Star City.
Northern California.
"We just traveled from the East Coast to the West Coast," I muttered, hovering just beneath the clouds as Lara's navigation finally ended. "How is that nearby, Mother?"
"It took you only a couple of minutes," Lara replied, genuinely puzzled. "Does that not qualify as nearby?"
"…Fair," I admitted with a wry smile. I didn't really have a comeback for that.
We had flown straight from Metropolis to Star City—which is another famous city that I had always wanted to visit.
Just… not like this.
Right now, I was hovering beneath the night sky on the outskirts of the city, clouds drifting above me while the lights of civilization glowed faintly in the distance.
Below, docks stretched along the shoreline—rows of shipyards and aging factory buildings clustered together.
But there were no people in sight.
That could have been because of the hour… or because this was the kind of place people avoided altogether.
"So this is where the signal's coming from?" I asked, focusing on the industrial sprawl beneath me.
"Yes. That large factory," Lara answered as a glowing arrow overlaid my vision, pointing downward.
The signal she had been tracking came from the toy airplane in Bruno's office—the one she had stopped from detonating.
And to be honest, It wasn't the first time we had run into explosive toys like this.
During earlier raids in Southside, there had been plenty of inconspicuous toy cars that detonated in massive blasts. The thugs always triggered them when they got desperate, and I had never been able to stop the explosions in time.
The blasts didn't really hurt me.
But I couldn't say the same for the buildings—or the people inside them.
In fact because of my canon knowledge, I had known immediately where those lethal toy bombs were coming from.
Toyman.
I would consider him a fairly well-known Superman villain in DC.
That knowledge, unfortunately, wasn't easy to explain.
Trying to justify to Lara how I suddenly recognized someone called Toyman—and how I had leapt to the conclusion that the devices were his work—had been… awkward.
But thankfully she had stopped pressing after hearing my clumsy excuses.
In fact I was pretty sure both Father and Mother understood that the extra knowledge I had was quite unusual.
They just hadn't forced me to reveal it's origins.
I would need to figure out an alternative explanation for my canonical knowledge's source sooner or later.
Still after they searched the fledgling internet and government databases for Toyman, both his alias and his real name, nothing of value turned up. Even the criminals we had caught had no idea where these toys were sourced from.
Which meant we had no concrete lead on his current location.
And I wasn't about to let someone that dangerous keep operating unchecked—especially not while he was still climbing his way up the criminal ladder.
Better to cut him off early and nip this problem in the bud.
I was geniunely relieved when Lara managed to catch a faint signal the toys emitted when they activated.
Normally, that transmission vanished within seconds—when the bombs went off.
Tonight was different.
She had disabled the ones in Bruno's office before they detonated.
And she had traced the signal successfully.
The toys had been broadcasting their coordinates back to a central receiver. Following that trail had carried us out of Metropolis entirely—
—and straight to the outskirts of Star City.
"Still," I muttered as I drifted lower through the clouds, "I always assumed whoever was supplying those gangs would be operating in Metropolis. Not on the other side of the continent."
"We know Intergang maintains operations worldwide," Lara replied. "It is not unreasonable for one of their suppliers to work from another city. Although…"
She paused.
"This individual you are calling Toyman is clearly overconfident. He assumed no one would be capable of decoding the masked signal embedded in his devices."
"Well, that works for us—"
I froze mid-sentence.
"Wait. I hear fighting."
My X-ray vision snapped on.
Inside one of the inner halls of the massive, run-down factory, a man and a woman in masked hero costumes were battling four enormous robotic toys.
In less than a second, I recognized them from my canon memory.
I also swept my vision across the rest of the structure, mapping corridors, power lines, blast doors—and pinpointing where Toyman himself was hiding.
My first instinct was to go straight for him and end this quickly.
But another glance at the two vigilantes changed my mind.
They were struggling.
And if I ignored that… someone was going to get seriously hurt.
