Beast of No Nation by Neckbeard_Satan

Who is up for some dark beast boy sı fic? one in which sı starts to explore the true potential of beastboys powers having a genetic archive of all multicellular fauna to ever exist on earths evolutionary history in the form of your power is truly broken no joke about it.

Words: 32k+

Links: https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/22389

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33665926/chapters/83665357

(A Beast Boy SI in a DC Universe where all Major DC Villains have read the Evil Overlord's List.)

Chapeter 1

It was my father's fault.

My father, and my father's father, and my grandfather's father before him. It was the fault of the lineage in which I was brought up. My great-grandfather, his picture hanging on the wall, garbed in military regalia as he was decorated for the fight he fought in the trenches of the First World War. A hero who falsified his age to fight for his country. My grandfather, following in his footsteps, fighting in the Second. 

Then, there was my father: a police officer.

His glory days as a Middleweight Kickboxing Champion died short due to an ill-fated injury and with it, his belief that he would ever hold a candle to his forebears. He often said that the stench of inadequacy followed him, and only a fool couldn't smell it. My grandfather and great-grandfather had medals, whilst he had a faded trophy and a small badge. Whereas their tales were filled with narrations of the greatest and worst parts of humanity, his daily reality was handing out tickets to snobby men in sports cars and delivering drunken, vomit-stained perps behind dull metal bars.

It was this stench of inadequacy that made him start to drink a lot. Swear a lot. Curse a lot. Sometimes, 'push too hard' and 'tap too much.'

He 'tapped' me and my mother one too many times and she said enough. The courts agreed. The scandal was large because he possessed celebrity status among his peers. Despite believing in his so-called stench of inadequacy, he was far from being that in his line of work. His records spoke for themselves. "Obsessively Diligent," was the term used to describe him by the Commissioner. The trial was wearisome, and even more so when his friends in the force found 'evidence' of my mother's 'hidden adultery.'

She lost everything and ran. I did not know what to think. My father bought me a Nintendo DS and a PlayStation 2 that year, so I did not have to think. Life moved on as it always did, sans one woman.

I did not hate him. No, not truly. There was not much to hate about him. Teaching me how to fire a gun when I was six was his way of showing that he wanted me safe and protected. Pushing me to enlist in numerous pseudo-military boot camps and ensuring I learned how to be a proper boy's scout was his way of saying that he wanted me to be independent. Enrolling me in a kid's boxing program from age seven, beating me with a belt when my grades slipped and ensuring I learned how to cook, cut my own hair, and fix my dislocated shoulder were all his ways of making me into a man.

Admittedly, I could have done without the endless rhetoric about duty, diligence, and the virtues of competent masculinity. The more I heard about 'duty' and 'discipline' the more I desired to subvert those concepts. The more he prevented me from games like Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty, the more I smuggled and played those games and found myself enthralled by them.

What would happen, truly, if I went out and stole a car?

Sane people would not think this. Even semi-insane people would realize that there was a significant difference between playing a video game about stealing a car, and doing it in reality. 

Like an infectious disease, I was soon consumed with thoughts of this and nothing else. The more I heard from my father's friends about the idiotic mistakes criminals made, the more I watched police shows and questioned in detail the criminal mind, the more the question burned at me: 

What would it be like to commit a crime?

Money was not my motivation. Neither was fun. 

In truth, I couldn't pin down a particular motivation for why I did it.

Maybe it was because he disapproved of all my friends and already had a journal set out for me to live the perfect life: the life he couldn't live. Maybe it was because I was never able to say "no" to the man to his face without flinching. Maybe it was because I was tired of him getting back home, drunk and irritated, only to force me to do a plank for thirty minutes and then 'motivate' me with his belt each time I failed to pass his draconian training.

Maybe it was because I knew where my father kept his gun and his ammunition, and on several occasions, when he'd lay passed out drunk in the living room, I'd stolen them and pointed the thing at the back of his head, with my index finger trembling around the trigger.

Maybe it was because I didn't want things to escalate that far.

At the end of the day, he was still my father.

I figured it'd be best to do something minor. I could handle a few weeks or months in a juvenile detention center if it came down to it. My father was a prideful man, and I knew, if it came down to it, he would sooner disown me than he would accept the fact that his flesh-and-blood had done something criminal. 

That was what made me do it. 

The small red Nissan was parked auspiciously on the side of an abandoned road, and I'd already practiced judiciously on how to hotwire a vehicle. The adrenaline pumping through my system as I jimmied the window and started the engine with a spark of two wires was almost unbelievable. 

I laughed. 

I'd committed a felony: Grand Theft Auto.

Despite the sweatiness of my palm and the racing tempo of my heartbeat, I found the entire experience thrilling.

I felt more alive at that moment than I ever had in my life.

That sense of thrill and the increasing adrenaline was what made me decide not to put on the seat belt. It was what made me decide to run that red light. 

It's all his fault, was what I told myself, as I saw the incoming fuel truck and heard its deafening horn blare.

It was my father's fault.

++++++

Ash and burnt rubber. Heated steel and charcoal. Paper and wood, crinkling and crackling. The dull hiss and snap of embers. A siren blared within the inside of my skull. Shockwaves danced like exotic strippers twerking their hips up and down. The ground was a palpitating heartbeat. Voices blended into the cacophony. Screams, roars, and grunts made music with thuds of bodies impacting against another.

Hip-hop music blended into the fold. Rap. Something about tits, ass, money, and drugs. Another line about starting from the bottom, being better than the best. A barb dismissing haters and calling them jealous. Rinse and repeat.

Eventually, my eyes opened wide. Bright fluorescent lights nearly blinded me, and I clutched my hands to my face in a disturbed, voiceless shriek. The ground was cold and it smelled of stale urea, cigarettes, and vomit.

