Issue #19: Post-Martial Bliss

"Ah, Edmund. Good on you to join us," Bruce greets me, like nothing happened earlier.

Alfred politely nods at me as he pours Bruce yet another cup of tea. He sits on his master's right while I rest my shoulders on the large couch opposite to them.

"Is everything alright, young master Edmund?" Alfred asks, silently motioning for the red welt on my left cheek.

I merely chuckle in response before looking at Bruce without hiding the anger selling within my body. "I'm a petty man, Bruce."

"How petty?" He asks, much to the confusion of Alfred.

"Petty enough that you won't know when I will hit back. Petty enough to know that my grudges last a lifetime." I reply in a civil tone. "I can forgive your prodding of our relationship, although you could have just asked, but what I cannot do is forgive you for making my mother cry, Bruce."

Alfred's eyes widen ever so slightly before turning his head towards Bruce with a confused look.

Bruce leans forward, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "How would you do that, Edmund?"

I lean forward, matching his look. "When your two greatest rivals have your back against the wall, I will be there, yet I won't do anything, Bruce. And when they either break your will or your mind… I will be there, Bruce. I won't do anything for you. I'll just whisper four little words…"

"And what words would that be?" He asks.

"If only you knew." I whisper gravely.

"You would do that because I made your mother cry?" He asks for confirmation.

"I would do that because you made my mother cry, Bruce." I confirm before clapping my hands and leaning back, chuckling at Alfred's confusion. "Now that... that's done. Wanna see what I can do?"

Bruce chuckles, leaning back and blowing air on his piping hot tea. "First, tell me how you happen to have achieved such prowess and any relevant information."

I grin and begin rattling off every information–even the ones irrelevant to the matter of hand–that Jake had god-awfully said to me while I was trapped in that dark, inky space. 

From Jake's criminal experiences, being pinched for bank robbery, and even his first sexual experience with his mentor's sister-in-law's madame, which, in retrospect, was downright atrocious to say to an eight-year-old. Even one who had a large soul form.

After that, I digress towards the crux of the matter. Jake's innate inability to create portals from far away, which is something I have an inkling I could naturally do as long as I practice my powers for a long time.

Of course, being a criminal, Jake only focused on the short-term in regards to his powers. As such, most of his tips and tricks were about real life scenarios and none about how to grow the power itself.

At the end of my five-minute-long disquisition regarding the life and times of one Jake Something, career criminal and Keystone's foremost portal user. At least until Victor Stone gets his ass beat by a goddamn alien space cube.

"So, what do you think?" I say, panting from the, might I say, eloquently-put spiel.

Bruce sighs, rubbing his hands over his face, although I think it's just a combination of jetlag and mother's buttery pasta.

Alfred clears his throat, "Disregarding the perverted stories, I believe that this Mr. Dillinger's right in his statement that developing his powers is for naught. Except, he is not you, young master Edmund."

"Oh, you mean that my supernatural growth can help me go beyond what Jake was capable of? Before he died, I mean." I nod at Alfred's words, contemplating his meaning.

"Show us what you're capable of, Edmund." Bruce says.

I shrug and breathe out a puff of air. A black line, no longer than maybe 20-30 centimeters, appears atop the coffee table that separates our chairs, at the same time, a pit appears in my stomach. My once full and bulging gut is deprived of its contents. Sweat trails down the side of my face as I concentrate on stabilizing the black line.

Sure enough, thanks to whatever it was that Martian Manhunter did to me, stabilizing the black line after its creation has been made easier.

"I…Hoo! I call this the Black Line state." I inform before putting my hands together like in a prayer. "And this… is what I call the Active Eye state."

I split my hands away from each other and, as I do so, the black line widens into an eye-like rupture in the middle of space. Within that eye is a view to a malignant void somewhere deep in the outer reaches of the galaxy.

Even looking at it is like looking deep into the pits of hell, as if it's mocking you for not being strong enough to stare back.

My sweat begins to pour down like I've been running a marathon in the Nevada desert, the pit in my stomach gnawing deeper into my gut and devouring the very acid that boils within.

I close the portal with a grunt. The eye snapping shut like a bear trap, startling both Bruce and Alfred. I double over as the pain shoots towards my throat, threatening to spill my lunch on the nice rug mother bought for my fifth birthday.

Before I know it, Alfred's beside me and rubbing my back repeatedly. His soothing British voice calms me down as he forces his god-awful tea on me, which, once I took a sip, honestly calms down the pain and the bile.

"Take your time, young master Edmund." He says, helping me to lean my head on the headrest. "You've done a wonderful job. Isn't that right, Master Bruce?"

Bruce hums, but speaks up when Alfred glares at him. "Of course. Eleven seconds. That is… interesting."

"E-Eleven? I… thought it was like… five or something." I say, panting through words.

"In your perspective, yes. But you were so focused on stabilizing the portal and your consumption of energy that it was taking away your focus on reality." He explains, quite succinctly.

"God, it sucks how I need to practice my powers. Why can't I just be like the freaking Flash?" I curse the heavens, shaking my fist up high.