I sighed.
"Let's go save some retired heroes."
Then I dropped toward the factory.
---
Inside the factory's dimly lit hall, a gleaming red metal toy soldier—nearly seven feet tall—lunged forward with blank, lifeless eyes.
The punch narrowly missed a hulking six-foot-five man.
He was clad in a skintight black catsuit that showed off his ripped physique. The upper half of his face was hidden beneath a cowl with short, pointed ears.
He snarled, fists clenched—palms wrapped in boxer-style bandages—and twisted his torso, driving a punch straight into the toy soldier's midsection.
BAM!
The robot staggered—
—but before the man could recover, another identical machine lunged from behind, thrusting forward with the sharp blade mounted beneath its toy rifle.
"Fuck, these things just don't give up," the man growled as he dodged. The edge still sliced across his arm. "I shouldn't have agreed to come with you!"
Nearby, a much smaller figure flipped backward in a graceful arc, narrowly avoiding two stabbing spears.
Standing barely five-foot-five, the woman had long blonde hair and sharp blue eyes, her face hidden behind a domino mask. She wore a black leather jacket over a tight black leotard, a choker at her throat, fishnet stockings on long legs, and black leather boots.
As she landed, irritation flashed across her face while the toy soldiers turned toward her.
"GO AWAY!" she shouted.
A sonic blast tore from her mouth, rattling the air.
The robots staggered—
then surged forward again.
"They're robots," the man snapped, hammering kicks and punches into their legs in an attempt to topple them. "Your scream isn't going to work on them!"
"Shit—looks like we have to pull back for now," the woman panted as she ducked another swing, sliding across the concrete before scrambling back to her feet.
For half a second, her focus slipped.
But that was enough.
The second toy soldier surged in from behind, steel arms snapping around her torso and yanking her off the floor.
"Damn it—!" she hissed as pressure crushed against her ribs.
"Shit!" the man snapped, already moving—intercepting a punch meant for her and shouldering it aside.
Then—
BOOM.
The roof thundered.
The Toy soldier holding her jerked violently as its head vanished.
Then both arms were torn away.
She blinked as a steady, impossibly strong pair of hands caught her around the waist and lowered her gently back onto the floor.
Looking up, she met bright blue eyes.
"Excuse me," the young man murmured—
—and vanished.
"…Well," she said dryly, straightening her jacket, "that's new. Although… not unpleasant."
Before she could say anything else, the remaining three robots collapsed into twisted scrap heaps.
A figure hovered a few feet off the ground—red cape drifting behind him, a crimson S set against blue fabric. His face was half-hidden by a red cloth mask; only dark hair and striking blue eyes were visible.
His build suggested he was still quite young.
That only made how effortlessly he had dismantled the metal soldiers more unsettling.
Her partner pivoted toward the hovering stranger, fists still raised—eyes sharp.
She stepped in quickly, trying to de-escalate the tension.
"I thought my nights of being saved by a prince charming were over," she said with a light chuckle. "But I suppose it's nice to experience it once in a while. Thank you for saving me, young man."
Her partner glanced up at the hole in the roof, then at the wreckage littering the floor.
"You made quite an entrance," he admitted, lowering his fists. "Hard not to be impressed. Still… I don't recognize you."
She tilted her head, studying the costume.
"From the outfit, am I right in guessing you're a hero too?"
"Ugh. Hate that word," her partner muttered gruffly. "Vigilante's more accurate."
"That just shows your age, old man," she teased, flashing a grin before giving the young stranger a wink. "You've got to stay a little hip for the new generation."
---
Moonlight poured through the jagged hole in the factory ceiling, lightning up the dark of the hall.
I didn't answer their questions.
Instead, I stepped down and plucked two jagged chunks of metal from the wreckage, and flicked them toward opposite corners of the room.
BAM. BAM.
"What was that?" the man snapped, dropping into a fighting stance once again.