With a jerk, I came to sit up, My body was heavy. My head was aching. There was something I was supposed to do today. A meeting? A luncheon? A date? I couldn't recall. I couldn't recall much of anything, save for the sound of a fire truck, and the sensation of smoke in my lungs, and flames licking away at my skin.

I removed my hand from my eyes and blinked once or twice more, to adjust to the brightness. Dull yellow walls and filthy bathroom tiles greeted me, along with the sight of several open stalls, with a horrid, filthy stench that almost made me retch. The rap music was coming from outside the bathroom.

Groggily, I got to my feet. My legs felt weaker than they should have been. My body felt weaker still. My clothes were ruffled, and they had the stink of a person who had not showered in a week, if not more. The dull purple hoodie and semi-ripped jeans were not something I believed I would wear. Ripped jeans were for delinquents and hooligans, and hoodies in the daytime were for people who had something to hide.

Just as quickly as the judgment arrived, did a judgment about the judgment arrive in tow. Where did that come from? I thought. Ripped jeans are for delinquents?

Slowly, I reached for my back pocket. A wallet could be found. The thing was faded and dirty, and opening it provided me with only a single ten-dollar note present within. At least, I believed it was a ten-dollar note. I'd never seen the face of the man on the bill, and even though I'd not lived or grown in the states, I was certain that this was not the face of the man who was supposed to be on the ten-dollar bill.

Something else, more prudent, caught my attention.

At first, I'd believed it to be a trick of the light, or my eyes not functioning properly, but it wasn't. I raised my hand up, closer towards the fluorescent light, and indeed, my eyes were not deceiving me.

My skin was green.

The shade was unusual. It wasn't sickly green, or toxic-green as one would expect of depictions of radioactive substances like uranium. It was a dark, forest-like type of green, which would not be out of place somewhere with such thick vegetation.

Immediately, I moved towards the nearest sink. Slowly, I turned the faucet on. The plumbing, thankfully, seemed to be intact. The cold water soothed my hands, and I began the process of trying to clean whatever body-paint that had stuck to my form.

It wasn't paint.

No matter how furiously I scrubbed, the green didn't wash off. I turned the faucet off, hearing how the music changed once more. Gone was the hip-hop rap, and in place was something I'd consider to be electronic music, devoid of lyrics entirely, and focusing mainly on a slow, gradual ascent to the beat-drop.

I reached for my wallet a second time. This time, I searched the sides for identification. Something did come up, as it would happen. A driver's license, strange as it were. One issued in a place called Jump City. More interesting than that was the name and picture on the license.

Garfield Logan, age seventeen.

The boy in the license had a wide, goofy-smile, smacked upon his face, and seemed devoid of worries. He seemed youthful, and, perhaps, maybe even handsome. However, there was no ignoring the same green skin and shaggy green hair.

The name Logan spoke out to me more strongly than the name Garfield . When I thought of Garfield, I thought of a cat. When I thought of Logan , I thought of a strong, competent man. I didn't know why these associations came with the names, but they did, and I could not understand them.

Two voices echoed from beyond the door. I looked around for a place to hide but found myself seconds too late. Two girls emerged, one clad in a dark leather miniskirt, with a tube-like top, and the other, in fishnet leggings, heels, shorts, and a short red dress.

"...and he was like so over me! Even when I told him that -" the girl with the miniskirt turned to me. Her lips curled into a snarl immediately. "Uh, hello , creep, this restroom is for girls!"

"I was -"

"Ew, ew, ew! I don't even want to know what you were doing in here!" The girl rattled off. "Get out! Out!"

My body began moving before she finished talking. I pushed my way past both girls and into an unlit corridor, where the sound of the electronic music only seemed to blare more loudly than before. 

The scent of something earthy hit my nostrils, as did the smell of cigarettes and acrid perfume. A boy and a girl were pressed against the wall, her legs wrapped around his, and his tongue exploring her mouth. An emancipated-looking man with dirty brown hair and several missing teeth could be seen in the corner, with a black cloak, scratching at his knuckles.

The man's eyes lit up as he saw me, and he approached, his gait almost anticipatory. "Well?" he said. "Top of the line stuff, right? Right?" 

"Do I… know you?"

The man wagged his finger, before barking a laugh. "I know my stuff is good, but it ain't that good, pal," he swung his arm over my shoulder.  "Rannian psychotropics, man. It's the best fucking thing. No fucking shit made on Earth can compete. LSD? Ayahuasca? Hell, even fucking DMT? None of it compares to a single hit from that good alien shit."

I took his hand off my shoulder. "I think you have me mistaken for someone else."

"You fucking serious?" He stared me in the eyes. His brows slowly raised. "Holy, shit, you're serious. They said the side-effects could dissociate you from reality, but fuck… you're looking like you've never seen me before."

"I haven't."

He rolled his eyes. "Riiiight. And I'm sure you're wondering why the fuck you suddenly woke up in the girl's toilet at a rave party."

A rave party? It explained the couple in the corridor, gyrating their hips at high speed, either unaware of their surroundings or too out of it to care. The loud music also started to make more sense. A sharp pain pierced the side of my head. I grimaced, and grabbed the sides.

"Listen, pal, I warned you 'bout the side-effects, but you still decided to take it, so that's not on me," he placed his hand on my shoulder. "But a deal's a deal. Sixty bucks a pill was the offer I gave you. But you're a funny guy, and you did a cool trick with stealing that bitch's necklace. So I sliced the price to fifty-five, cause I'm a nice guy."

His hand extended outward. "Seeing how I'm not a total asshole, and seeing as how you're so out of it, I'll slice the price down to fifty, and even help you out a bit with some info. How about that?"

I looked down at his hand and then looked straight back at him. "I'll pass, thanks."

