Millennium Man #14
"Regina Darling"
(Millennial Boy Act I)
by Jacob Milnestein

Earth #746365...

"Farewell my fiendish foes! I would stay to make sure that your deaths are as truly torturous as I have oft imagined, but, I have a curious premonition that the world may soon be in need of a new ruler and I have a hunch that I'm just the fellow to fill such a role!"

He threw his head back in laughter, his long hair of perfect black dancing beneath the hood of his silver robes as the wind howled through the devastated body of the craft and the roar of the failing engines spluttered outside the windows.

"Curse you, Silver Shadow, have you no sense of human decency?"

The laughter stopped as his eyes focused on the struggling form of the costumed hero before him, straining at the Millenniumite bonds that prevented him from escaping.

"I'm afraid not, Millennium Man...or should I say...Bruce Todd?" A cruel smile crept upon the villain's face as he watched the eyes of his hostage nemesis widen in shock. "That's right, Mister Todd, I now know your real identity," His own gaze fell to the bleeding body of the young man with the unruly hair laying unconscious next to Millennium Man. "Your idiot sidekick Millennial Boy was more than accommodating in informing me as to all of your secrets.once I showed him the still beating heart of his own beloved grandfather!"

The hero turned away, tears forming in his startling eyes.

"You bastard, Shadow.how could you? Lord Omega was one of the greatest heroes of the Historic Era...and now you have deprived us all of such an inspirational man."

The Shadow's lips curled in anger.

"Enough!" He snarled. "Omega is dead and very soon so will you be! Even as we speak my Ghostface Army marches upon the various capitals of the world's nations and seizes control in my name. Soon no one will recall you, Todd or your era as World President - from now on the world will worship me!"

"They'll never worship you," Millennium Man whispered. "Because they'll never respect you. You're just a crook, Shadow, a two bit, low down dog with dreams above his station."

"Savour those words, Todd as they will be your last!" The Silver Shadow hissed. "No longer will I waste my time with your folly for now I shall usher in a new age of darkness...an age of SHADOWS! Rest in peace, Millennium Man - give my best to the Millennial brat when he awakens."

Without another word the Silver Shadow allowed himself to fall backwards through the open door of the craft and down towards the ground.

Millennium Man caught a glimpse of the parachute as it blossomed and then the image was gone, the helicar speeding closer and closer towards the jagged mountains ahead. Quietly he closed his eyes and tried to focus his thoughts, praying for some way in which he could free himself from his Millenniumite bondage but to no avail.

With every passing moment, the mountains drew closer and closer.

* * *

Earth #746387...

Regina Darling sighed and tapped her last cigarette against the side of the empty packet. Sleep didn't come easy anymore, especially not with Michael away playing superheroes with the mayor...ess...or whatever it was that Erlend Romanov and Anna Romanova actually were. It was at night that she missed him the most; the lack of his presence always seemed to make the bed feel colder somehow. She smiled as she lit her cigarette at the thought of how their legs entwined during sleep, even if both of them were facing different directions their bodies always seemed to find each other...except recently. As of late Michael had been cold to her, not in a hateful or spiteful way but the distance he kept from her emotionally had definitely been noticed. No one had ever done that to her before. She bit her lip and worried and then laughed a short mirthless laugh.

It wasn't every day that Regina Darling was forced to chase after a man. She smiled sadly to herself and tried to adjust to the grey light that flooded in through the open windows. It was uncomfortably early. Despite the fact that this was technically her day off, Regina had a curious sense of dread about what the day held. Not being able to sleep in later than six in the morning was an awkward beginning at best and from there she sensed that the day could only go downhill. She sighed and padded around the bed to the television, her bare feet pressing against the warmth of the carpet and the gurgle of the central heating reassured her that it was definitely morning.

She flicked the switch on the small Japanese manufactured box and slumped down on Michael's side of the bed, reaching back for the ashtray from her side and then leaning forwards and focusing on the image presented to her via the screen.

'Good evening ladies and gentlemen, my name's Virgil Rock,' The tall serious man in the brown suit announced into his microphone. 'And welcome to the latest in our special reports. This week we look at a new contender in the skies of Pacific City, a 'hero' in the loosest possible use of the word who seems to call himself,' Rock coughed and looked past the camera at his lines with an awkward expression. 'Who seems to call himself...Jet-Bastard.'

