Chapter Text
The roof of Black Hat manor was alive with moving equipment and a single living being.
The stars were vivid in the sky and the twilight had long since darkened into the late night. Yet, the man on the roof was hard at work.
Moving around machinery and a large metal crate. Placing said crate next to a glowing green, gun-like mechanism that was aimed toward the vast starry sky.
The man grunted as he sat down some pieces of equipment next to the large metal crate.
Wiping away the sweat that had gathered on the surface of his bag from the effort, he observed the control station that he had set up.
A couple of machines had been placed around the rooftop. Beeping and humming, while also producing various data-related information on the experiment that was currently taking place. Each respective machine all hooked up to the gun-like mechanism, recording and exchanging information.
The masked man observed the station and sighed in relief, now that all of the heavy lifting was over and done with. Thankfully, he couldn't feel the coldness of the atmosphere that was around himself. It being on the back end of the cold season. The heavy lifting was keeping him warmer than usual.
He blinked when one of the machines began to beep. Signalling it had finished fetching the information that he required.
Which was the environmental feedback data that was necessary to execute the project.
With some pressings of a few buttons on a box-like machine, it began to revise the data it received.
A noisy beeping came from the box-like machine, as it flicked on some lights and began to collect data from the planets' satellites.
Then, it expelled the data out of a slot on it's side. All printed out like a receipt.
The man tore the printed paper away from the slot and reviewed it.
He also picked up the chart that was left off to the side. Analyzing it with careful eyes as he processed the information on both of the pamphlets.
It appeared to be a good day for hunting meteorites!
As the recording data that came from the box-like machine stated that the radar had detected some asteroid belts some lightyears over in the next cosmic region.
Perfect ones that were ripe for the picking.
Some were of very reasonable sizes too!
Yet, why was this insane-sounding project currently being worked on by a lone man on the roof of a building that was shaped like a top hat?
Simple, really.
His boss wanted some meteorites to sell to villains as power sources.
Despite the mans' past protest to abort said-plan to get asteroids to sell to villains.
It was...a pretty one-sided decision.
--
The double doors to a dimly lit office were slowly opened to reveal a man.
He was dressed in a lab coat with a blue shirt with a plane that was broken in two halves, some typical blue jeans, with red and white sneakers.
Yet, the man had a very peculiar item on his head that covered his face. As He was wearing a paper bag with goggles that covered his entire head.
He cautiously ventured into the dark room, wary about his surroundings as he approached a desk that was at the end of the office.
The chair was apparently occupied, as a gloved hand could be seen perching off of the arm of the chair, a wine glass in its' grip, with a mysterious red fluid in it.
"Uh...you wanted to see m-me, s-sir?" The man stuttered. To which the individual in the seat hummed.
"It's about time you arrived, Flug. I figured you would slowly inch your way up here like a insolent little worm till I had to come fetch you myself." The chair turned around, revealing only grinning green teeth and a reflective monocle. The rest being shrouded in darkness.
Causing, the now named man, Flug to jump at the view.
The person in the seat sat the wine glass down on top of the desk, then laced their gloved hands together, seemingly in thought.
"Do you know why I brought you here on this day, Flug?" The man in the seat asked, giving the nervous scientist a toothy smile, one that was filled with plotted mischief.
"U-Uh...no, sir? You said that you had a plan---"
"A plan that will be the grand scheme of ALL PLANS!" The man in the seat shouted, cutting off the skittish scientist.
"Think of this, Flug. We take our inventions to the next level! A new horizon! A new goldmine that is fresh for the harvest!" The dark man trilled.
"I have an idea prompt that I WANT you to make possible!" The scientist flinched under the leer of the wicked man.
"U-uh! O-Okay then! So...what is it that y-you want me to do?" Flug said, nervously gripping his arm in anticipation.
The menacing man grinned with his vile teeth and let out a mere chuckle.
"Flug! We are going to make it our mission to acquire meteorites from space! They are the most coveted power sources a villain can have! You are going to build a machine that is capable of retrieving meteors from space! Then, we are going to sell them for high profits!" The dark man said, cackling out loud for a few seconds.
Then, there was an awkward silence the followed afterward before the scientist let out a nervous laugh.
"Hahahaha--ah. Very funny, sir. But, is that really all you b-brought me here for?" Flug stuttered, before catching the glare that was being thrown his way by his boss from across his desk.