"Hah, you're a real funny dude, man," the skinny man said. "Real funny. But this ain't the time for jokes. Fifty-bucks. Cough it up."

"What sort of dealer doesn't collect payment before dishing out his product?" I pushed his hand aside. 

"A gambling one," the man shrugged. "Folks get hooked on the stuff and come running back to buy it at whatever price I offer. I reckon the same'll happen to you, if you don't wanna kick the bucket, that is. Which is why you really ought to cough up that fifty bucks now and set the standard price. You just might find out it costs a hundred times more when you really need it."

"Thanks, but I think I can do without it."

The dealer snorted. "Riiiight. The only thing stronger than Rannian psychotropics are Psionic hallucinogens. But sure, you're going to be the lucky fella who is resistant to chemically engineered drugs from advanced alien civilizations. Yep, that's you alright."

The emancipated man patted me on the shoulder.

"Well, pal, when the itch gets too bad and your head feels like splitting open a thousand fucking ways, you know where to find me," he jerked both fingers at me in a finger-gun gesture. "Oh, and when you show up, be sure to come with at least five grand. Else I ain't gonna have anything to say to you."

"Wait," I stopped him.

"Oh? Change your mind, did you?"

"What do you mean by advanced alien civilizations?"

The dealer looked me over. He opened his coat, which was filled with numerous different pockets and several different sachets with more varied colored pills than a kaleidoscope. He emerged one sachet from his pocket, and examined it.

"Must be a bad batch," he muttered under his breath. "Or a really fucking good batch, now that I think about it."

"What?"

The dealer turned back to me. "Say… what's the last thing you remember?"

"Waking up in the girls toilet and…" A sharp pain pierced my skull. "...burning alive in a car accident."

The dealer whistled. "Yep. This batch is fuckin' gold." He returned the drug to his pocket, and gestured his hand open. "Thirty bucks, and I'll catch you up to speed."

"You know what," I slapped his hand aside. "Get lost."

The dealer laughed, flipping me the bird with both hands. "You'll come back for me sooner or later, pal," He turned around. "They always fuckin' do."

He exited the corridor, and left me standing in the darkness, with only the vague sound of soft grunts and moans entering into my ears. The couple pressed up against the wall had given up all sense of pretense and were now going at it with more passion than before.

My nose furrowed in distaste. The girl's eyes, rolling in pleasure, turned to me, her tongue slowly running against her upper lip, before the front of her teeth came down on her lower lip, and she moaned even louder, pointedly, and intentionally looking me in the eyes as she did so.

I exited the corridor with more haste than was probably needed. Out from the corridor, I emerged upon what was clearly the heart of the party. The dark room was filled with possibly hundreds of dancing teens, bathed in flashing strobe lights, twirling and moving in tandem with the beat of loud electronic music. The sounds from the speakers forced me to clamp both my hands against my ears and make my way forward, unsteadily, into the massive crowd of teenage party-goers.

Making my way without bumping into people was an impossible task. I could not ignore the overwhelming stench of alcohol, sweat, and so many differing perfumes. Even worse was a particular smell that I'd never known before, the same type of smell that'd been wafting off the couple in the corridor, and it was almost suffocating.

Out of the corner of my eye, I found the dealer, casually and subtly handing over pills in exchange for roughly folded cash to a group of girls. He wasn't the only one. Three to five others, moved about, in some pretense of dancing, and conducting their business with overly smug smiles.

Vaguely, I wondered how no one had reported any of it so far.

Someone bumped straight into me. It was a girl, blonde, with dull grey eyes and flushed cheeks. She hiccuped once or twice, before looking me straight in the eyes. "Hey, handsome, wanna dance?"

"You're drunk."

"And you're a meta," she giggled. "Never done it with a meta before. Is it really like in the vids?" Her finger trailed down my chest. "Endless stamina to go all night and then some?"

I chose my words carefully. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Oh, I would, " she rasped. "But my boyfriend is such a fucking bummer. He'd probably kill you if I did."

"He can try."

The girl giggled. "Something about that just makes me feel hot all over," she pushed me away softly. "But sorry, lover-boy. I'd hate to be the reason you lose that cute little face."

She departed, just as suddenly as she'd arrived, blending into the crowd as though the encounter had never happened. 

What are the odds you've just been swindled, boy?

I jerked around, searching for the source of the voice. It took me a full second to realize the voice had come from within my own head. The authoritative voice was familiar , enough so that it almost made me stand at attention and bark out, Sir!

A single second later, my brain caught up with the words, and my hand went to my back pocket on sheer instinct.

My wallet was no longer in it.

Something swirled from within my gut and rushed to my chest, making it feel strangely hot. The heat soared into my lungs and began licking at my throat, and the urge to growl came from out of nowhere. I should have known. Party girls were not to be trusted.

I taught you better, boy!

The wallet had only ten dollars in it, but it wasn't the money that mattered, regardless of how little it was. The identification on it mattered far more. It was the only thing I had on me that could explain… anything .

Gritting my teeth, I made my way through the crowd and tried to find the girl. My eyes shot left and right, but with so many people and bodies dancing and the darkness of the dim lighting, it was a futile task.

The girl was gone, as was my sole means of identification.

Pathetic, boy. You're simply pathetic.

I grit my teeth hard enough to feel it in my bones.

To be so easily made a fool by a hole with a pretty face. You're a fucking disgrace.

"Shut up."

"Excuse me?"

I'd only just taken notice of where I was. A huge, tall, cacausian dude stood in front of me, with a small gang of others. He wore a black t-shirt and had a silver chain across his neck, was bald and had more muscle on his form than I had solutions to my current predicament.

"I wasn't talking to you."