"You think the Flash is pure talent, no dedication?" Bruce asks with a raised eyebrow.

I shake my head. "Of course not. He's the real deal, I think. Superman is where it's at. Pure genetics, that guy. He doesn't even need to do stuff, just stand in the sun like a damn sunflower and he gets stronger."

"Young master Edmund, jealousy is unbecoming of you." Alfred admonishes.

"Misinformation is also unbecoming of one purportedly hailed as a genius." Bruce scoffs lightly.

'Oh, here we go.'

I raise an eyebrow. "Oh, are we going to have a superhero debate?"

"There will be no debate once I'm done." He says condescendingly.

"Oh, please–"

"Boys!" Alfred clears his throat, scrutinizing both of us with a glare. "Focus."

"Right." Bruce nods. "I'll let you borrow the meter in a week's time. I have to focus on the Reaper and Gotham's safety. His vendetta is making the crime bosses nervous, one of them will make a mistake soon enough. In the meantime, practice under the cover of the night. I'll be delivering your bodyguard home… after a few questions."

"Understood." I say, tilting my head at his last sentence. "Why? What happened to Olgar?"

"There' are a few discrepancies in his files. Nothing to worry about. I've seen where his loyalties lie." Bruce placates me. "Alfred."

"Yes, young master Dick must be worried sick." Alfred ruffles my head before heading out.

Bruce turns towards me one last time and says, "I'll see you on Monday."

I let them see themselves out as I return to the kitchen, where I find the crew cleaning up the mess. Asking one of them for my mother's location, I head to the second floor and straight to her room. I knock on the door, and she answers, opening up to reveal her freshly watered face. Nary a hint of tears nor welt from the slap appears on her face which, frankly, relieves me because being reminded of what the bastard had done would have been disastrous.

For him, of course.

"Hey, mom." I greet her, which raises a brow.

"'Mom'? Baby, you have never greeted me like that since you were five?" She says worriedly, "Come in, come."

She let me inside, where she set me at the foot of her bed before dragging her makeup chair and looking straight at me. Her lips morph into a pout as she scrutinizes me.

"I'm sorry–"

I put my hands up to interject her words because, truly, our relationship is past the point of useless apologies. We have done this song-and-dance for the past few years now and I've had enough of it.

"What's this about your money and his money?" I ask because that is new and, might I add, very pertinent information.

She smiles sadly, "Well, when we were young… I might have married him without signing a prenup. Against my mother's wishes, causing her to tear me off her will and why she's loath to come here."

"I see." I understand now… 'that we are completely fucked.'

I had hoped that Mother would be able to divorce the bastard and live a life full of unburdened tranquility, but the very fact that the bastard is strangling hold of her money makes this case very serious.

I interrogate her some more and more alarming news comes to light.

'She doesn't own shit. Not one bit of property because all of it is in his fucking name. Should I go to–No, giving the case to Bruce is, I don't trust him to make this better. Dent is still a lawyer, but he's been missing since he got attacked by Falcone last year. Do they have a lawyer hero? Shoot, everything would be better if I were on Earth-616 or near that.'

Noticing that my mother is still looking at me with worried eyes, I sigh in exasperation. "Mother, I'm going to ask you a thing that would probably never be spoken again by a child of my age. Do you want to divorce him?"

She gasps lightly, "Of course not. I would never break this family apart like my father did–"

"Ok, ok, ok. I should rephrase," I hold up my arm when she becomes too excitable. "Disregard any of my feelings in this matter. Just… from your perspective, do you want to leave?"

It takes a while but I get a nod from her before, a few seconds later, she vocalizes it. "Yes." She says, voice full of guilt.

I give her a steady nod as I whisper, "Then don't worry about it. I'll support you the only I can."

A black line appears in the center of my vision. It is about thirty centimeters long and wide enough to miss it unless there is foreknowledge of its existence. Windflow travels through the initial portal like it's a vacuum, but merely passes through it like a funnel in the middle of the air.

I am not actively activating the portal, merely designating and locking this point in space as the location of the primary portal. The sheer vastness of the Batcave makes the whooing sound of the portal echo throughout my part of the cavernous area.

While Batman is away fighting crime and dealing with the Reaper, he lent me a portion of his cave to test the second phase of my powers on the caveat that I don't actively destroy stuff.

Speaking of, Bruce's Energy Meter came to my help three days earlier, which helped me quantify and categorize the energy consumption of my portals.

A Black Line this long spends about five-to-seven percent of my energy and maintaining it is negligible enough that I could do it for about three-to-five minutes. Not that means anything, since the only thing this line could do is distract a child for about an hour and a hardened criminal for a second.

But I'm not exactly looking for a viable combat ability. My purpose in such experimentation is to feel the connection between the portal and me.

Jake had regaled me with tales of his experiences with the portal, claiming to be able to feel a mysterious connection between himself and his metahuman ability. While that may be true for Jake, it certainly does not hold true for me.

Even now, as I weave both my hands and mind to create yet another Black Line, the image of an eye tearing through space brings nothing but a sense of impending catastrophe and… unwillingness.