"Oh. You're serious?!" Flug realized.
"Yes, I am very serious, you IMBECILE!" His boss snapped, causing Flug to slightly cower before he started to fidget and sputter.
"But, Sir! How am I going to get meteors out of space?! I-I'm a scientist, not a miracle worker!" Flug exclaimed, to which his boss merely rolled his one visible eye.
"You're intelligent. Figure it out." He waved Flug off.
"Now, get to work. I want one as soon as possible!" He snapped.
To which, Flug slumped over and made his way to the exit.
How was he going to get meteorites from space?
Ah, better late than never to start brainstorming ideas at 11PM at night.
--
Eventually, Flug DID think up a way to get a full meteorite from space. It took careful statistics, judgment, accuracy, and data to make sure that his prototype would be effective enough to do the job it was supposed to.
Now, featuring the gun-like mechanism that was pointed at the stars!
The machine he built was going to function like a transportation ray. Days of work went into correcting and calculating this machine.
Let alone building it.
Using the hyper-scope attached to the top of the gun-like mechanism, it would target distant asteroid belts and meteorites, turn them into easy-to-transport particles, bring the particles back from space at warp-speed and into the reassembling box that looked like a giant metal crate with a removable lid, and then restore them back to their physical status from within the metal crate.
Then, Boom! You have a meteorite in your possession!
It was pure genius and it only required typical ray-based knowledge, some light physics, and excellent distant judgement.
But, of course, operating the particle gun was extremely dangerous. As nothing of this degree had been produced by Flug before.
Let alone, tested before. Nor built by Flug before.
Flug was sure that he was pushing his own scientific limits with this particle gun. Yet, only his boss could think of doing something this abscond for Flug to do or make.
If it fails, he won't be surprised. If he succeeds, he'll probably give credit to beginners' luck.
At the beginning of the experiment, Flug had looked through the radar scanner and took note of where the particular belt was. Then, he had to calculate how much time and power it would require to fire into that specific area.
Then, he picked out an asteroid from the radar that would be the right size to be used as a power source.
Finally, he got behind the particle gun and looked through the hyper-scope, judging the precise location and using some stars to map his way into the next neighboring cosmic mass. He fired up the particle gun and spied the sector that he wanted to shoot for.
Flug then calculated the trajectory and length of the journey in lightyears to the cosmic mass, to the best of his abilities, and fired a pillar of green light into the night sky from the gun-like mechanism.
A pillar of green light shimmers as it fades into the sky. Pixel-looking bits would flicker in and out of the ray as it grew stronger and stronger.
The light blast sped off into space at a rapid pace that even impressed Flug himself, to which, he got out from behind the particle gun and hurried over to his equipment.
Observing the lights' journey as it already breached the atmosphere and headed off into the direction of the distant asteroid belt.
It was a successful launch.
Yet, Flug waited anxiously.
Watching the radar capture the light breaching past the known planets in their solar system.
It was nothing but a mere green streak across the empty void of space. Yet, the sights of the ray might raise questions in both heroes and villain communities alike, maybe even inspire conspiracy theorist. Regardless of what others thought, Flug watched his project work its' scientific wonders.
His unseen mouth cracked up into a big smile as he watched the particle gun do its' thing.
He was proud of himself.
Well...he felt like that, anyway.
---
The beam of the gun took only 30 minutes to reach the distant asteroid belt.
All while Flug collected data of the journey and observed from homebase. Even if it wasn't his primary field of research, he couldn't help but become intrigued with his current project. Recovering distant asteroids could broaden the world of science as a whole, if this was made for a different reason other than for the profit of his boss, of course.
Yet, this experiment has a high chance for failure. And if he fails to bring back a meteorite...his boss won't be a very happy man.
Well, he never is. Unless it involves money, scheming, or villainous actions, of course. But, that's just his boss on a normal day.
Failure to deliver a meteorite to his boss can cause a lot of stress on Flug.
And, sadly, he probably won't succeed and get punished for his failure. Which terrified Flug.
But, who can blame him?
Even as a scientific genius, he still had limits on what his expertise can do! Like he said, he's a scientist and an inventor, not a miracle worker!
Yet, so far at least, everything has gone smoothly. The beam didn't flicker out and it was actually traveling across space at an impressive speed and collision was nearing.
If Flug was optimistic about this project, he would probably say that it is the first successor of its' kind.