"Sure sounded like it," the man eyed me up and down. "...Fuckin' metahumans," he spat to the side. "You tryin' to start some shit?"

"I already said I wasn't talking to you."

"So who else are you —" 

Are you going to run, boy? The voice returned. Run like your cowardly mother? I thought I raised a son, not a fuckin' pussy.

" Shut up. "

Only a second later, did I remember where I was.

"I wasn't talking to yo —"

The impact rattled the side of my skull. Was it a fist? Was it a bat? I didn't know. I couldn't tell what I'd been struck with, only that I'd been struck. The world spun, the music got louder, my body crashed against the ground.

"Fucking piece of shit!"

Then came the feet. I cuddled up to a ball defensively, attempting to mitigate the damage to my face. He wore heavy duty boots, and each kick felt like I'd been struck by a hammer.

Fight back, boy! The voice roared. Fight back! I didn't raise a fucking quitter! I didn't raise no god-damned bitch! 

I attempted to grab onto the leg kicking me. The first attempt missed, scoring a brutal kick to the side of my face. The second resulted in a stomp that broke one or two of my teeth. At the third, I caught the foot.

"You fucking green little —"

Left, then right, in a sharp jerk, roll, then rise. The fucker's ankle was in my grasp and I watched him hop around with his one good leg. He shot out with what was possibly the most telegraphed kick I'd ever seen in my entire life, and I swayed my head back, watching him miss entirely, before crashing into the ground like a total fucking tool.

His ankle was still in my grasp, and, in that moment, my body moved on instinct.

"YOU FUCKER!"

Markus, one of my buddies, whose dad also happened to be a cop, had been stupidly obsessed with wrestling and MMA. After another argument wherein I kept pointing out how WWE was fake, we decided to settle things inside the ring.

He'd somehow managed put me in a stupid little ankle lock, used by his 'idol' Kurt Angle, and I remembered how much it hurt like a fucking bitch. He made me tap out just to prove a point, that even if most of the stories and conflicts were fake, a lot of wrestling moves could be used successfully in a fight. The odds of success went up significantly, so long as you were fighting someone didn't have fucking clue as to how to fight, or someone you knew wasn't as good a fighter as you were.

I remembered him telling me that if used by someone with enough strength, and done a bit wrongly, there was a pretty good chance you could break the other person's ankle with a measly, funny-looking ankle-lock.

I decided to test that theory. 

The sound of bone being snapped was muted over by the beat of electronic drums. The screams were not.

"AAAARGH!"

Everything from that point on was a vague blur. All I knew was that I was rushed by about three, maybe four people. None of them were trained. Sure, they looked like they'd actually been in a couple of fights, but not like I had. One guy closed his eyes when I threw a straight at him. Another, a girl, probably thought I wouldn't deck her in the chest despite her trying to slap me. She'd be kissing people with the new gap in her teeth from now on.

"Who the fuck is this guy?!"

"I don't know!"

"Someone call security!"

"There isn't any fucking security!"

More people joined in the fight. I couldn't tell who was friend or who was foe, and I let my fists be the one to make the distinction. Some people went down with a single punch. Others took as good as they gave. I wasn't sure how many hits I took, through the slowly accumulating pile of knocked out bodies. I could feel the pain, but I couldn't feel the pain.

I'd felt far worse.

My old man hit far, far worse.

I was tired. I was sweaty. I was panting, but yet, through it all, I was grinning. No, my lips were actively moving. I was laughing — laughing, like a crazed, deluded madman.

Somewhere, in the back of my throat, I felt the urge to roar, 'ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!'

And I would have done it, too.

Had someone not struck me over the back of the head with something large and metal, I probably would have done it, and done so proudly. As it was, I couldn't withstand the impact of what was probably a fire extinguisher to the back of the head, if not a metal bat. The world around me began to sway as the electronic music throbbed through my skull, and a dogpile of bodies was created to pin me down.

The voice in the back of my head was finally silenced, replaced only with a short, empty laugh from a voice I did not recognize as mine.

You did good, boy.

The voice said, as it faded along with my consciousness.

You did good.

+++++++

The smell of antiseptic was the first thing I could smell as I woke up. It was overpowering. Nauseating and excessive to the point I forcibly jerked awake, scrunched my nose up, and tried to cover my nostrils with both hands. Doing so immediately ripped out an intravenous connection, and created a clatter of noise with the sound of the IV stand almost toppling over my bed.

My hand shot out on instinct, stopping the stand and holding it in place. A sharp pain traveled throughout my skull, and forced me to grasp it tightly. Everything was fuzzy. 

"Oh dear, be careful!"

The smell of antiseptic grew stronger. There was a woman in the room with me, with dull brown hair wearing large yellow rubber gloves and moving about a mop bucket. The hospital housekeeper — don't call them janitors, boy, it's disrespectful — walked up to me, and carefully adjusted the stand meant for IV medication.

"I'll go get a nurse!"

Once more, a sharp pain rushed through my head. I grasped my head again, this time, I realized it was heavily bandaged, and merely touching it was causing me even more pain than before. My lips felt incredibly dry and my throat felt suddenly parched.

"Everything… hurts…"

"As it should."

The voice came from the left of the room. I hadn't noticed the man there, prior to any of this. No, it would be better to say that the man just appeared there, with his long blue overcoat, yellow shirt and blue tie, cap, and most notably, and disturbingly —

"You… don't have a face." 

"A remarkably astute observation, Garfield."

The faceless man walked across the room, approaching me, and extending his hand outwards. Slowly, and oddly , I took it and shook it.

"Tell me, what do you know of Superman?"

"Um… what?"

"Superman," the faceless man repeated. "The Man of Steel. Perhaps, the Man of Tomorrow."

"I know who Superman is," I answered. "I don't think there's a kid alive who doesn't —"

"Is he real?"