Regina snorted loudly and burst into laughter, throwing her hands up over her mouth in shock. Over the past three or four years she had encountered some ridiculously named superheroes however 'Jet-Bastard', whoever he might be, really took the prize, no contest.

'Appearing in the city skies only recently, the self-titled Jet-Bastard has proceeded to bungle his way through several attempts at crime fighting leading some newspapers to dub him 'This year's Bush43'.' A wry smile crossed Rock's face. 'As if Pacific City really needs another Bush43, speaking of whom, rumour has it that our very special American ambassador may have retired completely with sightings of him becoming less and less frequent. We can only hope, I guess.'

She flicked the television set off and rose from the corner of the bed, pacing the room impatiently, the cigarette smouldering between her fingers as early morning sunlight touched strands of her long, blonde hair. She felt a sharp pang of guilt every time someone mentioned Bush43. He had tried so hard to defend himself against the Siege Engine, standing his ground with such conviction that, during those dark days without Michael, in that moment he had symbolised everything she believed and cared for yet ultimately, when Mayor Jerrod had died and the Engine had been destroyed, he had been neglected and ultimately cast aside.

A sudden decisiveness settled in the pit of her stomach and she ground out the cigarette in the ashtray and grabbed her car keys from the small table beside it. She had seen the giant image of Texas projected in the sky that had been used to summon Bush43 over the past few months and, unlike the majority of other people in the city, she had made a personal note of the neighbourhood it seemed to originate from. Uncertain as to if the young superhero had been signed up with Romanov's foolish crusade she decided that the best way to find out if Bush43 was active or not was to fire up the signal herself and see what happened.

She smiled softly. After all the worse that could happen was that another hero might respond to the call...someone like Jet-Bastard perhaps. She dropped the keys in her pocket and shrugged into her cardigan. It was still early; early enough to catch the young hero on his return from patrols or whatever it was that superheroes called traipsing around the city at night looking for fights. With ease she reached the front door and opened it firmly, refusing herself the chance to stop and think about what she was actually doing.

Moments later she was in her car, pulling out of the apartment building's lower garage and heading towards downtown Pacific City.

* * *

Lord Omega sat at the kitchen table and brought the mug of sour tasting coffee up to his dry lips. It was decaffeinated, something that he counted as being highly distasteful however knowing his daughter-in-law's passion for what he had always thought of as 'neutered coffee' he had resisted the urge to argue as yet.

It was early, painfully so. He had awoke at four upon the discovery of a note from his grandson as it slid underneath the door of the guest room where he slept and had given the boy the chance to leave the house before getting up. He had been sat in the kitchen drinking sour coffee since then waiting for the return of his grandson, the 'superhero' Jet-Bastard.

He smiled at the boy's name. He was anxious for the boy to return, in fact he was anxious every time the boy even mentioned patrolling almost to the point where he regretted introducing him to the old jet pack and helmet. Yet there was one thing that served as a constant reassurance for the old, reformed supervillain: since the appearance of the Romanov siblings Pacific City's supervillain population had seemed to disappear over night. Whether it was simply that they had been spooked into becoming upright citizens or they had fled the city, fearful of its increasing political police state idealism, the fact remained that villains were almost extinct within the New South Wales city. It was a stark parallel to the ever-increasing crime rate of Lorrington and especially Harbour City and something that made Omega marginally nervous about Romanov's true agenda.

It was odd how, even after all this time, even after all the years cramped up in both Screwtape Downs and Alhazred Asylum, he still thought himself as Lord Omega. Ridiculous really, especially considering that he had never really made much of an impact on the world in terms of being a supervillain. Like many of his generation he had jumped on the super-powered entities bandwagon just a little too late to make any real mark.

"Hey Dad, you're up early." A docile voice drifted through the kitchen.

Omega turned, slightly startled, to see his son straightening his tie and adjusting his shirt.

"Good morning, Antonio." Omega smiled. "Didn't I teach you not to sneak up on people like that?"

