to have a look?” Rita suggested.
“Worth a try,” Larry shrugged.
Out of the snow-blown surroundings a figure suddenly appeared. He was thin and fairly elderly. His beard was white and chest length and he was dressed in a ragged brown robe. He staggered through the snow.
“Wait!” Mallah snapped. “Who’s that?”
The strange old man clutched some object to his thin chest, giving the impression of some bizarre quarterback passing through.
He stumbled past the heroes and skidded onto the ice.
“What the hell…?” Larry muttered.
“Stop him!” A new voice exclaimed, as a man in a white fur cloak and winged helmet came bounding out of the icy landscape.
Before anyone could shake off their surprise, the scrawny man slid and stumbled to the center of the ice circle, raised his burden, a cloudy pink hunk of crystal about the size of a football, over his head, shouted something in a grabbled, guttural accent and thrust it down. It cracked and the crystal was lodged several inches into the ice.
There was a flash of white light and the old man scrambled away from the crystal, cackling triumphantly. The man in the white cloak came up behind him and clubbed the old man on the back of the head with the hilt of a sword.
The ice cracked like a gunshot and a form began to haul itself out. It was massive and roughly man shaped, but its body was either coated with or made of a wet, pink substance that dripped and flowed like some enormous, grotesque melting candle.
It opened its’ toothless maw of a mouth and gave an incoherent bellow of rage.
“Every damn day…!” Larry muttered, shrugging out of his parka.
Elastic Girl shot up to thirty feet tall and raced towards the creature. She shoved at it, hoping to push it back into the frigid waters beneath the ice, but quickly pulled her hands back, gasping in pain and surprise.
“Rita…!” Larry shouted.
“Otto…?” Mallah breathed in surprise.
“Friend of yours?” The man with the sword asked, joining them.
He was dressed in white: boots fringed with fur, loincloth and gloves. His ornaments were all silver, wristbands, sword belt, winged helmet and a harness. He sported a dashing goatee and mustache. The skinny, ragged old man was slung over one broad shoulder.
“Who the…Morgan!” Larry suddenly exclaimed. “Travis Morgan! But, you’re…you’re…dead…? Goddamn, now I’m doing it!”
“That…stuff on his skin…or maybe it is his skin,” Rita said, also joining them. “It’s like…lava mixed with acid.”
She blew on her singed fingers, which now stuck out through the remains of her gloves.
“How do we stop it if we can’t touch it?” Cave Carson asked.
“Ask the monkey,” The bearded swordsman suggested. “He called it ‘Otto’.”
“What do you know!”? Larry snapped, grabbing hold of Mallah’s bandolier.
“Negative Man can contain him,” Mallah instructed, prying Larry’s bandaged fingers off him. “I will explain to the others while you deal with him.”
Larry frowned at the gorilla, then nodded. Mallah caught him when his body slumped and the Negative Man emerged. The crackling obsidian figure shot off and spun around the molten monster, forming a tornado of negative energy to keep it within the ice clearing.
“What’s going on?” Rita asked, shrinking down to normal. “Do you know what that is?”
“He is called Plasmus,” Mallah replied. “He was a German worker, doused by an experimental chemical and mutated. The Brain recruited him into the Brotherhood. I have no idea how he ended up at the North Pole. His mutated flesh is toxic and acidic”
“That make sense to you guys?” Morgan asked.
“Um…maybe,” Cave Carson shrugged.
“Yes,” Rita nodded, looking over where Negative Man was struggling to contain Plasmus. “We only have a couple seconds before Negative Man needs to return to Larry. What else can we do?”
“All I’ve got is a sword,” Morgan shrugged.
“Freezing seems to contain him,” Cave suggested. “If we can get that…rock that woke him up away, all we need to do is knock him back into the water…”
“How?” Rita asked. “Bullets won’t affect him and we can’t touch him…?”
“We melt the ice!” Chloe Carson suggested, brandishing a chunky pistol with a needle-like barrel.”
Negative Man came whooshing past them and Larry Trainor sat up.
“Oi,” He muttered, rubbing his head. “What’d I miss?”
“I think my daughter is about to be clever,” Cave said, looking over at the young woman.