"What do you mean is he real? " I scrunch my nose. "Superman's a comic book character —" 

"Ah, I see," the faceless man turned around. "...So it is indeed as I suspected. It was neither the toothpaste fluoride nor the actions of the splinter group of FreeMasons, but the Rannians of Alpha Centauri."

"What do you… ugh… "

My head was splitting. Images were pouring in and out of my mind, faster than I could comprehend them. I stared at my green skin, and once again, tried to make sense of it. The surreality of the fact that I had green skin was somehow just starting to seep in. The memories of the car-crash came back, and the world around me felt too hot to be comfortable.

Relax, you've always had green skin.

I sucked my breath in sharply.

Yeah, you have green skin because you're the awesome superhero called — 

"Catharsis, Garfield," the faceless man turned to me once more. The surreality of there being a man without a face did not stun me as much as I felt it should. I didn't know why. It was as if this were a normal occurrence to me, even though it really, really should not.

"...what?"

"A Rannian psychotropic," the faceless man said. "Made from the flowers of the Black Mercy. Powerful. Dangerous. Capable of erasing entire personalities and implanting falsified memories. Meditations of First Philosophy. The solidified justification of the need for Cartesian skepticism. Brains kept not in a vat, but in an existence procedurally generated from an infinite pool of alternate realities."

"Slow down, I don't —" I closed my eyes. "...I must be dreaming. This… this is just a really weird dream."

"Problematically, given the state of our current reality, that hypothesis just may be true," the faceless man continued. "Yet, the true truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in an emergent synthesis which reconciles the two."

"Listen, sir, my head really hurts, and you're not making any sense right now," I held the side of my head. "Who are you?"

"Who am I?" the faceless man seemed to chuckle. "Yes… that is it. All of the complexities of my current dilemma, bottled down into three simple words to which the answers may either drive us both insane or make us realize the sheer absurdity of our existence in this universe. Who am I, truly?"

The faceless man placed his hands into his pockets.

"The answer is the Question."

"I don't unders —"

The doors swung open. A nurse emerged, with dull brown hair, she looked tired and haggard, and as though she'd rather be anywhere but here. She held a tablet in her arms, and shot her gaze around the room, before settling her tired eyes on me. 

"Who are you talking to?"

"I was talking to —"

Where the mysterious faceless man once stood, there was now no one. Nothing. The window to my left was open, a gust of breeze rushed into the hospital room, and left me feeling far more confused than I ever had been before.

"You were struck on the back of the head with a steel pipe," the nurse said. "You very likely have a concussion. Lay back down, and try not to make my job any more difficult for me."

Well, someone's prickly.

"We weren't able to find any identifying info on you," the nurse rattled off. "And the individuals who dropped you off with us declined to leave any contact information."

"That's —"

"Our hospital follows the mandate set by the Department of Metahuman Affairs to run the bloodwork and prints on all hospitalized metas, in the ever unlikely advent that a supervillain decides to seek assistance from public healthcare —" She tapped on her tablet numerous times. "Your bloodwork and bio data doesn't fall under any known criminal databases, no surprise. A facial scan did tell us who you are though, I mean, it's not like there are that many people with green skin alive to begin with."

She tapped further on the tablet.

"Garfield Logan, codename Beast Boy, a superhero member of the Doom Patrol," she said. "At least, so it says here, before you were forcibly retired from the group following the Anti-Child Vigilante Bill."

" Are you finished?"

The nurse continued tapping her board. "You currently have no parents or individuals who hold guardianship status over you. If you weren't a metahuman, I'd have immediately called Social Services. As you are a Metahuman, I called for an agent of the DMA instead. They're apparently flying in from DC and will be here in a matter of hours."

"You… what? "

"It's not my place to tell you how to live your life, but, Mr. Garfield, ingesting copious amounts of drugs is not it," the nurse stared at me sternly. "Your system was filled with everything under the sun from crack cocaine to marijuana. So many drugs, many of which are extremely illegal and others are completely alien. The only reason you're even alive is because your own organs were shapeshifting to prevent the worst of the damage. Were you literally anyone else, you would long be dead."

Drugs? Me?  

"I don't do drugs."

"Your blood test results would claim otherwise," the nurse sighed. "Listen, Mister Garfield, I've had a long day. This hospital is understaffed because everyone has a hard-on for Metropolis and Central City. For whatever reason, so many of your kind decided Jump City is the best place to go for spring break, endless raves and sex orgies."

"My kind?" I frowned. "Metahumans?"

" Teenagers ," the nurse dryly responded. "I've been working an eighteen-hour shift and I swear to god, if I have to pump out another stomach full of drugs or deal with another kid having a psychotic breakdown from snorting alien nose-candy, I will shoot myself in the head and end my misery."

There was a brief moment of silence. The nurse stood there, panting, clutching at her board, with her hair appearing even more frazzled than it was before. I counted to six, before clearing my throat.

"Gotten it out of your system?"

"A little bit," she exhaled. "I'm sorry —"

"Stressful job," I nodded. "I get it."

She gave me a flat look. "You're also part of the problem, Mister Garfield."

"Call me Logan," I said. "Also, I don't do drugs."

"As I've said —"

"Also, my name is Logan Johnson," I said. "I've never been to Jump City. I don't know what the hell a Doom Patrol is, and I... barely remember how I got here."

The nurse stopped all at once, giving me an incredibly morose look. She looked almost as though I just told her that I had cancer. That I was dying.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," the nurse slowly said. "But you have memories of being someone else and think you've died and have been reincarnated into a different body."

A cold creeping feeling entered my chest. "How did you know that?"

"That's one of the major symptoms of a very popular alien drug," her expression was bitter. "We've had about two-dozen different people come in just last month, all claiming to have died and been reincarnated. The JCPD Detectives got involved. The only thing linking those people was that drug."