His son smiled, laughter lines by his eyes and creasing his smooth olive complexion.

"You also tried to teach me that lawyers were the servants of the devil but," He shrugged, still smiling. "Now that I'm earning more than you I figure you don't quite know everything."

The old man smiled at his son's disrespectful sense of humour and, for the present, forgot about the wider world of Science Heroes and their arch-foes, watching instead as his son sat opposite him at the table and helped himself to coffee. A moment of sadness once more struck him as he realised that he knew very little about the successful forty-something year old sitting with him.

"I'm sorry, Tony." He whispered softly.

Antonio looked up.

"What for?" He asked.

"For not being a very good father." Omega continued.

The younger man leaned back in his chair and dismissed the statement with a wave of his hand.

"Dad, we went through all this last month. You don't have to say sorry, not anymore. So you screwed up a few times, so what?"

Omega shook his head sadly.

"I still feel bad though. I should have paid more attention to you and your mother instead of chasing a bunch of birds around a damn tower."

Antonio's face creased in a smile and he scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah, I never did work that one out, Dad. I remember it being talked about behind mamma's back but I never quite understood what you were trying to achieve there."

Omega smiled, faintly ashamed of his botched supervillain past.

"Well, it's an English superstition. Take the ravens out of the city and it fall down. I figured I could kidnap the birds and hold the city to ransom." He paused, his smile widening as he tried to justify his folly. "It made sense at the time, really it did."

"You're both up early." A third voice joined the conversation.

Both men paused and looked up at the woman who stood in the empty archway that divided the kitchen from the living room; her gentle hands fiddling with her dark hair as she struggled to tie it back into a reasonable ponytail.

Antonio stood up and kissed his wife on the cheek.

"Good morning, darling." He murmured in her ear.

"Good morning, Tanya." Lord Omega nodded in her direction.

She returned the nod and smiled briskly.

"Good morning, John." She said, reaching out for a mug. "Are you having trouble sleeping?"

Fear settled in his stomach as he suddenly realised why he was waiting in the kitchen. His face paled and he knew that if his daughter-in-law every discovered that he was assisting her son in becoming a superhero he would be out of the house before he could open his mouth to defend himself. As if on cue the door to the kitchen opened abruptly and Lord Omega's heart began to pound heavily as he turned to look at his grandson.

The young boy stood in the doorway wearing a heavy bomber jacket as often worn by biplane pilots during the First World War over the boiler suit and a dark sports bag slung casually over his shoulder. Omega sighed audibly with relief.

"Hey, what is this, some kind of family meeting?" He asked, shrugging in a mannerism reminiscent of his father.

His mother placed her coffee down on the table and fixed her son with a cool glare.

"And what do you think you're doing coming back in at this time of the morning, Alexander Orson Chrysostom?"

The boy glanced awkwardly at his grandfather.

"I got a call from Biggs and Deak, their car broke down by Tosche station in Cottered at four this morning and they needed someone to save their bacon." He lied.

Tanya Chrysostom looked at him suspiciously.

"You best be telling the truth, young man." She warned.

The boy shrugged again.

"You know I won't lie to you, mamma." He beamed, flashing his teeth.

Tanya nodded slowly and turned back to her coffee and in that moment Antonio thought he caught a glimpse of the old man whispering 'Well done' in the direction of the wayward boy. His eyes narrowed but he said nothing, instead sipping at his coffee and slowly began to unfold the newspaper resting besides the coffee machine.

* * *

Trevor Mason awoke with a start; sweat sticking the bed sheets to his bare chest and his eyes wide with fear. For a moment he sat there in the shadows, his heart pounding so loudly as to exclude all other sounds and his eyes desperately roving the pitch darkness of the room until, slowly but surely, his heart slowed and he became aware of the soft, comforting and, most importantly, naked form of Deborah Giles.