Chloe looked around nervously, as she realized everyone was looking at her and that a large, acid monster was behind her.
“Well, the…um…our guns use the same therma-ray tech as the Mole,” She mumbled. “Dad and I use them to melt around the edge of the…ice…circle…and when it collapses we just…push him…back in…not sure about that last part...?”
“I’m out,” Larry said, getting unsteadily to his feet. “Can’t let Negative Man out again for awhile.”
“I think I can deal with Otto,” Mallah said, drawing a gun from his belt. It had a wider barrel and a feeder underneath that held three Twinkie-shaped projectiles.
“You’re going to need to get the crystal out of him,” Morgan advised, dumping the unconscious old man on the snowy ground and drawing a pistol of his own. “That thing is nothing but trouble.”
“I’ll get it,” Rita said, clenching her hands and straightening up.
“Rita,” Larry said, warningly, tapping her over-sized leg. “That’s a bad idea.”
“I’ll be fine,” She muttered, unconvincingly. “Are we ready?”
“Whenever you are,” Cave replied, brandishing his own therma-pistol. “Somebody needs to keep that things’ attention away from us.”
Rita nodded and straightened her shoulders.
Cave and his daughter jogged over to the ice circle, blasting the edges with their guns.
“Guess I’m on distraction duty,” Morgan said, firing at Plasmus. His shots seemed to just pass through the gelatinous form.
Elastic woman ran up to the edge of the ice circle, reaching out her arm, it stretched, enlarging as it went. Her hand was the size of a car door as it plunged into the toxic, pink sludge. Rita clenched her teeth, wincing in pain as she rummaged around, struggling to grab hold of the crystal.
The massive creature lurched about, infuriated by the dual attacks as it struggled to climb out of the icy waters.
“He’s cut loose!” Cave Carson shouted, as he and his daughter’s beams cut through the last stretch of ice.
Mallah stepped forward and raised his gun.
“Plasmus!” He shouted. “Otto! Stop or I will be forced to stop you!”
The large pink mass paused briefly, its’ tiny, pupil-less black eyes focusing on its old teammate.
It was enough of a distraction, that Elastic Girl was able to pull the crystal free with an audible, wet ‘splooosh’, her sleeve ragged, the skin of her arm red and raw.
Plasmus lurched, swinging angrily at the giant woman.
Mallah pulled the trigger and the projectile lodged in Plasmus’ flesh, detonating seconds later. Plasmus shuddered; his grotesque body ballooned, containing the blast. He then collapsed back to roughly man-sized before tumbling back into the Arctic waters.
“That went better than I thought it would,” Morgan said, twirling his pistol before re-holstering it.
“Still curious how he got under the ice,” Cave added.
“Really?” Chloe asked. “That’s the only question you’ve got about all this…whatever the hell just happened…?”
“Language, young lady,” Her dad said, sternly.
“And you get used to weird stuff after awhile,” Larry added. “Right, Rita…hey, what’s up?”
Rita had returned to normal size and was standing with Mallah, a little away from the others.
“You okay?” Larry asked, noticing her arm. “What’s up with him?”
Rita scowled at her teammate and reached over and patted Mallah’s shoulder.
“He just had to shoot his friend,” She explained.
“Friend…?” Larry muttered. “That…”
“Right, freaks and monsters don’t have friends.” Rita said.
The two heroes locked gazes for a moment.
“Yeah, okay, I’m a jerk,” Larry nodded, chagrined. He turned toward Mallah. “So, what can I do… to…uh… help? I can probably have Negative Man fish him out…?”
“And then what?” Mallah muttered sullenly. “Give him a room over the record store? Otto is not like Miss Farr’s cat.”
“Don’t,” Rita scolded. “Larry’s insensitive, but if he thinks he can help, he can.”
She turned to Larry and made a gentle gesture to let Larry know she’d take care of it.
Larry shrugged and joined the others.
“So,” He asked. “If I fish him out, can you find…somewhere to stash him?”
“We’ve got several faculties,” Cave said. “Or I can contact S.T.A.R. labs.”