"No, no," I chuckled. "I'm sure I'm not —"

"It was an accident."

My lips were dry. "...what?"

"Your 'death'," the nurse repeated. "It was in some sort of accident. On the road? It was a car, or you were hit by some sort of truck you didn't see coming?"

I didn't answer. I remembered the truck. The flames, licking and melting away at my skin.

"It's one of the things everyone who's taken the drug has in common." 

"That doesn't mean —"

"And this 'world' you came from," the nurse continued. "Superheroes and metahumans don't exist. They're only in movies and comics, but not in real life."

I could feel my heartbeat beginning to quicken. "That's just — you can't be telling me that I —"

"Mister Garfield, I'm telling you this because you were once a hero, so you need to know," the nurse said. "Everyone who's taken that drug became addicted to it and committed suicide."

I felt as though a bucket of cold water was dumped over me. "What?"

"They were convinced this wasn't their reality and that their entire lives, their real lives were the ones they'd seen while under the influence. They ended up tracking down the dealers to get the drug and try to 'return' back to their 'original world.' Some succeeded, overdosed and died. Others didn't, and opted to instead kill themselves, somehow convinced it would 'send them back.'"

A cold chill ran through my spine.

"What sort of dealer doesn't collect payment before dishing out his product?" 

"A gambling one. Folks get hooked on the stuff and come running back to buy it at whatever price I offer. I reckon the same'll happen to you, if you don't want to kick the bucket, that is."

No. 

No-no-no-no-no.

"There has to be some sort of mistake."

"Mister Garfield —"

"You're trying to tell me," I was struggling to keep my voice calm. "That my entire life , all my memories, everything I've been through, isn't… real? It's all just a drug trip? "

She gave me a sad, almost pitying look. "I'm sorry."

"I don't believe it," I said. "I remember my life, vividly — "

"What country were you from?"

I snapped my head back to her. "What?"

"Most people could recall a lot of personal and intimate moments, but couldn't tell you general details about this 'world.' Like, the name of the country they came from or even the town they grew up in."

"It was —"

There was suddenly a gap in my memory.

I knew I hadn't been American. At least, I was fairly sure of it. I'd often make jokes online about things like their weird obsession with guns and general craziness that came with their expensive healthcare, so I knew I came from a European country, and my grandpa had fought in World War II, but we weren't British — 

I…

A sinking feeling entered my stomach.

I can't remember the name of my own country?

"How about the year?" the nurse tried again.

"It was —"

Again, my mind was blank.

What… what year had it been?

The nurse approached me closer, and this time, despite how tired her eyes were, I could see the compassion within it.

"I'm sorry, Mister Garfield."

Slowly, I pushed my hands to my face and tried as hard as I could to not freak out.

"Do you have a phone I can borrow?"

The nurse reached for her pocket. She extended the device to me, and immediately, I could feel a new headache start to come on. I'd never seen any phone designed like this in my entire life. It looked oddly like an iPhone, but lacked the distinctive feel of being needlessly expensive or unnecessarily thin. I could have mistaken it for any generic android mass-produced on the market place, but the glass and quality were far too good for that to have been the case.

"I've never... seen a make like this before."

"It's Territech. My roommate got it for me recently."

Slowly nodding, I swiped on the screen and stared, in slow confusion, at the fact that I could not recognize a single app on the thing, besides the Calculator, Music Player and File Manager. Everything else had names I didn't know. There was no Tinder, Facebook, no Twitter or Instagram. I couldn't even find Google , which, at the very least should have been the one thing present.

The only thing I could find was something called LexSearch , with a curved 'L-S' logo embedded into it. Tapping on the icon did eventually bring me to a landing page resembling what a search engine should look like.

I typed in the word 'Google.'

As instantly as I'd hit the search button, the answers came up. A link to a shopping site selling goggles, trends about eyewear and eye-fashion. Then, at the top of the page, the words:

Did you mean: Goggle

I settled back into the hospital bed, feeling far more weightless than I'd ever been before. 

Google does not exist.

This has to be some sort of sick dream.

Rapidly erasing the word, I tried something else. 'Facebook' brought me to literal images of faces on books, or of cartoon books wrapped on faces, and 'Twitter' brought me to the definition of the word, along with image recommendations for bird-watching. 

I started typing in other terms. Steve Jobs . iPhone . Apple Inc —

Nothing.

I tried ' Microsoft' and then moved on to 'Bill Gates'.

The first directed me to porn pictures of flacid tiny penises, and the second got me nothing .

As a joke, I once said that the fastest way to know if you were in another world was to check if Amazon and Google existed. With shaky fingers, I slowly typed in the word 'Amazon.'

The first link was a website for the Themysciran Embassy to the United States of America. Coming to terms with what I was seeing, I tapped further on the link. It opened instantly. There, on the front page, was the Themysciran Ambassador, shaking hands with the President of the United States.

The Themyscirian Ambassador, Diana of Themyscira.

Or, as anyone who grew up with knowledge of pop culture knew her —

Wonder Woman.

Against my better nature, I laughed.

+++++++++++++

The nurse had come by, along, apparently, with one of the only few remaining Doctors in Jump City General Hospital, Dr. Mikel. I could tell from his foreign accent he wasn't American, and there was no hiding his displeasure in treating me. I didn't care. I could barely pay attention to him, or anything else.

I sat there, in the hospital room, and watched as day turned into evening. The nurse did eventually tell me that the DMA agent who was supposed to have shown up for me ended up caught in the aftermath of some supervillain battle, their helicopter went down, and they were killed. Somehow, she didn't sound surprised that it happened. Nor did she sound shocked. If anything, all she sounded was irritated.

