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“Are you gonna ask me questions?”
“What?”
Victor looked the Professor in the eyes, or at least, he looked him in those floating spectacles as they rode on the Zipline to York.
“I said, are you gonna ask me questions? How my body generates electricity through pain? Why I can put myself back together with stitches and pain?”
The Professor was silent a moment. His wife Marla called this “The Pondering”.
“No. You seemed like you didn't want to talk and I learned after one too many late nights out with old colleagues that sometimes you let the brooding guy in the corner brood.”
Victor didn't know what to say. It felt like every five minutes if people weren't staring at him openly, they were badgering him with questions like that nosy ginger librarian. The questions made sense. The absence of them felt off.
As they landed near their guardian, Dynamo placed a cold metallic hand on Victor’s shoulder. Dynamo’s spectacles were angled towards Victor’s sunken eyes.
“But if you ever need a shoulder to lean on, or an ear to listen, I'm good at that. My wife says it's one of my better qualities.”
Victor didn't smile. But his eyes looked like they opened a little wider, the weight of the world lessening off of his shoulders felt good. Even if it was just a few grams being lifted by this orb shaped academic.
It was later in the ritual that Victor took Dynamo up on his offer. They were in a veil, hiding from the ArchMother's chosen as they battled the creature below Broadway. Victor stared beyond the veil, watching as that giant detective acted more like a heavyweight boxer than a guy who solved cases as he spoke.
“I counted, you know?”
Dynamo was focused on the creature, fascinated with its ability to regenerate even as Abrams punched literal holes out of it but he kept his promise to Victor, he was listening.
“Counted what?”
“I counted how many people I'm made up of. As far as I can tell, seven.”
“Seven seems to be a particular number regarding these supernatural events. It comes up so often.”
“Seven body parts belonging to other people with hopes and dreams. The patrons promise a wish. All I want for my wish is to know who I am, who I'm made of and who made me. I don't know who I am, Professor, or if I should even be alive. Maybe I'm a walking collection of victims and someone’s gonna see me one day and see their brother, their dad, or their son. I know how to deal with pain when it only hurts me or hurts whoever wants to hurt me. I can't… I can't be a walking talking trauma episode for some innocent person out there.”
Dynamo still didn't turn to Victor, his eyes focused on that thief, Paradox. Her swapping in temporal positions was fascinating. The Pondering was in full swing.
“Victor.” Dynamo began with a fatherly tone, “I have forgotten how my wife feels. Her warm hands that I eclipsed with my own. The feeling of her lips on my cheek after I come home from lectures. The taste of her key lime pies. Always with an extra helping of whipped cream on top. Every night she has to go to sleep with cold metal wearing her husband’s clothes.”
Dynamo reloaded his Vonnegun, the gun whirring with energy from within him, “Every day I see her and she sees me, and there’s so much hurt there. The loss of a body has only made me ache so much. I would never wish this on anyone else.”
The creature died and the rejuvenator began falling down slowly and surely.
“But there's also so much love. That woman is a champion, loving a selfish man like me.”
He turned to Victor and Victor could almost swear that he saw the stars within Dynamo’s helmet smile.
“You said seven body parts? I don't see seven victims making a monster. I see one man with a sense of justice so large that he cares about seven people he’ll never meet or share a meal with. You may not know who you are, Victor but I have an idea about your character.”
The rest of the Hidden King’s chosen filed behind them, waiting for Dynamo’s wormhole.
“There’s so much pain in you Victor, seven people’s worth.”
Dynamo’s reliable hand found its place on Victor’s shoulder again.
“But there’s also so much love.”
And with that, Dynamo rushed in with his team, opening his arms wide yelling as loud as he could as the singularity inside was unleashed, entangling every one of the ArchMother’s chosen close to him.
“I AM THE COSMOS!”
As Victor took punches from the blue giant, felt his flesh be torn apart by thorns, he smiled. The Professor was right, he was here for justice. The seven or eight people that made up his stitchedup body deserved that much.
Every day he went out investigating. Every day he thought that maybe today would be the day where he finds out who he was, or a part of who he was. Every day could have been his birthday for all he knew,just like every day could have been his last. As his body exploded, green angry lightning spewing forth, he too yelled as his body jammed itself back together, stitched back and humming with electricity.
“I AM REBORN!”