“Thanks,” Larry nodded, and then turned to Travis Morgan. “Now, what the hell is up with you? Why aren’t you dead and why are you dressed like John Carter of Mars?”
“Long story,” Morgan smirked, returning his sword to its scabbard. “What happened to you?”
Larry touched his bandaged face and then glanced at his hand.
“Cut myself shaving,” He replied. “So, while I’m waiting to help…uh…my teammate…”He gestured over towards Mallah. “Anything you need?”
“Think I’m good,” Morgan said, walking over to pick up the crystal from where Rita dropped it in the snow and tucking it into a pouch attached to his sword belt. He then scooped up the still unconscious old man. “I’ve got the rock and…this knucklehead and I am currently freezing my ass off. If I get moving I may make it home in time for dinner…”
“On top of everything else, you got married?” Larry asked.
“Try and keep up, Trainor,” Morgan smiled. “Had to find something to do with my life after the air force. Good seeing you again.”
He shouldered his burden and trudged off across the snow-covered plain the way he’d come.
After a dozen yards, he stopped and turned back.
“Hey, Trainor, you ever hear from Hal Jordan?” He shouted back.
“Um…yeah, couple times, “ Larry replied, puzzled.
“Let him know I’m still alive and I still remember the fifty bucks he owes me!”
“Everybody in the air force like you guys?” Chloe Carson asked.
“Anybody see where I dropped my coat?” He asked, looking around at the harsh surroundings and the odd collection of people scattered about. “I’ve had enough fun for one day.”
Next Issue: It’s ladies night in New Orleans!
Author’s note: One more stop on our odd little world tour and then we start dealing with some of the plot threads I’ve set up. Yes, all this weirdness is going somewhere…well, most of it. I still have no grand plan for the Doom Patrol, just a scribbled list of story ideas and a notion about what fits where and what story it would be fun to tell next. If there’s any big idea at work here it’s that Negative Man and Elastic Girl always got kind of a raw deal and I want them to get to be the heroes and not be seen as Robot Man’s sidekicks.
“What the hell…?” He muttered, sitting up. He peered down at the floor then up at his bed. “Can’t I just get an alarm clock like everyone else…?”
He stood and shivered. Going to the window of his apartment he watched the snow falling on Danny the street.
“Snow…?” He muttered, closing the window and slipping into his red and white uniform “Where are we…?”
Down on the street, Larry, his breath coming out in wisps of vapor, rubbed his hands and noticed that the other assorted inhabitants of the sentient, wayward street were as ill prepared for winter as he was. He noticed the clothing store across the street (Had that been there yesterday?) was sporting a sign in the window that read ‘Winter Wear special!”
He shrugged and jogged over to check it out. Minutes later, wearing a heavy blue parka he made his way down the street towards the coffee shop.
Kate, the streets’ transgender, super powered barista generally knew what was going on and the coffee was really good.
Along the way Larry directed other residents towards the clothing store or advised them to get indoors.
The crowd was bigger than usual at ‘Caffeine Deim’.
Larry pushed back the hood of the coat and looked around for Kate, or any members of the street’s resident super team, the Doom Patrol.
He spotted Kate, surrounded by the crowd and struggling to get everyone coffee. He then caught a glimpse of Papercut.
The ex-super-villain wasn’t really a member of the Patrol, more like someone’s annoying kid brother that followed them around.
The crowd closest to the door noticed Larry’s arrival and he was soon swarmed by anxious street dwellers.
“Look, I don’t…we’ll do what we can…I’m trying to…!” Larry stammered, feeling himself being pushed back against the door, as he tried to answer a dozen questions at once.
Anxious and frustrated, Larry released the Negative Man. The ebony form flew around the room, zooming through the crowd at nearly the speed of light before returning to its’ host.
“Okay!” Larry shouted. “Now that I’ve got your attention: I don’t know where we are or why we’re here! I do know it’s really damn cold and we need to make sure everyone is off the street and warm. Can I get some volunteers to help with that while I get the Patrol together, so we investigate what’s happening? Papercut, you wanna give me a hand?”
The skinny villain with the all white costume and spiky hair looked around nervously, then shrugged and pushed his way through the crowd, he was closely followed by Kate.