"Oh, relax," the woman said, patting his shoulder. "If I'm guessing right, he just took out the hidden cameras for us. Right?"
"Right." I nodded as my eyes settled on them.
Although Lara stayed silent because of their presence, she still scanned them—and projected their profiles beside their faces as translucent overlays only I could see.
"Wild Cat…"
The burly man in the skintight catsuit was the vigilante Wildcat.
His real name was Ted Grant—a former heavyweight boxing champion and onetime member of the now-disbanded Justice Society of America. No known immediate family. Currently retired and running a gym in Star City.
"... and Black Canary"
The woman in the domino mask and form-fitting leotard was the famed heroine Black Canary.
Dinah Drake Lance.
Not just a former JSA member but one of its founding figures. Her husband, a police officer, had died years ago. She had a six-year-old daughter, also named Dinah. Like Ted, she had retired from hero work and now operated a flower shop in Star City.
As I skimmed the overlay, I felt a flicker of unease at how detailed it was.
Civilian identities.
Daily routines.
Personal histories.
I was definitely asking Lara later where she had pulled all of this from.
Not that I didn't already know even more thanks to my canon memories—like the fact that Dinah's daughter would one day inherit the Black Canary mantle herself… and go on to marry Green Arrow.
"What are two former JSA members doing here?" I asked them, genuinely curious.
"Knowing about me makes sense," Black Canary said, folding her arms. "But you recognized this old fossil too? Now that's impressive."
"Hey, as the kid said—I was once a member of the Justice Society of America," Wildcat shot back with a huff. "Makes perfect sense that I'd be recognized too."
"Heh. Says the man whose action figures always remained unsold," she added with a snicker.
"That's not my fault," he snapped. "People just can't appreciate a grown man in a cat suit. Bunch of cowards. I'm sure the younger generation's more open-minded."
She rolled her eyes.
"Let the old man live in his delusions."
Then she turned back to me, smile returning as she stepped closer.
"But you still haven't answered our question."
Her eyes glittered with curiosity.
"Who are you?"
It was getting harder and harder for me to keep a straight face.
Black Canary's skintight costume was practically oozing sexiness. Her white cleavage framed by leather, the choker at her throat, the fishnets along her long legs. The whole look was very… distracting.
And my X-ray vision wasn't helping at all.
From her beautiful face, to her sexy athletic body, everything was laid bare before my eyes. It was genuinely hard to believe she had ever given birth with how fit she looked.
Wearing something that sexy while fighting crime really ought to be illegal.
No wonder she had gone down in history as one of the most attractive heroines of her era. Even Pa had used to joke about having a crush on her—something Ma never stopped teasing him for back then.
"I'm just someone trying to do some good with his powers," I said simply, forcing my eyes back to her face.
"Oh, that's very noble," Black Canary replied, stepping closer and lightly tracing a finger across the emblem on my chest. "Looks like my prince really does have a golden heart."
"If that's what he's really after, then it's not a bad goal," Wildcat added with a nod. "These days, the word hero gets dragged through the mud—especially with all those hero schools and academies popping up."
She waved him off.
"Let him grumble."
Her gaze returned to me.
"So… do you have a name yet? A moniker?" Her lips puckered seductively, as her fingers brushed the symbol again. "Something to do with the S?"
"No," I said, shaking my head and taking a small step back, more flustered than I wanted to admit. "Haven't decided yet. Anyway—are you two here because of Toyman?"
"Oh, so that's what he's called," she mused. "Toyman. With Toy soldiers like these, and his Toy based bombs, I suppose it fits."
She nodded getting serious.
"And yes. We're here to trace the source of the explosive toys flooding Star City."
"Then…" I said, glancing between Wildcat and Black Canary, "…would you like to help me take him down?"
This was my chance to watch JSA veterans in action up close.
There was no way I was letting it pass!
***
[Kal Odinson has redeemed an Extra Chapter this week]