He breathed out and then in again, taking great comfort in being able to breath again. Reluctantly he peeled the sheets from his legs and stepped from the warmth of the bed, taking his dressing gown from the door and padding to the kitchen. He didn't want to be awake and yet somehow he couldn't foresee himself sleeping again. He shook his head, his feet pushing against the carpet of the hallway as he tried to clear his mind. He hadn't had nightmares for years, not since he was a kid. He shuddered, a cold chill running down his spine as he remembered those particular nocturnal displeasures and the awful event that had triggered them. For a moment he was suddenly back there, the crowd pushing against him and the screams of those standing too close to the initial blast. He remembered how suddenly everyone started to run, pushing him back and forth and threatening to trample him beneath a sea of cheap trainers and worn leather shoes. Then suddenly everything went quiet and he had seen Millennium Man rise up from his knees, his face and costume smeared with blood and bile. In that moment he had made eye contact with the hero and then, slowly, he had turned his attention down towards the ground...and the shattered and grotesque body of Fireczar, completely and utterly lifeless.

He had only been 10 years old and the event itself had been 15 years after Millennium Man had first appeared in Pacific City. He stopped dead and squeezed his eyes shut, fists tightening as he did.

"I don't want to remember this, I don't want to remember this." He whispered.

With an extraordinary amount of effort he managed to push himself forwards again, his hands still clenched into fists. It was stupid, being frightened of something that happened so long ago...and yet it remained. When the news had broke that the city's second Millennium Man had beaten that poor KGPC cameraman to death something inside of him had soured very quickly. He was loath to admit to the useless idiots he surrounded himself with but something about that event had triggered the fear again. He had always been uncomfortable with superheroes, especially Millennium Man but, when the successor to the mantle had emerged a few years back he had remained silent but when that cameraman had died...well, suddenly it was like being 10 all over again.

He had choked and shivered his way through the week after that event, withdrawing from everyone and everything. Though no one had guessed that one event had affected him more significantly than anything else in his adult life. He had lied, pretending to be indifferent but in the pit of his stomach that horrible sensation of unease had returned. Not even Regina had suspected and, amongst others, he had been sleeping with her for most of the year prior to that event.

He reached the kitchen, crossing the linoleum floor and opening the fridge door. With a sense of automatic predestination he reached for the milk, unscrewed the top and started drinking, closing the fridge door as he did. Abruptly he stopped, the milk spilling over his chin as his eyes widened. Slowly the plastic bottle slid from his hands and hit the floor, dampening his feet. Still he didn't move. Instead his eyes remained trained on the severe looking black man who stood besides his fridge, his head shaven and his body clothed in simple, ashen white robes.

"I know who you are, Mister Mason and I know what you're going to do." The other announced, his voice low and threatening.

"W-Who the hell are you?" Trevor gasped.

The other cracked a humourless smile.

"My name is Aristotle Licuan. I am a teacher."

Mason turned the statement over in his head, trying to make sense of the words. He looked down at the spilt milk and his stained feet then back up.

"What are you doing in my apartment?" He asked.

"Warning you." Licuan responded simply.

Mason felt his stomach muscles contract.

"Is that a threat?" He asked, his voice suddenly dry.

"Yes."

There was a moment of silence and then suddenly the other began to move, pushing his way past Mason and heading for the archway that led from the kitchen to the hall.

"Y-You can't just break into my apartment and threaten me!" Mason called out after him.

"I already have." Licuan answered, walking through the arch and turning the corner.

"I-I'll call the police!" Mason called, his voice hysterical, as he gave chase "Don't think I won't."

He rounded the corner and found it empty, the only sound being the soft, stuttering occasional snore from Deborah Giles' well-exercised mouth. Desperately he searched the darkness for some of the stranger but could find nothing.

Exhausted and terrified, Trevor Mason sunk to the floor and pulled his legs in close. Every time he closed his eyes he saw that image once more, the solemn expression and the blood spattered costume. For the first time in years Trevor Mason began to cry.

* * *

The plastic figurine of Sailor Moon stared back at Joe Langford from atop the till where Michael had tacked it down several months ago. It was a reminder of a different time for both the average sized McDonald's located on 8th and Vilar and for Pacific City in general. The bottom had fallen out of Joe's life recently. Despite his promotion to manager, despite his pay rise and the increase of respect his father now gave him for earning that little bit extra everything that had happened to Joe recently had come at a cost. It was a double-edged sword and, as far as he was concerned, the benefits really weren't worth what it had taken to achieve such a relative amount of success.