It kinda...warmed his heart to think that he would be able to make a particle ray that could transport asteroids across the vast emptiness of space.
That would just make his year.
But, just as Flug was getting his hopes up that everything was going to go fine, something went horribly wrong immediately after the beam collided with something. Emergency beeping startled Flug out of his admiration stupor and sent him reeling as he began to attempt to observe the radar, ignoring the beeping and errors that were popping up everywhere.
Flug was surprised at what he was witnessing being recorded on his data transmitter.
The beam had apparently missed the asteroid belt that he was aiming for and it had collided with another foreign object within the same galactic cluster instead.
Strangely enough, Flug didn't see any other objects out there. The asteroids were hard enough to spot as they were!
He hurriedly attempted to detect what the beam had collided with.
But, the sudden collision jump-started the transportation process. As it began to break down what it collided with into tiny particles and started to transport them back to the restoration box.
Worse yet, the particle gun began to overheat from the exertion of pressure from the particles that it was trying to transport. Apparently, something within the particles was causing the engine to strain much more than usual. Yet, that shouldn't be possible! As Flug made the machine as strong as he could make it in such a short amount of time as two weeks.
Smoke bellowed out from the machine as it transported the particles back. Sparking and vibrating to a violent extent as the particles passed through the filter, which only seemed to make it worse. Everything began to spark, even the side equipment that recorded the data began to go haywire!
It caused Flug to take a few cautious steps back away from the machines. Shielding his fragile paper bag from the sparking mechanisms and smoking electronic pieces.
Being a prototype and the first machine to be used this way, Flug was pretty much expecting this outcome, even if it did succeed.
Yet, he wasn't expecting this level of violent reactions!
Flug panicked as he began to mentally tally his options of survival for himself or his research.
He quickly made his decision.
Rather than trying to save the invention and risk his life doing so, Flug ran over to the hatch that lead to the roof and took cover in there instead.
From his hiding point, he could see the particles had finished returning. Passing through the final filter before emptying out into the reassembling crate.
After the particles were successfully transported from space to the crate, the particle gun suddenly started to alarm with flashing red lights and errors, the smoke turning a inky black and bellowing out of the machines on the roof. Flug slammed the hatch to the roof shut and crouched down in the entry way, covered his ears through the paper bag, and braced himself for the inevitable explosion.
It took only a few seconds for the particle gun to suddenly catch fire, then everything suddenly lit up in a bright white light and an explosion erupted.
The medium explosion caused a miniature sonic boom to erupt, causing the top hat shaped manor to vibrate and rattle, the crashed plane that was stuck in the roof to become slightly more crooked, the surrounding streetlights to flicker, woke up some neighbors from their slumbers, and caused a nearby dog to start barking madly at the sudden loud noise.
To which, all that was left on the roof was raining burnt debris and shattered mechanical parts that were whole no more.
--
Flug coughed violently as he opened the hatch that lead to the roof and was immediately confronted by inky black smoke.
He attempted to clear the smoke out of his vision by waving his marigold gloved hands around to part the smoldering cloud that was hovering in front of the entry way.
Upon leaving the safe haven that was the entry way, he peered over all of the destruction that now littered the rooftop. Which was covered in smoldering pieces of metal, sparking wires, and broken machinery. He inspected the rooftop to see if there was any type of damage to the roof, thankfully, there appeared to be no holes or cracks in the sturdy material that made up the house.
Yet, as much as he dreaded it, he looked over to the machine that once worked like a charm.
To which it came as no surprise to see the particle gun in shambles on the roof. Each piece either broken beyond repair or burnt to a crisp.
Two weeks worth of labor. Utterly destroyed and wasted.
Flug let out a disappointed sigh.
"I knew this wouldn't work." Flug grumbled as he brushed his path clear of debris. Moving some broken machinery out of the way with his sneaker.
He looked back toward his invention, which now laid in smoldering pieces on the roof, and sighed.
Yet, when he looked over to the crate, expecting it to also be in shambles, he was surprise and glad to see that the crate was still in one piece.
It was charred black from the explosion on the roof.
But, the steel held out and kept it whole!
Even after all of that hard work, he probably still had a meteorite!
Even if his prototype particle gun invention exploded, he probably, and hopefully, still has a meteorite that will probably save him from his boss's wrath!