Another agent would come my way, but it'd take a while. The airspace was currently not safe to travel. She'd ended up putting on the TV I didn't even realize was in my room, with how thin it was, and I discovered there that some guy called Weather Wizard was creating thunderstorms throughout the entire East Coast. That was also how I learned that Jump City was located on the West Coast, which, I suppose, was information that would come in handy later.

Her shift did eventually end, and another nurse came in, this one being slightly less irritable than the one before her, if somewhat more nonchalant. She was younger, too, with dull blonde hair and pink bubblegum occasionally popping in her lips, you wouldn't believe she was a nurse were it not for the outfit. An outfit, which, I could swear, was a bit shorter and tighter than the nurse that came before her.

"Betty," she introduced herself with a single word, and proceeded to begin her rounds without further interaction.

 I settled for leaning back against the bed and idly flicking through channels on the TV. None of the channels on it were ones I knew. No BBC, no CNN, not even Aljazeera of all weird things.

" And this is Vicki Vale coming to you live from Gotham City, where Poison Ivy has taken over the site of Gotham City's newly approved nuclear power plant, citing the lackluster disposal of environmental waste as the cause of her recent act of ecoterrorism — "

Click.

" ...the grand re-opening! That's right folks! In honor of Central City's finest we will once again be celebrating the award for 'Safest City in America' with our beloved hero and guardian, The Flash — "

Click.

"... Menace! Nothing but glorified menaces to society!"

I blinked. Jameson?

It wasn't him. Rather, it was a balding man with strange sideburns, angrily talking to a show host. There seemed to be another woman there, with a sharp nose and make-up in a red gown, she looked like the kind of woman who'd ask to see the Manager in a McDonalds — only richer.

" That's hardly an accurate assessment, " a man on the left side, with a buzz-cut and pair of glasses spoke up. " Superheroes have proven to be a beneficial force in our society, and the Justice League have in fact kept us safe from intergalactic threats."

" And that gives them permission to be above the law? " the snooty-looking woman said. " If it were not for the Anti-Child Vigilante Bill proposed by Senator Luthor, these so-called 'heroes' would have continued conscripting children into their forces in the name of training them to uphold justice!"

The man on the left tried not to grimace. " Understandably there were public concerns regarding such actions —"

" Hah! Public concerns! That's a rather euphemistic thing to call nation-wide protests! " the man with the side-burns said. " You clearly don't have a child, Mr. Andrews. If you did, you'd have joined us in march against the rising trend of glorified child-soldiers in costumes. It's a shame that lunatic in Gotham got away with grooming four different kids to fight hardened criminals before our sensible Senator saw fit to propose that bill."

"Groomed is a rather strong word, " the buzz-cut man said. " That aside, the Justice League has already issued an apology on behalf of the public —"

"And you think it somehow makes it okay?!" the woman shrieked. "Adopting orphans off the street, training them to be soldiers and turning them into miniature versions of themselves to fight their enemies? If this were done by anyone else, we'd be outraged! Horrified!"  

"I heard there were plans for there to be some sort of giant tower in Jump City, " the side-burned man continued. "Can you imagine it? An entire city, protected by just a handful of children? Children meant to be in schools, focusing on finding themselves, being trained to go out daily and fight criminals and protect civilians? Do you know what seeing a dead body does to a man? Can you imagine what sort of psychological damage it'd have done to those kids? The long-term ramifications?"

" I heard, " Mr. Andrews said. "Mayor Samuels shot down the idea of superhero presence in his city."

" A wise man, " the snooty woman huffed. " Honestly we'd all be better off in such a case. Senator Luthor is already funding a vast majority of law enforcement across the country out-of-pocket, and our trained men and women in blue are more than capable of handling street-level crime than a group of children in colorful costumes ever will —"

The TV shut off with a click. I hadn't been the one to turn it off. Beside me, Nurse Betty stood, with the remote in her hand.

"I was watching that."

"You shouldn't," she said. "They're all just Luthor-shills anyway."

"Luthor-shills?"

She nodded, then placed the remote down. "LexCorp owns about eighty percent of all news channels and stations in the country through various subsidiaries. The debates are set up in a way to make it look like they're arguing in good faith… but they're not. They're all designed to make you think and believe what Senator Luthor wants you to think and believe."

I gave the nurse a strange look. "And you feel otherwise?"

"I like to think for myself."

"And what do you think," I asked. "...About teen superheroes?"

Nurse Betty paused for a second. I could just tell she was recalling something.

"...When I was a teenager, I was a stupid, dumb, horny, vindicious little girl," she admitted. "I did a lot of things I regret. If I had superpowers? I'd have a lot more regret. If I had to fight villains and criminals while battling all those hormones and thoughts at the same time? There'd be too much regret for one life."

I wasn't sure what to say to that.

"You'll probably be able to get discharged tomorrow," Nurse Betty continued. "Your healing rate is ridiculously fast. Lucky you."

"I don't feel all that lucky."

"Considering you have me as your nurse, you just might be right."

The words were cryptic, and I couldn't tell what they were meant to imply.

"It was a joke," Nurse Betty said. "Get some rest, Garfield."

"Wait," I called. "Do you have a phone I could borrow?"

Nurse Betty slowly tilted her brow. She reached for her pocket, and emerged another android-esque type phone with a brand name and design I could not recognize.  "...there are easier ways to ask for my phone number, you know."

"That's not why —"

"That, too, was a joke."

She turned around.

"Try not to drain the battery."

I watched the nurse walk away, with a sway in her hips that either wasn't there and I was down bad, or that was, and was fully intended. Either way, I pushed those thoughts aside, and opened, once more, to the main search engine.

It was LexSearch once more.

Hesitantly, I typed in 'Anti-Child Vigilante Bill.'