The only reason he had been promoted to manager was because Jeremy had been murdered. All of them knew this; it didn't take a genius to work it out. When they had showed up and squared off against that freak in the mask that had been in the process of doing a number on Michael they had over stepped the line. It could have been anyone of them that the supervillain chose to take his anger out on and, despite statements claiming the opposite, in his heart Joe knew that this was the exact reason why Jodie and Neil had left shortly afterwards.

They had all lost so much, including Michael. He smiled sadly up at Sailor Moon. He could count the fates of most the people he knew from Pacific City High off the top of his head. Jeremy and Jon Manly had been murdered; Nicki, who had been two years younger than him, had died when the Pacific City Tower was destroyed; Jimmy Smitts had ended up working behind the counter at Al's Magic; Alex Chrysostom was working as an apprentice mechanic or something; Jake still worked with him and only God knew what both Jeffery Carter and Isaiah Rowe were up to nowadays. He had never really got on with Isaiah and he vaguely recalled hearing something about Jeffery and his family being killed in the attempted alien invasion of last year. There were more besides, people he couldn't remember, faces he couldn't place names to. Not everyone had known everyone else; it was a big enough school to make sure of that. Jon never knew Jimmy and Jimmy never knew Isaiah, that's the way it was. In fact if there was one person in the whole that knew everyone and everyone definitely knew of then it was probably Jeff Carter: the class clown, the joker, the boy who couldn't manage to keep the smart alec remarks from his lips.

Joe smiled faintly. Jeff's antics had definitely been the highlight of his school years. Despite being a few years younger he'd never felt as if Jeff was looking down on him. The smile faded as it suddenly dawned him that the last time he'd seen his older classmate had been in old Mister Pierce's class and that had been years ago.

He sighed despairingly. It felt as if his life had suddenly, and without warning, stopped moving. That awful feeling that comes when you spend five days a week waking up at an abnormal time of day knowing you have to get dressed and leave the house in under half an hour but instead you lie there and think to yourself: 'Is this it?'.

With almost superhuman effort he stifled a yawn. If there was one thing he despised about being a manager it was the early morning shifts and the fact that the responsibility of opening up nearly always fell to him. He considered turning on the radio before thinking better of it, his youthful arrogance kicking in and asserting the fact that he already knew everything about the world around him without having to listen to the news. With a tremendous amount of effort he forced himself up from slouching upon the counter and headed towards the kitchen to mop the floors for the third time that morning. It wasn't that they needed doing it was simply that there was nothing else he could think of that would require his attention.

Reluctantly he picked the mop up and returned to his work.

* * *

The streets were quiet, the whispers of civilisation's discarded trimmings gathering in the gutters, moving softly from side to side in the warm morning breeze being the only sound. She lit another cigarette, sitting solemnly behind the wheel of her unmoving car. For a few minutes she had thought about waiting, perhaps tuning into a radio station or something if only to pass the time and excuse her from actually making the effort to leave her seat.

She inhaled, breathing in deeply. Across the road from her she could just glimpse the top of the huge machinery used to project the signal. It had been covered by a large blue tarpaulin and, from where she sat in her parked car, it was difficult to recognise as anything more than a random piece of unused building property but Regina knew what it was for and she knew, despite the fact that she had no evidence to back her suspicions, that this was the building that she had seen the signal lit up from.

Inhaling once more and sucking the smoke down deep into her lungs she pushed the car door open and stepped onto the street, crossing the road in a determined manner and heading towards the main doors of the apartment building and the closed circuit security camera above. She glanced up at the camera and knocked loudly and clearly.

There was a moment or two then the shuffling of keys and the doors opened to reveal a flustered looking overweight security guard and a very dull looking reception area.

"Hi." She said weakly, her mind suddenly devoid of all excuses as to why she should be knocking on the door of an apartment building that was not her own at six in the morning.

"O-Oh my God!" The security guard mouthed in an unexpectedly high-pitched and very camp Irish accent. "Oh...my...God! You're Regina Darling!"

Regina frowned, slightly taken aback.

"Erm, yes. Yes, I am." She answered.

The guard seemed to melt before her.

"Ohmygod, ohmygod, I loooove your show!" He proclaimed.