“So, what now?” she asked, handing Larry a cup of coffee.
“Papercut uses his little birds to search Danny, make sure we’ve got everyone out of the cold,” Larry explained, between sips. “I’ll get Rita…and probably Mallah and we’ll try and figure out why Danny brought us here…”
“He wasn’t supposed to,” Kate said frowning. “We were headed for a musical festival in Montreal.”
“How do you know that?” Larry asked, confused.
“I checked the community bulletin board,” Kate frowned, gesturing towards the far wall. “You’ve been here over two weeks! How is it you don’t know how anything works besides where to get your coffee?”
“Okay, I…uh… can see you’re busy with this crowd,” Larry said, reaching behind him for the door. “I’ll go ‘on patrol’ and see what I can do.”
He hurried away from the angry barista and trudged through the ankle deep snow towards the end of the street.
“Trainor!” A voice growled and a gorilla wearing a bandolier leapt from the rooftop of a record store, landing by Negative Man.
“Morning, Mallah,” Larry muttered, trudging along. “And before you ask; no, I don’t know where we are or why we’re…here. Apparently, Danny was heading for Canada.”
“It would seem we over shot,” The gorilla said, looking about at the blizzard.
“You think we’re in the Arctic?” Larry asked.
“You don’t?” Mallah replied, scornfully, as he brushed snow from his fur.
“I don’t know what to think,” Larry replied.
“You boys arguing again?”
Rita Farr, Elastic Girl, stepped over the candy store and then shrunk down to six feet tall.
Larry and Mallah were both polite and didn’t mention that one of her arms was longer than the other.
Rita wore a red bodysuit that covered her from neck to feet, with white gloves, belt and boots. Larry smiled noticing that her hair was perfect and she was wearing a bit of lipstick.
“Aren’t you freezing?” He asked.
“No, the suit is insulated.” Rita smiled back, striking a pose with her hands on her hips. “Danny found boxes of uniforms in a storage space. I like your coat.”
“Can we discuss fashion later?” Mallah grumbled, before stalking off.
The trio reached the bench and street sign that marked the end of the sentient, other-dimensional street. The pavement ended at a plain of ice and snow that stretched out to mountains that squatted on the horizon.
“Yeah,” Larry muttered. “Not Canada.”
Rita shot up to twenty feet tall and scanned the snowscape.
“All I see is more snow,” She announced.
“We must be here for a reason…?” Negative Man said, scratching his linen wrapped chin in thought.
“Why?” Mallah asked, grumpily. “Was I not shown the rulebook? We are attributing human thinking to a collection of brick, glass and other dimensional energy. This belief so many of you have that this street has some ‘grand scheme’ for us is misleading, unproven and could be harmful.”
“I don’t think you understand…!” Rita protested.
“No, he may be right,” Larry interrupted, quietly.
“What?’ Rita asked, kneeling down to talk to her teammate. “How can you think that? Danny saved us all!”
“He did,” Larry nodded, thoughtfully. “But he’s been through as much as the rest of us, dealing with…whatever happened to reality and maybe, like the rest of us, Danny is trying to figure out what to do next. He’s barely talking to anyone and Mallah might have a point. I’m not saying Danny doesn’t care about us, but maybe, outside of giving us shelter, he doesn’t have a plan…and is just being drawn to…weird stuff, like Bast.”
“What do we do then?” Rita asked, confused. “We can’t…what… trust Danny?”
“No,” Mallah growled. “But, maybe we should stop treating him like more then shelter and transportation.”
“We need to be responsible for keeping everyone safe,” Larry added. “At least until we understand what’s going on.”
Rita frowned, but she nodded.
“Hey! What’s happening?” Kate asked, as she and Papercut joined them. “Anything?”
“Just…trying to figure things out,” Larry shrugged. “We’re going to go have a look around. Might be all we do is freeze our butts off and see some penguins, but…”
He then shrugged, not even trying to guess what could await them.
Kate nodded.
“We can’t stay here,” Mallah said, gruffly. “Danny seems to listen to you. Talk to him.”
“Papercut will help you while we’re gone,” Larry added.