Not sense per se… that it exists as a creature of thought or has a consciousness, but more like it has a set of parameters coded into its fundamental existence that is now blaring a word.

REJECT

It's rejecting any invitation I send, which makes it hard to even manually form a portal. Considering that I have far more urgent matters to attend to and that practicing automatic creation is far more relevant to my situation, I merely note down that the metahuman ability is rejecting me so far.

'I should probably ask Flash or Star Labs' help at some point. Would J'onn be able to help me here? Probably not. He has alien physiology and cosmic powers. God, I hope Cyborg turns out soon–Actually, scratch that. I'm still too weak for a freaking Parademon, much less the New God's main cronies.'

I file that thought on my to-do list before continuing on with my experiments. 

The secondary portal creation costs as much as the creation of the main portal, although that number will probably go up once I activate and widen it.

Once I have two black lines of energy present in the real world, the maintenance costs increase to about one-to-two percent per five minutes. Funny thing to note: The line facing me acts as an inward vacuum while the other side operates like a wind funnel or a very slant fan.

It doesn't do anything. It's just fun.

Anyway, the distance between portals has scaling energy costs. The further the secondary portal goes, the more my body feels like I just came out of a sauna. With what I have read on the meter, there's an increase of three-to-five percent per one meter of distance.

The farthest I have done in this week was five meters and that portal only existed for a second before snapping shut like a… snapping turtle.

"I need to up my analogy game." I mutter as I compile the notes I have written this past week on the paper I stole from the Justice League Headquarters.

•••

Portal Generation Breakdown:

Portal States: Black Line -> Active Eye

Exhaustion States: To Be Created

Current Optimum Length: 20-30 centimeters (Priority!)

Current Optimum Width: 10-40 centimeters (Priority!)

Number of portal generations before each exhaustion states: To Be Created

Primary/Main Portal: 

First portal to be created, currently unable to be created farther than one (1) meter away from self. Train yourself.

Initial Creation (Black Line): 6% with a standard deviation of ±1%, given the overall quantity of my total energy levels.

Maintenance (Black Line): Energy cost is negligible below five minutes. Costs unknown when longer than five minutes (Maybe 1%?), experiment more on this using Bruce's reading device.

Initial Widening (Active Eye): N/A

Maintenance (Active Eye): N/A 

•••

Secondary/Second Portal: 

A bridge portal to either deliver an object, an entity, or a part of oneself to another location. Designating and locking a space divests attention from the Main Portal's space lock. How to fix it? IDFK. Cannot open without Primary Portal.

Initial Creation (Black Line): 5% with a standard deviation of ±1%, given the overall quantity of my total energy levels. (Plus the costs of activating the main portal)

Maintenance (Black Line): 2% with a standard deviation of ±1%. This is including the cost of maintaining the Main portal.

Initial Widening (Active Eye): N/A

Maintenance (Active Eye): N/A

Other Remarks: Name superpower ASAP. Include a way to rapidly re-designate and lock secondary portal for maximum fun. Name moves and invent special moves.

•••

With what little control I have of my powers, I deem it wise to set up exhaustion states. Helpful both in the short run in terms of informing me basic energy information during combat situations or time sensitive scenarios without delving too much into my brain power; As well as in the long run with identifying a problem with my energy consumption and allowing me to be effective in compilations when I present my data to Bruce.

"Edmund!" A familiar voice disturbs my concentration as Dick runs towards me and wraps me in a delighted embrace.

He pulls back once he notices that I'm in the middle of something but still has a smile on his face as he says, "I missed you, dude!"

"That's gay." I say jokingly, earning a smack on the head. "Fine. Sorry. I miss you too."

He grabs both my shoulders and shakes it exuberantly. "Man… I actually thought that we would die to Freeze, but you!"

"But me!"

"Yes, you have powers. That's so cool!" Pride, joy and envy swirls in his eyes as he shakes me some more. "Can you show it to me?"

"Show you? Grab one." I snap my fingers at a table behind Dick.

A long metal table bedecked with fruits of various sizes and shapes rests in the center of the cavern area, waiting for me to finish my preliminary experiments.

"Hungry?" He asks, juggling three apples with practiced ease.

'What a showoff.'

"Throw it at me as fast as you can." I order, bending my knees and extending my arms. When he tilts at my request, I grin and shout. "Throw it like you mean it!"

With restrained curiosity, Dick grips an apple and throws it like a D-league pitcher. The apple soars through the air with a diagonal rotation before I conjure a Black Line that quickly opens up like an interdimensional eye. The contents of the eye is nothing but pure darkness that soon changes into that of a view of the back of Dick's head as the apple passes through the thirty-centimeter wide hole and emerges past the secondary portal in the same velocity as he had tossed it with.

The appearance of the portal surprises and delights Dick, which prevents him from seeing where the second portal leads. Only when the apple smashes against the nape of his neck does he feel its effect.

"Ah! Son of a!" Dick stumbles a few steps forward, hissing at the pain as he dust away the remnants of the crushed apple. "That was awesome! Can you do it again?"

I grin, "That's what the table's for!"