"Thank you.I'm glad you enjoy it." Regina answered distractedly as her eyes moved over his broad shoulders and looked inside. "Listen, I know its early but I wanted to check up on a sick friend of mine on the top floor and I was wondering if you could kind of let me in.is that okay?"

The guard clapped his hands together in glee.

"Oh, of course, Miss Darling! Anything for you, Miss Darling!" He squealed.

"Thanks." Regina said and squeezed past him as he continued to clap.

"My name's Harold Jordan, by the way!" He called out behind her. "My brother's the police commissioner! He'll be so jealous when I tell him I met you!"

"Yeah." Regina answered and quickly stepped into the lift, thumbing the button for the top floor.

She relaxed as the doors closed before her and the lift shuddered upwards. A minute passed, the lift moved straight up and eventually the doors opened once more, revealing a badly stained dark red carpet and a row of doors, their ill coloured paint peeling off in large fragments. Regina ignored them all; she wasn't about to start making house calls. Despite the knowledge that someone who lived in the apartment building must own the signal and thus have some kind of connection with Bush43 she wasn't in the mood to play the cat and mouse game of secret identities, she'd had enough of that already.

With ease she found the fire exit and pushed it wide open, hoping that the security guard would ignore whatever silent fire alarms she had probably triggered. Instinctively she climbed up the stairs and pushed open the second door, stepping out onto the roof. She paused suddenly indecisive as she saw the sheer size of the construction. Slowly her eyes moved over the tarpaulin, slowly alighting on a section at the bottom that had been pulled away to reveal the machinery. Squatting down in front of it, with his back to her, was a large boy, possibly in his early twenties. He wore brightly coloured shorts, a faded black X-Men T-shirt and a pair of broken leather sandals with white socks beneath. Sitting beside him was a half-empty bottle of lemonade and a Dixie cup.

"Hello." Regina ventured cautiously as she stepped forwards.

The boy leapt up, spilling the lemonade across the floor and squealed like a trapped animal, running around the other side of the signal and out of sight at a speed Regina wouldn't have thought possible for a boy of his weight.

"I'm not going to hurt you." She said, still nervous.

There was a rustling sound and suddenly the boy jumped back into view, his hands on his hips and face now covered by a rubber Dick Cheney mask.

Regina stifled a scream and almost fell backwards.

"You shouldn't sneak up on people, ma'am, its very rude!" Dick announced in what sounded like an attempt to be firm.

"Uh.I'm really sorry, Mister Cheney." She paused, trying to find the words. "Listen, I don't suppose you'd know where I could find Bush43 would you? I mean, you're one of his friends, right?"

Dick puffed out his chest and said proudly:

"I'm his sidekick, ma'am! You can call me Dick."

She looked blankly at him.

"Well, okay...Dick...could you maybe use the signal and call him for me?"

The fat kid shook his head in a slightly pompous manner.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but the Bush signal is not for personal use, it's only to be used in times of emergency." He faltered and then added: "Besides, it's not working at the moment."

"I see." Regina said slowly. "Well, if you could tell him that Regina Darling was looking for him, I'd be really grateful."

She turned and started walking away towards the open door once more.

"Wait!" Dick called out and she turned round to face him. "Is there anything more you want me to say to him? I mean, me and the Bushster, we're pretty good pals and all."

Regina regarded him sadly.

"Yes. Please thank him for how bravely he fought against the mayor's Siege Engine...and thank him for saving us...all of us."

Without another word she headed straight for the exit and descended the stairs leaving Dick Cheney alone on the rooftop with his spilt lemonade and malfunctioning Bush signal, smiling broadly beneath his rubber mask. At last, contact had been made! Now when he finally got to meet his mentor again he'd have something to really make him proud.

Smiling with pride Dick removed his mask again and returned to repairing the signal with a newfound fervour. He had received conformation of the one thing he had always known was true:

Bush43 was the greatest superhero in all of Pacific City and even Regina Darling knew it.

Despite the fact that there was no longer a Pacific City Tower the horizon was as beautiful as it had ever been and it was all thanks to Bush43. He whistled softly and worked on into the early hours of the morning, the birds singing above him.