“What? Oh, come on! I’m part of the team! I should…!” The skinny villain protested.
“Not this again!” Larry snapped. “We’ve known you for five minutes and you think you’re the Chief now? You’re barely Beast boy! Being a super hero means taking care of people! Try doing that instead of hoping if you run around enough you’ll get to meet Wonder Woman or fight Captain Cold, okay?”
“Yeah, fine, whatever,” Papercut muttered before walking off.
Larry exhaled loudly, pulled up his parka hood and stomped of into the snow.
“He just wants to help,” Rita said, catching up to him.
“He just wants to join the JLA without any clue what it means to live this life,” Larry muttered. “If he doesn’t wise up he’s going to get hurt or hurt somebody else.”
“Or,” Rita said. “You’ll end up pushing him back into being a super-villain…”
“Then he and Mallah can form the new Brotherhood of evil.”
“Charming,” Mallah grumbled, walking along behind them. “If you are done insulting your ‘teammates’, maybe we could concentrate on why we are out here. Once we are back and warm, Trainor can sulk to his heart’s content.”
“Fine,” Larry said. “Somebody catch me.”
His body sagged as Negative Man burst free and flew off. Rita grabbed Larry before he hit the snowy ground.
Negative Man was a flash of light, pin balling across the landscape.
“Incredible…!” Mallah breathed.
“Well, when he pushes it, Negative Man can pretty much hit the speed of light,” Rita said, matter of factly.
Within seconds, Negative Man came zooming back, returning to his host.
Larry gasped as he staggered to his feet.
“Gaahh!” He exclaimed, rubbing his chest. “Cut that a little close. There’s a building…bout a mile away…over the second ridge.”
“What kind of building?” Mallah asked.
“Prefab metal dome,” Larry muttered.
Rita placed her over-sized hand on his back to help steady him. She then reached down and scooped up both her teammates and started walking.
“Help direct me,” She said. “And first one that complains, I will drop.”
Fifteen minutes later, Mallah spotted the dome and pointed Rita in the right direction. Starting to feel the cold, she broke into a run. As she skidded to a halt at the bottom of an ice ridge, she shrank down to her normal size and lowered Larry and Mallah to the ground.
The metal dome was roughly the size of a ranch house. It was plain and functional. There was some kind of viechle parked next to it, covered by a heavy tarp.
“So, what should we do?” Larry asked as they approached.
“I’m freezing, so let’s not over think this,” Rita said, walking up and knocking on the door.
There was a muffled exclamation, followed by footsteps.
The door was eased open and a middle-aged man with a beard peered out at them.
“Who…?” He began tentatively and then his eyes went wide. “Rita Farr!”
He flung the door open, peered in puzzlement at her companions and then steered them inside. “Come on. What are you doing out there?”
“Cal…? Cal Carson?” Rita exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?”
“Waitaminute!” Larry interrupted. “You’re lost at the North Pole and bump into somebody you know? What is that: your super power?!”
“Cal was a consultant on one of my films,” Rita shrugged. “Slaves of the mole men’, I think…?”
“Professor Calvin Carson,” He said, offering a gloved hand.
Mechanically, Larry took it and shook.
“Wait…? Cave Carson…!” Larry exclaimed. “Something is going on here.”
“You show up at the north pole with a gorilla in a gun belt and my team being here is the weird part…?”
Cave wore a red jacket and boots with black insulated pants. Clustered around the interior of the dome were four other people in similar outfits. They seemed content to let the older man take the lead, though one of them, a younger blonde man always seemed to have his hand resting on or near his gun belt.
“Well, okay,” Rita said, feeling the need to play diplomat or hostess, but unsure how to proceed. “You know I quit being an acting to become a super hero…”
“And died, I thought” Cave said.
“Why does everyone focus on that part?” Larry muttered.
“Anyway,” Rita continued. “We are investigating…well, we aren’t sure what…?”
“Why is your team here?” Mallah asked.
“Holy crap!” The youngest of the team, a woman in her early twenties exclaimed. “The gorilla can talk!”
“You’ll have to excuse my daughter,” Cave said, after giving her a stern look. “Just recently started traveling with us…”
“We’re here because a recent ice density survey by S.T.A.R. Labs turned up some anomalies,” The older woman in the group explained.
