Chapter Text
Bart had no idea how he ended up in another universe.
He’d just woken up in a scrapyard in dragon form, in a pile of scrap metal drained of all but the faintest traces of mana but with a few larger pieces still clinging to small quantities of metallic-lemongrass-sandalwood aspected mana.
Even weirder than someone enchanting scrap metal and then throwing it out, there was so little ambient magic that he wasn’t regenerating his reserves more than infinitesimally, and was actually losing magic in some areas. Thankfully, his reserves were almost completely full, but that would probably end up being a problem.
Bart shifted to human, and found that he was wearing civilian clothes he had never owned- combat boots, black sweatpants, dark gray long-sleeve shirt and a yellow hoodie with pockets that felt full.
They were, in fact, full. His right pocket had his phone in it along with a speedster bar, and his left pocket had eight folded ten-dollar bills, a berry-flavored juice box and five empty Ziploc bags.
The entire situation was incredibly weird, and Bart was banking on True Fae involvement- especially given that he’d somehow had his human form clothes changed despite being in dragon form initially.
Bart Googled as much stuff on his phone as he could before it ran out of battery. Thankfully, it was designed to recharge with the application of electricity-aspected mana, such as the Speed Force or Bart’s breath weapon, so he could wake it up at any point.
And what he found was weird(albeit not the weirdest thing he’d ever seen). He was currently in a city called Brockton Bay, which didn’t exist in his home universe. (Then again, a lot of cities in his universe didn’t exist here.)
Said city was the literal dictionary definition of urban decay, given the fact that half of the city was abandoned, the other half was decaying and underfunded, there was a grand total of three major employers in the city aside from the government(Medhall, Fugly Bob’s and the Dock Workers’ Association), gangs with metahuman(sorry, parahuman ) leaders and lieutenants fought openly in the streets while the police and Justice League equivalent fought a desperate holding action to maintain the status quo. And because things couldn’t get any more stupid, one of those gangs consisted of literal Nazis.
Granted, there were also bonafide movie kaiju stomping cities every six months, so a little bit of economic crisis was reasonable. But like…you would think an existential threat would cause people to forget petty differences and work together, but noooo, humans just had to be stupid.
Bart’s plan was to keep his head low, stay in dragon form as much as possible so he’d be able to hide better, keep his mana reserves topped up by eating whatever random enchanted objects were lying around, keep his stomach full of small prey like rats and rabbits and only use human form when he needed access to something in his pockets.
That plan encountered a major flaw when he realized that the only source of magic in this universe was parahumans- both their bodies and whatever they used their powers on. Even the minimal amounts of magic that all living beings possessed were virtually nonexistent.
There were people that all had the same organ-meat-fresh-blood-gunsmoke aura-scent attached to specific organs or limbs(which Bart assumed was Panacea’s healing) but that ran into similar problems as eating parahumans.
And the antiseptic-bitter-tea aura-scent attached to various buildings and pieces of rubble was nothing more than a taunt since he couldn’t fit any of it in his mouth.
Which meant he was stuck following cape fights to collect residue from Kaiser, Hookwolf, Mush, Oni Lee and Lung. And in order to do that, he’d have to use human form, since his dragon form didn’t have hands or pockets.
Furthermore, the Speed Force, normally an endless river of magic, was currently a tiny trickle that replenished just a little bit of magic at the cost of burning through calories at a ridiculous rate. As a result he’d been slowly starving since it was surprisingly hard to catch small, fast animals or dodge stray attacks or PRT evacuation attempts without using the Speed Force- not after relying on it for most of his life.
He’d spent all of the cash he’d started with on food within three weeks, and everything had spiraled from there.
Lung getting a hand severed during a fight with Hookwolf and it ending up where Bart could grab it was the only real upward movement he’d made- every day was a cost-balance analysis between when to shift and into what, what to spend magic on, when to use the Speed Force, when to bail out on a fight to avoid injury and how to get to fights in progress.
Eventually he’d just given up and started walking to the Protectorate ENE headquarters. He was aware he looked nothing like the tourists filling most of the lobby, in a hoodie that had gotten clipped by a stray blast from Lung, the rest of his clothes stained with dirt, rust and soot and so skinny he was practically drowning in clothes that had initially fit perfectly.