A wiki-like site called Lexipedia was the number one result. I was liking this less and less. I searched, instead, for forum posts about it, scrolling further down and down until I got to what looked like an answer-asking forum, and an entry that was dated two years ago.

TOPIC: Have things gotten better with the ACV Bill?

>By PleaseStepOnMeWonderWoman, 10:39AM, Sept 1, 20XX

Two months ago, Senator Alexander Luthor pushed the Anti-Child Vigilante bill which made it illegal for caped vigilantes to be under the age of eighteen. Any Justice League member found or reported to be accompanied by or in possession of a 'sidekick' could now be tried in court for Child Endangerment with potential charges for Child Labor and be forced to pay a fine of up to two-point-five million dollars, as well as face possible jail time of three to five years.

Similarly, anyone under the age of eighteen who willingly chooses to become as a vigilante can now be arrested and will be sent to a Juvenile Detention Center until their eighteenth birthday, at which point they'll serve not more than one years jail time for Vigilantism and Reckless Endangerment.

I don't know how Luthor managed to get people to agree to this. The charges make no sense, and yet somehow more than half the country agreed to let it happen?

Is this bill truly necessary? Will things get better with less heroes on the streets? With less people being trained to fight crime? What do you guys think?

Re: Have things gotten better with the ACV Bill?

>By SupermanOwesMeCarInsurance, 10:42AM, Sept 1, 20XX

Hell yes, it was necessary. My kids have only just finally given up the ridiculous ideal of wanting to be superheroes. They aren't the only ones either. According to THIS article, the number of general attempts of kids doing stupid stuff to try and get superpowers has cut down by almost seventy-percent. Guess they figured there's no point in trying to be a hero only to go to jail for it.

Luthor's no saint, for sure, but he had the right idea with this one.

Re: Have things gotten better with the ACV Bill?

>By EndSuperSluts69, 10:44AM, Sept 1, 20XX

Are we still discussing this? The whole idea of sidekicks was fucking stupid from the get go. You really want your first responder to be some brat in skin-tight clothes? Lol. Just admit you're a fucking pedo and be done with it.

Re: Have things gotten better with the ACV Bill?

>By FlashFangirl, 10:45AM, Sept 1, 20XX

I mean, it's not like the sidekicks ever did any of the heavy lifting, right? To be honest, I personally wouldn't mind being trained by Superman or the Flash intimately… but if I was made to do it from like age nine or ten, um, that'd be… kind of inappropriate.

So… yeah, this one stays.

Re: Have things gotten better with the ACV Bill?

>By D_Enlightened1, 10:46AM, Sept 1, 20XX

ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL MASTERPLAN BY LUTHOR! DON'T YOU GUYS SEE IT?!

He just gave more work to the JL by preventing younger heroes from being heroes! Now they'll have their hands busy with small fry while at the same time having to deal with big fry! Lex doesn't care about kids, it's about keeping the JL dragged down with extra work!!!

Wake up sheeple!

Lex is a villain! Everything he does serves his own interest!

Re: Have things gotten better with the ACV Bill?

>By BrightestDay, 10:50AM, Sept 1, 20XX

No one forced these kids to become heroes. They chose this path by themselves, and the JL sought it necessary to try and give them guidance. If anything, not giving them the guidance they need or a place to vent out their frustrations is just asking for trouble.

Senator Luthor is a smart man. Smarter than me, you, and probably smarter than all of us in this forum. There's no way he didn't know this. Not to sound like the conspiracy buff above me, but yeah, this entire bill is misguided. I don't think the point of it was about stopping child vigilantes. 

At the same time, I'm a Gotham native, and I can't deny that the idea of seeing a kid my daughter's age go up against someone like the Joker or Scarecrow fills me with dread. These are sick bastards, who should never ever be anywhere near children, trained or otherwise.

Maybe if they have powers, I'm willing to let it be… but children with no powers and just ordinary hand-to-hand combat training really have no business putting their lives in the line of fire. Some of them may choose to have done this of their own will, but it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, living in a country where someone whose voice still cracks is convinced that risking their life on a daily basis is the best thing they can contribute to society.

I'd personally argue the bill should only apply to non-superpowered teenagers, but that just opens up a whole nother can of worms.

Page [1] of… 201…

"Find what you're looking for?"

Nurse Betty returned, and I checked the time. It'd been at least two hours since I started scrolling the forum, reading more and more in depth arguments for, against, and in-between.

I handed her phone over to her. "...Sort of."

She grabbed the phone back, and scrolled through it. "Wow. You really didn't put your number in."

"I don't have a phone," I said. "Or a phone number to give."

"Guess we can correct that, tomorrow," she said. "Once Dr. Mikel discharges you."

"You sound pretty sure he will."

"He doesn't like metahumans much," she responded. "Says the differences in your idiosyncratic physiologies makes it a nightmare to work with and changes all the rules and common sense of modern medicine."

"It… does?"

Nurse Betty nodded. "He once found an entirely new strain of the bubonic plague within a metahuman in Russia. One completely resistant to all known antibiotics. Could have wiped out the country if it spread."

Cautiously, I asked. "And he cured it?"

"He did."

"How?"

Nurse Betty made a finger-gun at my head. "Pop."

"That's another joke… right?"

"There's a reason he isn't in Russia anymore."

Once more, I didn't know what to say to that.

"Get some rest, Garfield," she said, for the second time. "You'll need it."

Nurse Betty exited the room, and I lay there, on the hospital bed, pondering about the nature of the world I was in, the chilling realization that I could neither recall the name of my home or of my own nation, and that I was now in a world of villains and heroes, gods and monsters —

And this, apparently, would be my new reality.

Had I not the willpower needed to calm myself, I would have thrown my head back — 

And screamed.