“Weird stuff underground is our job,” The good-looking blonde man added.
“What’d you find?” Larry asked, worriedly.
“Nothing yet,” Cave explained. “This storm kicked in and we haven’t been able to do any drilling.”
“Can you show us the area?” Mallah asked, glancing over at Cave’s daughter in either amusement or annoyance at her constant surprise when he spoke.
“We might as well have a look,” Rita nodded.
“Sooner we figure this out, the sooner we can get out of here,” Larry said, crossing his arms and shivering.
“I’ll take you out there,” Cave said. “We’re due to see if conditions had gotten any more tolerable.”
He turned to his crew.
“Bull, you and Marlene check the probes. Johnny, prep the Mole, just in case. Chloe, grab your coat, you’re with me.”
“Um…yeah, okay,” His daughter frowned.
Soon, the five of them were trudging through knee-deep snow, heads down. The wind had died down to a frigid breeze.
After five minutes of walking, they reached a vague clearing, where the snow had been scraped off. It was a large circle of ice with a light dusting of snow on it. It was marked by a set of four metal, waist-high poles, each topped with a plastic sphere.
Cave gestured for his daughter to check out the markers.
Rita grew to ten feet tall and scuffed away some of the snow with her boot. She could make out a dark shape beneath the ice, a dark, indistinct mass.
“I’ve seen this movie,” Larry muttered. “whatever’s under there will try and kill us.”
Mallah shrugged, he appeared skeptical, but still drew one of his guns and made sure it was loaded.
“Any idea what it is, Cal?” Rita called across to the bearded geologist.
“Cal? How well did you two know each other?” Chloe muttered.
“Not really,” Cave replied, ignoring his daughter. “It registers as organic, but there are also huge amounts of trace chemicals, most of which don’t occur in nature.”
“So, what?” Larry asked. “Lexcorp dumping toxic waste here or should we be looking for the remains of a UFO?”
“I’m thinking there’s most likely an earthly explanation,” Cave replied. “But, we won’t know till we get a sample.”
“Couldn’t you just send Negative Man to have a look?” Rita suggested.
“Worth a try,” Larry shrugged.
Out of the snow-blown surroundings a figure suddenly appeared. He was thin and fairly elderly. His beard was white and chest length and he was dressed in a ragged brown robe. He staggered through the snow.
“Wait!” Mallah snapped. “Who’s that?”
The strange old man clutched some object to his thin chest, giving the impression of some bizarre quarterback passing through.
He stumbled past the heroes and skidded onto the ice.
“What the hell…?” Larry muttered.
“Stop him!” A new voice exclaimed, as a man in a white fur cloak and winged helmet came bounding out of the icy landscape.
Before anyone could shake off their surprise, the scrawny man slid and stumbled to the center of the ice circle, raised his burden, a cloudy pink hunk of crystal about the size of a football, over his head, shouted something in a grabbled, guttural accent and thrust it down. It cracked and the crystal was lodged several inches into the ice.
There was a flash of white light and the old man scrambled away from the crystal, cackling triumphantly. The man in the white cloak came up behind him and clubbed the old man on the back of the head with the hilt of a sword.
The ice cracked like a gunshot and a form began to haul itself out. It was massive and roughly man shaped, but its body was either coated with or made of a wet, pink substance that dripped and flowed like some enormous, grotesque melting candle.
It opened its’ toothless maw of a mouth and gave an incoherent bellow of rage.
“Every damn day…!” Larry muttered, shrugging out of his parka.
Elastic Girl shot up to thirty feet tall and raced towards the creature. She shoved at it, hoping to push it back into the frigid waters beneath the ice, but quickly pulled her hands back, gasping in pain and surprise.
“Rita…!” Larry shouted.
“Otto…?” Mallah breathed in surprise.
“Friend of yours?” The man with the sword asked, joining them.
He was dressed in white: boots fringed with fur, loincloth and gloves. His ornaments were all silver, wristbands, sword belt, winged helmet and a harness. He sported a dashing goatee and mustache. The skinny, ragged old man was slung over one broad shoulder.