Still, he tried his best to affect a confident walk as he walked up to the receptionist. He’d chosen to join the Wards instead of the Protectorate since his cover story for being from an alternate universe was really spotty memories before he’d woken up in a scrapyard, and he’d be lucky to be mistaken for being 16 right now. Thanks, eternal baby face.
“Hi, I’d like to join the Wards.”
To her credit, she doesn’t immediately dismiss him and instead calls her boss.
When the PRT troopers move to escort him into the elevator, he dumps out his pockets- handing three ziploc bags full of Oni Lee and Lung ash, two pieces of Kaiser metal and a cheap black bandana to them, then showing them his phone, telling them that “under no circumstances are you touching it- it’s out of battery anyway.” and demonstrating by showing them the no power screen when they still try to confiscate it.
Eventually they hand his stuff back(minus the ash, which… fair. It does look like drugs), and he’s escorted into a perfectly mundane-looking conference room, even if a casual glance around reveals the three security cameras and two turret-mounted spray nozzles tracking him. It would probably seem like overkill to anyone who hasn’t met a Bat, but in Bart’s case he’s just disappointed they didn’t even hide them that well.
Colin sometimes wishes he wasn’t the leader of the Wards, but alas, he is, and he is forced to deal with teenagers.
The teenager in question is not actually a Ward yet, but has expressed a desire to join. The information Colin has boils down to “homeless teenage boy, possibly addicted to drugs” thanks to only having verbal reports and security camera footage of the lobby to work with.
Said teenage boy lights up as soon as he sees Colin. The question that comes out of his mouth is not typical hero-worship, however.
“Do you have any spare Tinkertech you don’t ever need back that I can have that probably won’t explode if it’s taken apart?” the boy rambles.
Colin admits that question surprised him, and he quietly updates his mental file with “probably a Tinker” while he figures out how to answer that.
“No, seriously. This isn’t just curiosity.” The boy looks at him pleadingly. “I am barely holding myself back from just running at you and trying to rip off exposed pieces of your suit right now, and I’d really like to make a better first impression than that.”
Colin’s lie detector pings that as truth, so he reluctantly hands over a powered screwdriver from his utility belt.
The boy takes it, then he puts it in his mouth. It then gets weirder- there’s a metallic grinding and crunching noise as he bites off a chunk, chews it, and swallows. This boy is eating goddamn Tinkertech like it’s a ballpark hotdog!
He stares in disbelief as the boy eats the entire thing within seconds like a starvation victim given a granola bar.
Then the boy stares back at him. “Do you have more? I’m still really, really hungry, even if that filled me up more than anything I’ve eaten for weeks.”
Colin recovers his wits. “Exactly what do you need to eat?”
“Things parahuman powers have been used on or created. Or just parahumans, but that’s…yeah no.” The boy sighs. “Can you get the troopers to give those bags of ash back? I spent so much time following Lung and Oni Lee around to collect that much.” Truth …what…
“You…followed Lung around?!” Colin blurts, ignoring his social program’s suggestions.
“Hey, where else was I supposed to get easily transportable amounts of easily digestible parahuman power residue? Kaiser, Mush and occasionally Hookwolf leave plenty of scrap lying around but it’s not cost-effective since I have to swallow it to get any benefit, there’s only a little bit in each piece and I still need stomach space for normal food.” The boy shrugs. “Just shift to look Japanese and put on a bandana and I’m good.”
“Shift?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure this isn’t my actual face, it’s just the one I was wearing the first time I shifted to human.” The boy gestures to his face- tanned skin, with blue eyes, sharp yet somewhat rounded features and reddish-brown hair. “I’m not sure I got it perfect. All the mirrors in the scrapyard were broken and filthy, since it’s a scrapyard. But well, I don’t remember what my actual human face was, assuming I was actually born as a human, and all of my other faces were from “I need to blend in with the ABB slash E88”, not just incidental with needing hands.”
“You woke up in a scrapyard?” That’s the question that will gather the most data according to his social program, even if it’s not the thing he’s most curious about.
“Yep. Just kind of woke up curled up in a pile of metal. And like…I knew I was in a scrapyard, and what a scrapyard was, but why or how or when I’d gotten into the scrapyard I didn’t remember. And when I woke up I was a snake with wings, so I shifted to get hands to open the door.”