Flug sighed out in brief relief. At least all of that hard work had not been for nothing!
Walking over some smoking and smoldering metal, he approached the crate with great care.
Then, he carefully laid his yellow gloves onto the removable lid and attempted to lift it.
It was almost welded shut from the heat, but he kept pulling and the metal was slowly being pried apart.
So he kept trying to remove the lid on the crate.
Grunting as he did so, yet, he suddenly started to hear what sounded like...groaning?
And it was coming from...inside the reassembling crate...?
Quickly halting all of his movement, Flug stopped to listen for the sound. Then, he heard it as clear as a summer day.
"Uuuugggnnnh..."
Flug felt his eyes widen in pure surprise.
Yes.
Something was GROANING inside the crate.
Astonished and unsure, he decided to preform a short experiment just to make sure he was not going mad after all of these years, as he folded up his hand up into a fist and knocked on the lid.
Then, he pressed his unseen ear to the lid, listening intently.
A quiet moment of silence passed by.
It was silent for a certain period of time that Flug started to suspect that he was just hearing things.
. . . . .
Then suddenly, a knocking sound was heard coming from within the crate itself.
Knock, Knock, Knock!
Flug jumped back, as if the lid itself had burned him. He was speechless at the returned knocking.
His mind began to jump to any logical explanations on how something in the crate was knocking back at him. Yet, all he seemed to do was confuse himself and second-guess his own ways of logic or reality.
"What the-!?" He gasped.
'This...! This shouldn't be possible!' He thought, trying to control his reeling mind.
He was sure that the beam went into the sky! There was NO WAY that he managed to. . .unless.
A silent idea creeped into his mind.
The thought of extraterrestrial life living within that galaxy cluster made Flug want to sputter and brush off the notion. It just wasn't plausible...was it?
Could he have accidentally hit...a planet? With life on it? Intelligent life?!
He could feel his heart racing as the thought of creatures with many eyes, mouths, and limbs came into his mind. The thought of creatures made of fire, transparent skin, stardust, glass-like substances, and even scales crossed his imagination.
Bipeds, Quadrupeds, Tripeds, and Alien Morphs passed through his brain. Just...what did he get?
What would it look like? Would it be instinctively driven or abstractly driven? Intelligent or...?
Would it...eat him or attack him if he let it out of the crate? Shit, he hoped not!
But, he has to let it out of there some time.
Flug, now sweating from looming anxiety and fear, grabbed the top of the crate again.
He took a deep breath while squeezing his eyes shut, and lifted the lid.
. . .
Flug was confused, but thankful, that nothing had jumped out of the crate and mauled him or began to devour him.
Opening his eyes, Flug then peered into the crate, curiosity overwhelming his fear.
What he saw made Flugs' mental gears suddenly ground to a sudden halt.
"What...?" Flug said in disbelief as he saw another. . .human?
Inside of the crate was another, seemingly normal, human being.
They were in what appeared to be a grey T-shirt with an Alien symbol on it, along with some black pants that had UFO's on them. They're clothes also seemed to glow in dark as the darkness within the crate seemed to show that very vividly. Producing more light to illuminate their features.
To which Flug began to notice the major differences on this...peculiar human.
Flug blinked, they seemed homosapien. . .but different from the ones that Flug has seen all of his life.
Their features were softer and their eyes were friendlier-looking. They were also laying down on their back with a completely relaxed posture.
Despite the situation that they were currently in, they held a relaxed expression. Even when looking at him, all they did was arch an eyebrow at him.
Flug must admit, if he saw this person walking around, he probably would be suspicious of their differences.
Or he would probably just think they were a really weird-looking foreigner.
Definitely not what he was expecting from an...alien.
Yet, even if they were lackluster, he was still surprised to see them within the crate.
He locked eyes with the "person" in the crate once more. His voice still gone from disbelief.
A few awkward seconds passed between him and the alien.
To which, a staring contest ensued.
.
.
.
The alien then gave a friendly smile towards Flug. Waving at him slightly with one hand.
"S'up?" The 'human' in the crate spoke up as they smiled and looked at him.
"I came in pieces. Take me to your leader." They spoke, holding up their hands in mock-surrender.
Laughing all the while at their sub-par joke.
Much to the surprise, and slight distaste, of Flug.
Flug could only gulp in fear in response.
Oh, his boss was NOT going to like how this experiment turned out...