“Who the…Morgan!” Larry suddenly exclaimed. “Travis Morgan! But, you’re…you’re…dead…? Goddamn, now I’m doing it!”
“That…stuff on his skin…or maybe it is his skin,” Rita said, also joining them. “It’s like…lava mixed with acid.”
She blew on her singed fingers, which now stuck out through the remains of her gloves.
“How do we stop it if we can’t touch it?” Cave Carson asked.
“Ask the monkey,” The bearded swordsman suggested. “He called it ‘Otto’.”
“What do you know!”? Larry snapped, grabbing hold of Mallah’s bandolier.
“Negative Man can contain him,” Mallah instructed, prying Larry’s bandaged fingers off him. “I will explain to the others while you deal with him.”
Larry frowned at the gorilla, then nodded. Mallah caught him when his body slumped and the Negative Man emerged. The crackling obsidian figure shot off and spun around the molten monster, forming a tornado of negative energy to keep it within the ice clearing.
“What’s going on?” Rita asked, shrinking down to normal. “Do you know what that is?”
“He is called Plasmus,” Mallah replied. “He was a German worker, doused by an experimental chemical and mutated. The Brain recruited him into the Brotherhood. I have no idea how he ended up at the North Pole. His mutated flesh is toxic and acidic”
“That make sense to you guys?” Morgan asked.
“Um…maybe,” Cave Carson shrugged.
“Yes,” Rita nodded, looking over where Negative Man was struggling to contain Plasmus. “We only have a couple seconds before Negative Man needs to return to Larry. What else can we do?”
“All I’ve got is a sword,” Morgan shrugged.
“Freezing seems to contain him,” Cave suggested. “If we can get that…rock that woke him up away, all we need to do is knock him back into the water…”
“How?” Rita asked. “Bullets won’t affect him and we can’t touch him…?”
“We melt the ice!” Chloe Carson suggested, brandishing a chunky pistol with a needle-like barrel.”
Negative Man came whooshing past them and Larry Trainor sat up.
“Oi,” He muttered, rubbing his head. “What’d I miss?”
“I think my daughter is about to be clever,” Cave said, looking over at the young woman.
Chloe looked around nervously, as she realized everyone was looking at her and that a large, acid monster was behind her.
“Well, the…um…our guns use the same therma-ray tech as the Mole,” She mumbled. “Dad and I use them to melt around the edge of the…ice…circle…and when it collapses we just…push him…back in…not sure about that last part...?”
“I’m out,” Larry said, getting unsteadily to his feet. “Can’t let Negative Man out again for awhile.”
“I think I can deal with Otto,” Mallah said, drawing a gun from his belt. It had a wider barrel and a feeder underneath that held three Twinkie-shaped projectiles.
“You’re going to need to get the crystal out of him,” Morgan advised, dumping the unconscious old man on the snowy ground and drawing a pistol of his own. “That thing is nothing but trouble.”
“I’ll get it,” Rita said, clenching her hands and straightening up.
“Rita,” Larry said, warningly, tapping her over-sized leg. “That’s a bad idea.”
“I’ll be fine,” She muttered, unconvincingly. “Are we ready?”
“Whenever you are,” Cave replied, brandishing his own therma-pistol. “Somebody needs to keep that things’ attention away from us.”
Rita nodded and straightened her shoulders.
Cave and his daughter jogged over to the ice circle, blasting the edges with their guns.
“Guess I’m on distraction duty,” Morgan said, firing at Plasmus. His shots seemed to just pass through the gelatinous form.
Elastic woman ran up to the edge of the ice circle, reaching out her arm, it stretched, enlarging as it went. Her hand was the size of a car door as it plunged into the toxic, pink sludge. Rita clenched her teeth, wincing in pain as she rummaged around, struggling to grab hold of the crystal.
The massive creature lurched about, infuriated by the dual attacks as it struggled to climb out of the icy waters.
“He’s cut loose!” Cave Carson shouted, as he and his daughter’s beams cut through the last stretch of ice.
Mallah stepped forward and raised his gun.
“Plasmus!” He shouted. “Otto! Stop or I will be forced to stop you!”