Case 53, then, except with a Changer power that allows them to become superficially human. Probably one of the luckier combinations.
“How does shifting work?”
“I can choose to adapt to what I need to do at the moment. Need to see at night? Cat eyes. Need to see if someone’s sneaking up on me? Better hearing. Need to escape through a collapsing building on fire? Fireproof wings and scales. Need to avoid getting ganked for being a white kid in ABB turf? Now I look Japanese.” The boy shrugs. “There are limits to what the changes can be, since everything has always been vaguely draconic.”
“Have you ever shifted back to the form you first woke up in?”
“Yep. My true form’s pretty useful, since coiled up it’s only about the size of a golden retriever, and it can fit through some pretty tight places. And also, it just feels more comfortable and natural than being human. Problem is, any shift is magic-intensive, it doesn’t have hands or pockets and there’s no easy way to regenerate magic that I’ve found.”
Definitely a Case 53, then. “Magic?”
“Well, I kind of have reserves of energy that fuel my powers. None of the other names I could give it really fit, especially since the best way to charge it is eating parahuman power residue.”
This kid is being a lot more helpful than most new Wards or Case 53s, and Colin loves it. He just asks a question and gets truthful answers instead of ten minutes of rambling, insults or lies with the occasional parental intervention. Why can’t more new recruits be like this?
“Do you have any other powers besides shifting?”
“Yep. I can electrify my body parts, though that’s pretty magic-intensive, and move really quickly- that one uses calories, and actually refills my magic a bit. Plus, I can smell magic and anything containing it, and each particular source has an aura.”
“Please elaborate.”
“Like, there’s people walking around with limbs or organs that smell like viscera, blood and gunsmoke, random collapsed buildings that smell like antiseptic and bitter tea, Mush’s trash smells like sandy mud, tears and cheap wine, and you smell like pen ink, paper and lemon candy. That sort of thing.”
“Alright, do you have a name?”
“Bart.” That’s a surprisingly normal name for a shapeshifting Case 53.
“Cape name?”
“Impulse.” Bart shrugs. “I remember people calling me that, just not who or what they looked like. Just like I remember my mother preening my wings, but I don’t know where she is, what she looks like or if she’s alive.”
Truth. Colin blinks. “You have memories before waking up in the scrapyard?”
“Yeah, things will just randomly hit me when I run into something similar. My little sister’s voice. Paying for something that cost 12.99. The taste of one specific cheeseburger. Racing someone through the city in the middle of the night. There’s still a lot of holes in what I remember, though, and I don’t really have control over what I remember.”
Also truth. That’s…unusual. Actually, it’s not just unusual, it’s completely unprecedented. There hasn’t been a single Case 53 on record that had any pre-awakening episodic memory at all, even if their semantic memory was intact.
And that little detail about him remembering having wings prior to awakening in the scrapyard? Apparently Bart’s amnesia is post-trigger, not a direct result of triggering like the common consensus on Case 53s says it is.
Is he a Case 53 with some retained memories, or is he a normal Changer with amnesia caused by something else? This is interesting.
“I believe I may know why you have amnesia. This is only a possibility- do you have this tattoo anywhere on your body? If you do, you may be what’s known as a Case 53.” Colin projects an image of the Case 53 tattoo on his palm display system.
Bart sighs. “Well, it wouldn’t be on my human form since anything that actually stains my skin instead of just sticking to it gets removed when I shift that body part, and my scales in my true form are the same way. So if I had it, it’s gone now.”
Truth. Well, that’s helpful- sarcasm completely intentional.
“Alright. Is there anything you need urgently?”
“Food and magic. The closer to normally edible it is, the better it is. And I do need magic to stay alive.”
Colin thinks for a second, and immediately strikes upon a solution. “There is a member of the Wards, Clockblocker, who can freeze objects in time for a random but temporary duration. He is able to use this power on organic material and can freeze multiple objects simultaneously, which means that he should be able to simply freeze a large quantity of non-perishable food to be stored for later.”
“Oh thank God. ” Bart breathes. “Uh, just note that even in human form I’m an obligate carnivore, though I can eat fruit, processed grains and dairy and they still give me some calories.”
Interesting, and definitely a point in the favor of “Case 53 with retained memories”.