The large pink mass paused briefly, its’ tiny, pupil-less black eyes focusing on its old teammate.
It was enough of a distraction, that Elastic Girl was able to pull the crystal free with an audible, wet ‘splooosh’, her sleeve ragged, the skin of her arm red and raw.
Plasmus lurched, swinging angrily at the giant woman.
Mallah pulled the trigger and the projectile lodged in Plasmus’ flesh, detonating seconds later. Plasmus shuddered; his grotesque body ballooned, containing the blast. He then collapsed back to roughly man-sized before tumbling back into the Arctic waters.
“That went better than I thought it would,” Morgan said, twirling his pistol before re-holstering it.
“Still curious how he got under the ice,” Cave added.
“Really?” Chloe asked. “That’s the only question you’ve got about all this…whatever the hell just happened…?”
“Language, young lady,” Her dad said, sternly.
“And you get used to weird stuff after awhile,” Larry added. “Right, Rita…hey, what’s up?”
Rita had returned to normal size and was standing with Mallah, a little away from the others.
“You okay?” Larry asked, noticing her arm. “What’s up with him?”
Rita scowled at her teammate and reached over and patted Mallah’s shoulder.
“He just had to shoot his friend,” She explained.
“Friend…?” Larry muttered. “That…”
“Right, freaks and monsters don’t have friends.” Rita said.
The two heroes locked gazes for a moment.
“Yeah, okay, I’m a jerk,” Larry nodded, chagrined. He turned toward Mallah. “So, what can I do… to…uh… help? I can probably have Negative Man fish him out…?”
“And then what?” Mallah muttered sullenly. “Give him a room over the record store? Otto is not like Miss Farr’s cat.”
“Don’t,” Rita scolded. “Larry’s insensitive, but if he thinks he can help, he can.”
She turned to Larry and made a gentle gesture to let Larry know she’d take care of it.
Larry shrugged and joined the others.
“So,” He asked. “If I fish him out, can you find…somewhere to stash him?”
“We’ve got several faculties,” Cave said. “Or I can contact S.T.A.R. labs.”
“Thanks,” Larry nodded, and then turned to Travis Morgan. “Now, what the hell is up with you? Why aren’t you dead and why are you dressed like John Carter of Mars?”
“Long story,” Morgan smirked, returning his sword to its scabbard. “What happened to you?”
Larry touched his bandaged face and then glanced at his hand.
“Cut myself shaving,” He replied. “So, while I’m waiting to help…uh…my teammate…”He gestured over towards Mallah. “Anything you need?”
“Think I’m good,” Morgan said, walking over to pick up the crystal from where Rita dropped it in the snow and tucking it into a pouch attached to his sword belt. He then scooped up the still unconscious old man. “I’ve got the rock and…this knucklehead and I am currently freezing my ass off. If I get moving I may make it home in time for dinner…”
“On top of everything else, you got married?” Larry asked.
“Try and keep up, Trainor,” Morgan smiled. “Had to find something to do with my life after the air force. Good seeing you again.”
He shouldered his burden and trudged off across the snow-covered plain the way he’d come.
After a dozen yards, he stopped and turned back.
“Hey, Trainor, you ever hear from Hal Jordan?” He shouted back.
“Um…yeah, couple times, “ Larry replied, puzzled.
“Let him know I’m still alive and I still remember the fifty bucks he owes me!”
“Everybody in the air force like you guys?” Chloe Carson asked.
“Anybody see where I dropped my coat?” He asked, looking around at the harsh surroundings and the odd collection of people scattered about. “I’ve had enough fun for one day.”
Next Issue: It’s ladies night in New Orleans!
Author’s note: One more stop on our odd little world tour and then we start dealing with some of the plot threads I’ve set up. Yes, all this weirdness is going somewhere…well, most of it. I still have no grand plan for the Doom Patrol, just a scribbled list of story ideas and a notion about what fits where and what story it would be fun to tell next. If there’s any big idea at work here it’s that Negative Man and Elastic Girl always got kind of a raw deal and I want them to get to be the heroes and not be seen as Robot Man’s sidekicks.